Who is the man in the boy? The best way to see the man in the making is to recognize the six desires God seeded in your son. God designed him with the desires to . . .
1. work and achieve;
2. provide for, protect, and even die;
3. be strong, lead, and make decisions;
4. analyze, solve, and counsel;
5. do friendship shoulder-to-shoulder;
6. sexually understand and know.
These desires reside within his maleness. As he ages, mom will behold each of these. When a mother studies her son, she will see these inclinations and aspirations oozing from his masculine soul. This is the man in the boy.
In the movie Finding Neverland, Sir James Matthew Barrie says, “Young boys should never be sent to bed . . . they always wake up a day older.” That comment captures what many moms feel. She wants her little boy to remain so forever. She prefers her precious baby to stay the cuddly bundle of joy.
However, every mom knows that she cannot keep her boy a baby, nor can she keep the man out of the boy. A day arrives when he awakens more boy than baby, and another day later when he is more man than boy. Mom’s Respect-Talk affirms the six desires God crafted and grafted in him.
An Acronym: C.H.A.I.R.S.
To help you remember these six desires, I created an acronym that describes each: C.H.A.I.R.S.
• Conquest
• Hierarchy
• Authority
• Insight
• Relationship
• Sexuality
You will see that each reflects what God reveals about masculinity in the Bible.
I refer to it as C.H.A.I.R.S. because God expects men to be the “head” and “manager” in their families (Eph. 5:23; 1 Tim. 3:4–5). Your son will one day begin to see himself as one who chairs his circumstances. Right now, he is under mom and dad’s authority, but the little lion cub manifests headship and managing tendencies. He is not narcissistic, nor does he try to control or treat others as doormats. Instead, something in him compels him to move forward responsibly. Yes, when he attempts to chair from such a young age, he does so immaturely but rarely from ill will.
Mom may inwardly laugh as her five-year-old boy dressed as Superman avows, “I will protect you, mommy!” But when she looks beneath his cuteness and listens to his message, she notices that he feels the responsibility to be the strong overseer who is called to act with wisdom in defending and rescuing. Granted, he is incapable of protecting her, but he nevertheless desires to do so. Why do so many little boys dream of one day being a fireman or a police officer? It is not the siren on the fire truck that ultimately attracts him but the mission to bravely save the endangered. It is not the blue lights on the police car that magnetize him but the pursuit of the bad guy who is hurting the innocent. He sees himself being the respected hero.
C.H.A.I.R.S.: A Template for Respect-Talk
C.H.A.I.R.S. is a template that serves as a checklist. For example, use C.H.A.I.R.S. to ask yourself the following questions.
Conquest: Can I express appreciation for some pursuit of his? For example, “Billy, I see your commitment to work hard at building that intricate LEGO jet. You amaze me at how you stick with it until you have it all made. I respect that about you.”
Hierarchy: Can I affirm his desire to protect or provide? For example, “Josh, I appreciate your longing to be protective of your little sister. When a brother protects his sister, it means the world to a mother. I respect that about you.”
Authority: Can I compliment a good decision he makes? For example, “Jackson, not only do I see you becoming stronger, but I also see your strength to persuade others to do the right thing. You convinced Bill to stop accusing Josh until Josh had a chance to explain his side. High-five it! I respect that about you.”
Insight: Can I praise an insight that I hear from him? For example, “David, the way you resolved that argument among your buddies today was just short of brilliant. Because you think about treating others as you want to be treated, I see you offering great insight in resolving conflict. I respect that about you.”
Relationship: Can I respect his desire for friendship, shoulder-to-shoulder? For example, “Brad, your friendships with others amaze me. You are there for your friends, and your friends are there for you. You have each other’s backs. You know how to be a good friend. I respect that about you.”
Sexuality: Can I support the honorable way he treats the opposite sex? For example, “Johnny, I appreciate your commitment to treat girls the way your dad treats me. I salute you. I respect that about you.”
Okay, I hear you. “I don’t talk this way.” I know. Most mothers do not use the language of Respect-Talk. Many of the words are not endearing to women. This kind of dialogue sounds foreign, and it should. This is not her mother tongue. For this reason, she must push through the awkwardness and let me provide the script that this generation of mothers has lost. I believe mothers on the homestead in two centuries past used Respect-Talk far more than mothers do today. When her son shot the bear near their cabin where his sisters were playing, she sang his praises. When he gutted it and gave her the hides, she thanked him for all the hard work, expressing sincere appreciation.
