To Be a Brave Boy

352 Words2 Pages
Many years ago, my brother Henry, 7, and our cousin David, just 9, were outside at night in our family van. With the portable Video Home System TV, they were watching Candyman, which in spite of the pleasant name, is actually a horror movie for grown adults. But dad allowed them to see the film. So as the two elementary-aged children were watching the movie in the middle of a dark forest, my dad and uncle decided it would be “joyful” to approach to the car, make terrible scratching noises, then scream and bang on the car together. You can imagine how the two children reacted at that time. Twenty years later, my brother and cousin will still wet their pants at the mere mention of it. The laughed feeling embarrassed but they are still grateful for that night. As time goes by, I miss the brave parenting ways. I love boys to be boys, kids to be kids. I like to send them straight into the forest with hammers, knives, nails, tape, and hand-drawn blueprints and I need not hear from them in five hours. When they come home dirty and scratched, telling tales of skateboards going wrong and strange adventures, I cannot express how much this thrills me. I don’t want my kids safe and comfortable. I want them BRAVE. I don’t want to teach them to see danger under every rock, avoiding anything hard or risky. They are going to meet a very broken world soon, and if they aren’t prepared to wade into difficult territory and contend for the kingdom against obstacles and tragedies and hardships, they are going to be terrible disciples. I like a little courage in my story. I often feel sad at my generation’s insistence on safety and control and perfection. I really like my kids to be a little wild and free. I want to have to say to my sons, “Only boys would think something like this up”. Over-protection has its place for, say, kindergarteners, but at some point we need to put down our
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