When we found out, in 2004, that we were having a son I secretly freaked. Not because I didn't want a boy, I just couldn't help but visualize him terrorizing girls, racing cars on the backstreets of Atlanta, or burning down his high school gym. I had virtually convinced myself, before he was much larger than a golfball, that I'd have to send him off to a far away boarding school or juvenile detention center. Fortunately my anxiety waned after Bubba was born and as we celebrate his seventh birthday this weekend I couldn't imagine my life now without him in it.
For a lot of dads the thought of raising boys seem almost unnatural. That unless sports is involved, dads are challenged to find ways of connecting with their son, and with so much of parenting being about nurture and affection many men simply aren't able to give what they never received. Because so many of our fathers missed the parenting gold star with us, we weren't handed the necessary road map giving us proper directions on taking our own sons into manhood. And that isn't necessarily our dad's fault as most of their fathers didn't perform the task any better.
Then adding insult to injury is the contradiction in society about what a man ought to look like. Should the Marlboro Man, that rugged loner who wrangles steers and sits by camp-fires, personify the ideal man? (That same guy so many women are asking "where has he gone to"?) Or should men be like Will Truman (Will and Grace), docile and passive, eager to watch sappy chick flicks and express every plausible emotion that comes into their heads?
Men's locker rooms, the golf course, and biker rallies force each man to ratchet up the inner machismo; where hot chicks, homophobic jokes, and fast cars tend to dominate the conversation. Today's dads know that in these settings being a Pee Wee Herman will ensure your feelings get hurt and may land you an atomic wedgie. But we also understand that once everyone gets off the Isle of Man, being Maximus (Gladiator) might get you condemned for being insensitive, too assertive, overtly macho, and too ambitious. Not surprising, it's this same man who gets the blame for most of the world's ills.
Being faced with this quandary I decided early on to approach fathering my son in stages. The first, his infant and childhood stage, has been to simply protect, nurture, show affection, and keep him from running into traffic. To pour on the kisses, hugs and snuggles even if, at his young age, it felt strange to show that kind of tenderness to a boy; but as he responded and reciprocated it has become as natural as for his sister. This includes telling him how much I love him even if he is less than eager to respond in kind.
So it's been my job for the last seven years to ensure that he knows his place as the apple of my eye and treat him as that child that he has been. However with his seventh birthday comes a turning point in his life, in my view he has shed the clothing of a child and is ready to begin donning the garments that will carry him into adulthood. This birthday weekend will serve as an initiation ritual ushering in the next stage of his life - that of boyhood.
Virtually unheard of in the western world, male initiation rites have been conducted for centuries across civilizations. The most well-known in today's culture, the Bar Mitzvah requires boys of 13 to read from the Torah. From this point, they are officially considered men and are personally responsible for adherence to Jewish law and their own actions. But it was the movie 300 that brought a historical context to the male rite of passage. At the age of seven, a Spartan boy would be yanked from his family to live with other boys in a school called the Agoge until reaching the age of 29. There he would learn all that was needed to be a productive Spartan man and especially a warrior. Records show that the training was brutal and often included murder as a proof of manhood. While our civilized society would view this as despicable, some of today's more primitive cultures continue to practice male initiation rites which aren't recommended for those with weak constitutions.
In the Sambia tribe of New Guinea, boys are removed from female company at around the age of 7 to live only with men in the form of clubhouse until they are married. They are forced to have regular nosebleeds and consume semen which is considered essential to encouraging masculine growth and development.
With the Mardudjara Aborigines in Australia, between 10 and 12 years of age, a boy will have a front tooth knocked out and his septum will be pierced. At this point, they are symbolically dead. After which they are taken into the wilderness by other men, then circumcised and expected to ingest the foreskin without chewing. Then, covered in blood, they are considered reborn as adult males.
Fortunately for Bubba and I his ritual will be conducted in more hospitable surroundings. It will be just him and I, a tent, sleeping bags, hotdogs, marshmallows with chocolate, graham crackers and a new boy's bicycle. Because if self mutilation and drinking bodily fluid is what it takes to be a man, he's on his own
Kyle (aka ChopperPapa) is naive enough to believe he has something important to say. He's been a parent in the modern family since 2004, co-parenting his enchanting daughter (8) and rambunctious son (7) with the skill of a British nanny. With an itching to be a Hell's Angel he's far too metro sexual to actually get in; leaving him to direct his custom chopper towards the nearest martini lounge, but only if they serve buffalo wings and have hookahs. With a fondness for cold beer, loud engines, and fresh bed sheets it's clear he has an identity crisis. By day he's a banker which keeps the lights on and the child support paid, in his remaining 46 minutes he blogs, sleeps, works out, courts his Queen, and performs Academy worthy parenting feats.
http://ChopperPapa.com is home base for laying down his observations on single fatherhood, parenting, relationships, dating, and other intellectual roadkill. Blogging since late '10, he's amassed a loyal following of distant relatives and mental patients.
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