I devote a chapter to each of these concepts of C.H.A.I.R.S. and will explain each in depth, showing the salient scriptures supporting each idea.
Some Moms “Get It”
Sarah and I unpack each concept of C.H.A.I.R.S. at our Love and Respect Marriage Conference; plus, I explain each in my marriage book, Love & Respect. After wives learn about C.H.A.I.R.S., as related to their husbands, they immediately comment that C.H.A.I.R.S. applies to their boys as well. One mother wrote, “I am generally mystified by male behavior, both adults and adolescents, and there is obviously a connection to your principles. For example, how could I use the C.H.A.I.R.S. acronym to spell respect to my sons (ages sixteen and a half and twenty-two)?” This mother tracks well!
Some mothers, upon learning about C.H.A.I.R.S., have immediately applied it to their sons. A mother e-mailed the following to me:
When my son gives me his insight I say, “I really respect what you have to say,” or “I respect the way you handled that situation.” Or “I really respect how you are taking initiative to get things done and follow through with . . .” These things have made my son smile like I have never seen. I talk more about respect with regard to sporting events and showing respect for other opponents. My son knows without a doubt that I love him . . . now I feel he knows that I value him and his ideas, which I may not have done so well in the past. . . . Thank you so much for sharing God’s message.
On the other hand, some moms have not paid attention to the man in their little boy. A mom told me, “My son is eighteen, and even though it’s hard sometimes to remember that he is a man, I’ve tried to give him respect in certain situations, and he seems to really respond to it . . . but after all, he is a male, and you all are made the same way, and age is not a factor. . . . I will try to remember that he is not my baby boy anymore, and he needs it as much as any other male.”
Do her comments strike you as odd? The boy is eighteen. She should have started Respect-Talk when he was eight. This “baby boy” could join the Marines and die for his country. But it is never too late for a mother to learn that her son responds to respect.
But Wait! Don’t Women Have the Same Six Desires as Men?
Aren’t men and women the same, and, therefore, these six desires also reside in women?
This is a common question. In fact, whenever I focus on the male, a percentage of women ask, “What are you saying against women? Are you saying women do not need respect? Are you saying girls do not also have these six desires?”
My first response is, “Just because I am saying something wonderful about your sons does not mean I am saying something against your daughters.” Inadvertently, some women hijack the conversation and shift the attention away from the male. They are not mean-spirited. They feel the need to defend females, believing that applauding a male virtue is the same as attacking women. They have been conditioned to counter. At some level that’s commendable, but I have tracked this long enough to know that they push men and boys into the shadows. They change the topic from the son to the daughter. Every time. As a case in point, there will be a percentage of women who pick up this book, read the title, and say, “What about ‘Father and Daughter: The Respect Effect’?” That’s their first thought. Forget the boy. What about the girl?
Let me be clear. Women have desires related to C.H.A.I.R.S. Many mothers have chimed in, “My daughter is interested in working, achieving, and leading.” Indeed, men and women have a common humanity, thus the crossover of desires. Think female medical doctors. Yet they do not have these desires in the same passion and preoccupation when married. God instilled different desires between a husband and wife. Compared to the man, she feels less intensity and interest, for instance, to be the breadwinner, protector, and rescuer for her husband. She wants these from her husband, which explains the many e-mails I receive from wives—seeking to mother several children—weighed down with having to fulfill the breadwinner role due to an unemployed husband. I have yet to receive an e-mail from a husband complaining that his wife is unemployed and failing to be his breadwinner.
Commonly, the wife prefers to be the princess, and he prefers to be the prince, with all that symbolizes. This is something innate and wholesome, not sinister. Author Dannah Gresh wrote, “As a little girl I was predisposed to dressing up like a princess and dreaming that my prince would one day come. No one taught me to do that. It was a natural yearning as my heart began its search for my life partner.”1 God designed girls with a princess mind-set. Check out the costumes sold for kids. What do most little girls long to wear? This is not a belittling comment but endearing. She yearns to love the man who finds her and finds her captivating.
As we look more in-depth at C.H.A.I.R.S. in the following chapters, we will observe the salient Bible verses that describe masculinity. When a mother meditates on these various texts, she discovers God’s design of her son. It is as though God highlights in yellow precious truths about the masculine soul. When a mom pays attention to these nuggets of gold, a whole new world opens up to her about her boy.
Scripture Differentiates Male and Female
Jesus asked, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE?” (Matt. 19:4). Jesus taught that males and females are not the same. Though God created us equal in value, He did not make us the same in function or desire. We are equal but not the same. God expects us to value His design and these differences. For example, a husband brings the sperm, and a wife brings the egg. It will never be any different.
