Daly Focus Blog
By: Christy Cabe
I remember the somber voices singing at my mother’s funeral.
I sat beside my dad, near the front of the church, as the crowd behind us led and echoed the chorus of the hymn “It Is Well.”
It Is Well
It Is Well
With My Soul
With My Soul
And though I was a child, a fifth-grade girl sitting in shock and grief near her mother’s casket, I understood.
Deep down, I knew it was true.
Masculinity is in crisis. Numerous studies show it. Boys are struggling to mature into competent young men, and men and fathers in general are often dismissed, or denigrated, in the culture.
Even when criticism is justified, the solution isn’t to tear down masculinity. It’s to teach boys how to harness manhood and to channel it properly.
That’s where you come in, Mom.
For every study that shows boys are in trouble, there’s another showing that boys grow into healthy, strong, and courageous young men when they have healthy and secure attachments with their mothers.
“I quit. I don’t want to be a mother anymore.”
Author Sarah Parshall Perry blurted that out one day in a moment of weakness while her husband was travelling for work and she was caring for three children with the stomach flu. She was exhausted after days with little sleep.
Her breaking point came as she was bathing her youngest child even though she hadn’t been able to shower herself. When she brushed against the shower curtain, and it collapsed on them both, she cried, “I quit.
Numerous studies show that masculinity is in crisis. Boys are struggling to mature into competent young men, and men and fathers in general are denigrated in the culture.
Even when the criticism is justified, the solution to those problems isn’tto denigrate masculinity. It’s to teach boys how to harness manhood and to channel it in proper ways.
That’s where you come in, mom.
For every study that shows boys are in trouble there’s another showing that boys grow into healthy, strong, and courageous young men when they have healthy and secure attachments with their mothers.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
