I have a lot of things on my mind this morning. Christmas shopping…packing for Thanksgiving travel…prepping an entire farm for us to be gone for 4 days…whether or not my daughter will ever enjoy her phonics seatwork…
But there’s something completely unrelated that’s been on my mind too, since we watched the country music awards show a few weeks ago…
Glitter pants.
Yep, men wearing glitter pants.
Is there no where my boys can go to find role models that just wear jeans and boots and nice, clean button up shirts?
I know, I know, they can look up to their father–thank goodness!–and they do. And thankfully none of their grandfathers or any of the men at our Church would ever show up for, well, anything wearing glittery skinny stretch jeans–but come on. Why is it so hard to find someone “famous” that acts like a decent man anymore?
I know I’m being a little overdramatic, but where are our boys (and girls!) heroes today?
We wave to a policeman and he can’t wave back because he’s got a cell phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
We’ve got guys up there singing about hunting and pickup trucks and then my kiddos see them on TV wearing glittery stretch pants and wearing make up? (And least you think I’m just judging the men–ladies step away from the hair dye and self-tanner, please! This is why I’m so militant about controlling what they watch on TV.)
Is it not cool for men to be men anymore? It won’t sell country music if you dress like someone from the country? (We don’t wear glittery stretch pants ’round here much, but maybe that’s just us…?) You can’t just age gracefully–or at least keep the hair color God gave you–and yes, I’m talking about men here!
I feel like every time we turn on the TV or open a magazine all we get is fluff. Where are our men? Where are the guys that can fix things, build things, run things, do things? Guys who spend their time using their muscles, rather than making their muscles at the gym.
Where are our leaders by competence, rather than leaders by charisma?
I’m just feeling both disillusioned and encouraged about this today.
Disillusioned because I look around and don’t see much of what I’m looking for, hoping for.
But encouraged because I see a little bit of it. I see my husband. I see the men at our church and our pastor. I see my boys and their natural inclinations (with a little help from John Wayne).
And sometimes I see that someone else gets it too. Have you seen some of the new Carhartt commercials? Love them! Click here...to see some.
I’m also a big fan of the Vision Forum–a Christian company that really gets the idea of letting boys be boys and raising strong men. I head to their boy toy section any time I’m hesitant about something because it seems too violent, too physical, or too, well anything else. Isn’t it funny how we’ll let our kids play war video games, but don’t want them to play solider in real life?
I’m convinced that the devil does NOT want us to raise strong, competent men to lead us into the future. (Or steady, servant-hearted, women to partner in that work with them!) He’s perfectly happy for us to keep churning out sissy-momma’s boys that are afraid to get their hands dirty and think the goal of life is to make enough money to pay everyone else to do the hard stuff for you.
I don’t intend to help him out with that.