Neither will men ever have babies. Jeremiah declared, “Ask now, and see if a male can give birth” (Jer. 30:6). Only women who have functioning ovaries and a uterus can become pregnant and give birth. Did you know that 100 percent of the tribes, 100 percent of the time, know this as 100 percent true? No husband will ever experience what Isaiah described: “As the pregnant woman approaches the time to give birth, she writhes and cries out in her labor pains” (Isa. 26:17).
Of course, the differences continue beyond the ability to give birth. The nurturing nature of a mother takes over in ways that affect every part of her mind, emotions, will, and spirit. Men do not always have this kind of nurturing nature. And the research that shows females are the primary caregivers is off the charts. Something in women gives care to the people in their world. They default to this. In the Bible the nurturing nature of a mother is recognized as special. For instance, as we quoted earlier, a “mother tenderly cares for her own children” (1 Thess. 2:7).
Is there anything more pure and precious than this image? To argue that a father feels, thinks, and acts the same as a mother ignores the descriptors in Scripture, and it ignores daily experience. Just because the father of the newborn cries at the hospital as he holds his new son in his arms, it does not mean he will engage that child over the next two decades with the same affection as the mother. When the boy goes to school at age six, the dad will not be standing in the boy’s bedroom, sobbing. He will not be on the phone, bawling to his mother, “Just yesterday I brought him home from the hospital, and now he’s in first grade, and tomorrow he will be getting married. I am losing him. My precious baby is gone. Mom, what am I going to do?” That conversation happens between daughter and mother, not son and mother. This doesn’t make men coldhearted, just less sentimental. He will care by working to provide money for the boy’s college. Bottom line, what this mother thinks, feels, and does differs from that of this father—by light-years. As I wrote in my PhD dissertation (“A Descriptive Analysis of Strong Evangelical Fathers”) as part of my dedication to my wife, Sarah, “Though I am committed to fathering, she is consumed by mothering.” I have not met many fathers who debate me on this analysis. The differences between men and women are not restricted to mere biology.
The apostle Peter certainly agreed. Precisely because of a woman’s femininity, Peter instructed a husband to understand his wife “since she is a woman” (1 Peter 3:7). To Peter her emotional, spiritual, and interpersonal needs matter. To Peter, every husband must appreciate that “she is a woman.” He must recognize the gender of his wife, her feminine thoughts and feelings.
Soberly, when a husband misunderstands his wife’s womanliness and dishonors her female role and value, his prayers are hindered (1 Peter 3:7). Put it this way: when a husband does not respond to the cry of his wife’s heart, God does not respond to the cry of the husband’s heart. The wife matters to God, and He intends to protect her by providing an incentive to a husband to get it right.
Isaiah recognized the vulnerability of a wife when he wrote, “Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit . . . like a wife . . . when she is rejected” (Isa. 54: 6). Taking what he observed as an all-too-real situation with which his readers could identify, Isaiah used the wife as a metaphor to make a spiritual point to Israel about God’s relationship to them. But this real-life episode brings home a truth in and of itself. The metaphor is true in experience, nothing foreign about this to the reader. A wife feels susceptible and helpless when rejected and forsaken. Peter referred to her as the “weaker vessel” when she is misunderstood and dishonored (1 Peter 3:7 KJV). Typically in conflict, husbands lean toward fight or flight; whereas, women lean toward tend, mend, and befriend. Husbands need to understand this. Commonly, it is the husband’s failing to love, which is why God commands the husband to agape, that is, to love unconditionally; whereas, there is no command for a wife to agape. By nature she seeks to do the loving thing, which is connect, reconcile, and reestablish rapport.
For any number of reasons, wives can feel more rejected or neglected at the level of emotional intimacy than husbands. Wives drive the connection, “We need to talk.” How cruel, therefore, of a husband to judge his wife when she feels grieved in spirit over his dismissive and repudiating attitude. He stabs her heart when he shouts, “Grow up. Quit being so childish! You are overly sensitive. You personalize everything. You have issues.” What grieves the spirit of a wife more than her husband’s rejection of her as a woman and companion?
I say these things to emphasize the male and female difference. If this difference is denied, a mother will not serve her son well since she will ignore coaching her son on how to love his future wife when she feels rejected and grieved. If he views his wife as the same as he is (as if there are no real differences), he could see her as having emotional problems, instead of hearing the apostle Peter’s sobering admonition to husbands to live with their wives in an understanding way since they are created by God as women.
Interestingly, whatever upsets husbands often finds roots in the wives’ caring about them. This is a virtue. For instance, wives confront because they care; they do not confront to control. I challenge men to see the virtue underneath those things that bother them as men. Once they do, once they understand, they can see their wives in a whole new light.
As with the virtues in females, the Bible highlights male virtues. The protective nature of the male is observed. The prophet Nehemiah urged his men to “fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives” (Neh. 4:14). In fact, Paul challenged all of us to imitate this male virtue: “act like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13). There are no verses that tell women to fight for their husbands.
Men Can Nurture and Women Can Fight
None of these verses are suggesting that men cannot nurture or that women cannot be warriors. Common sense, though, tells us where the natural instincts and interests are. A husband never dreams about nursing a baby. But squeeze a husband’s arm, and he’ll flex. Something inside of him envisions himself to be strong and the protector. He feels compelled to display that to the woman who squeezes his arm. A wife doesn’t flex when you squeeze her arm—not that she can’t, but what’s the point? She has no desire or reason to do so. It isn’t in her psyche even if she has a black belt in karate.
Men and women differ greatly when it comes to their desires. This has nothing to do with competencies but everything to do with their interests. This is about passion, not aptitude. For example, a widower has the ability to nurture his children and must, but his nature does not have the same obsession to nurture as his wife did. Dad is fully capable of taking care of the kids while mom is away for the weekend on a retreat. He is talented enough to do everything mom does with those kids, but dad does not have the same compulsion to do with the kids what mom does. He could comb his daughter’s hair far better, but it looks fine to him. He could put place mats down on top of a tablecloth along with a vase of flowers as the centerpiece, but that doesn’t really interest him. Besides, he’s hungry, so he yells, “Let’s eat! Grab a paper plate and plastic fork. Let’s pray.”
A widow can put on a tool belt, climb the ladder to the roof, and repair the damage there, and she may need to do this, but she has no great interest in doing so. This illustration provides us with the recognition that we are familiar with the male and female differences. Familiarity breeds “indifference to the difference.” We do not pay attention to these gender patterns until the widow is on the roof, wearing coveralls and a tool belt. Then we stop and stare in stunned silence. We call out, “Grandma, what in the world are you doing up there?” But we think nothing of a widower climbing a ladder to fix his leaky roof. Instead we yell, “Hey, Grandpa, later on are you watching the ball game?” Gender differences go unnoticed not because they do not exist but because in foundational areas the genders rarely cross over. We don’t pay attention since we don’t know anything different and, thus, do not see the difference.
With the widower and widow, it has little to do with lack of ability and much to do with differing desires that reside innately within men and women. A woman can go hunting with four other women on opening day of deer season. They can sit next to each other without talking for three days. They can kill four bucks and gut them. But which of these four women really wants to do that? A dad can stay home while his wife hunts. He can take care of the kids. He can put various outfits on his daughter to determine which is best for church. But what man wants to do that? If he is home, he grabs the first dress he sees and, if he’s like me, ends up putting it on backward. I know now that buttons go on the back for a girl. Stop laughing.
Along a similar vein, a little girl wants to play with a doll because she feels love for a baby; whereas, a boy wants to play fort and protect the innocent from the evil invader. The boy could care for a baby doll and play house, but he does not want to do that. A little girl can defend a fort in the backyard with her make-believe sword, but she does not desire to do it. We must be honest about the default interest and passion. The toy industry is honest about this and makes a ton of money because they face the facts.
Research Shows Biological Differences
Even so, chemicals determine gender issues. According to research specialists, during the first three months of life, a baby girl’s skills in eye contact and facial gazing increase by over 400 percent, but there is no such increase in boys.2 As researchers found, this is rooted in physiology, not socialization. But does this make boys less caring because they make less eye contact? No, it just makes boys different, not less virtuous. God designed boys with the six desires behind C.H.A.I.R.S.
As Jesus said in Matthew 19, God did not design males to be females. He does not intend for boys to be girls. Just as we do not say to women or girls, “Get in tune with your masculine side,” we must not say to men or boys, “Get in tune with your feminine side.” Though we should imitate the virtue of the other gender where appropriate, as Paul encouraged the women at Corinth to be strong like men of courage, God never expects a male to be feminized. Consequently, when a boy acts like a boy, a mother must not negatively react and suppress this maleness related to these six wholesome desires depicted in C.H.A.I.R.S. Rather, she must see God’s call on her to honor the virtues God lodged in her boy as a male, the male to whom Jesus refers.
The Central Question
Why the issue of respect? Ephesians 5:33 has the answer. There, God commands a husband to love and a wife to respect. In fact, Peter taught that a wife should put on respect to win her husband (1 Peter 3:1–2).
Why the command? God commands a husband to love not only because his wife needs love but because he does not love naturally—otherwise, the command is unnecessary. The same holds true with wives. God commands a wife to respect her husband not only because her husband needs respect but also because she does not do this naturally.
Though all men and women need love and respect equally, Shaunti Feldhahn found a male and female difference, as did I from my research referenced in chapter 1. When given a choice between feeling completely unloved in the world versus completely disrespected, men are significantly against feeling disrespected. Seventy-four percent choose to be unloved.3
God commands a wife to put on respect during conflict because a man is very vulnerable to the appearance that a wife has no respect for him, in the same way a wife is vulnerable to the appearance that a husband has no love for her.
King David from the Bible needed respect. We know that Saul’s daughter Michal loved David, her husband (1 Sam. 18:20, 28); yet later, “Michal looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart” (2 Sam. 6:16). It appears she was embarrassed by her husband’s display. When David returned home, Michal let him have it. She “came out to meet David and said, ‘How the king of Israel distinguished himself today! He uncovered himself today in the eyes of his servants’ maids as one of the foolish ones shamelessly uncovers himself!’ So David said to Michal . . . ‘I will be more lightly esteemed than this and will be humble in my own eyes, but with the maids of whom you have spoken, with them I will be distinguished” (2 Sam. 6:20 –22). Then it says, “Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death” (v. 23). Michal, not David, was out of line. Their marriage ended right there.
A Man in the Making
Respect is a need in the male soul, not only in your husband but also in your little boy. The man is in the boy. This means that he will be less loving by nature than you and any daughters you may have. This also means that when he fails to be as loving as he ought to be, you may have a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to him. Though you may mean very little by your disrespectful reaction, your son will personalize your disrespectful venting. A daughter gets mom’s venting. As a daughter she vents in the same way. However, as a male, a son will be more vulnerable to the appearance of disrespect. Over time, he withdraws and stonewalls. He becomes silent and unresponsive. But when mom sees that her boy—a man in the making—needs respect in the similar ways to her husband, she empowers herself and influences the heart of her son. He softens and opens himself to connect with her. But every mother I have met struggles with what this respect toward her son looks and sounds like, just as she struggles with applying respect to her husband. But she must not become anxious about this. God did not design her to do this naturally. In the same way, a father will not love his daughter as naturally as his wife does. That’s okay. Even so, both this mother and father must still learn to love and respect because the daughter and son need this love and respect.
For this reason, I invite every mother to better represent herself during heated fellowship with her son. You can have the best of loving motives, but if you misrepresent yourself, he will misinterpret you. That’s why I urge moms to reassure their sons during tense moments.
“Look, I am hurt and mad. I am deeply disappointed in what has happened here. But let’s make sure you understand that I am not trying to be disrespectful to you. I am not using this issue as an opportunity to send you a message that I don’t have any respect for you. I am reacting because I believe in the honorable man God intends for you to be. I do not respect what you did, but that differs from my belief in you and the respect I feel for the man I envision you will become.”
This acknowledges the man in the boy, and he will keep his heart open to you.
Are You Ready to Learn More?
Are you ready to discuss more ways to apply respect? The next six chapters go in depth on a boy’s C.H.A.I.R.S.: Conquest, Hierarchy, Authority, Insight, Relationship, and Sexuality. In each chapter I explain how to apply Respect-Talk. Included in each chapter is how to apply G.U.I.D.E.S. to C.H.A.I.R.S. When you respectfully Give, Understand, Instruct, Discipline, Encourage, and Supplicate, miracles can happen in the soul of your son.
Stay relaxed as you read.
Over the years when mothers e-mail me, they often request more cases and illustrations. Each mother thinks in terms of her boy’s age and stage and about yesterday’s conflict. She wants to fix it so she can stay emotionally connected with her boy. I have written this book with the hope that you will find specific answers to your questions.
Here’s the challenge. Do not let all of this information overwhelm you and make you feel as if you are a failure for not acting on all the suggestions. Instead, see this as a resource book to which you can turn when curious and concerned about engaging your son in a more effective way. See the book as a template for future interactions that will lead to a stronger relationship with your son.