Our boys today have a certain amount of repressed anger, which results in more bullying in school, but also in a more escalated level of violence.

This is caused by not allowing young males to solve their social issues as they have for thousands of years—on their own. In the past, when two young males disagreed about something, they went on the playground and tussled around until one or the other acceded—usually because they were both just too tired to continue and quit. They then shook hands and forgot about it. In fact many boys I fought with growing up became my good friends with.

Today, however, with adult (feminine) interference, boys are not allowed to solve their own problems. They are taught that any kind of aggression or—gasp—violence is bad. So they are forced to repress those feelings, which eventually causes them to fester into frustration, anger, resentment, and bitterness—emotions far more powerful than they were originally faced with. Eventually these powerful, repressed emotions spill over and explode into greater levels of violence, as evidenced by the shootings and stabbings we see of young men across the country.

I’m not promoting that we should teach young males that violence is the way to solve problems, but in the “old days,” a gym teacher had two boys who had problems with each other put boxing gloves on and settle their differences. Afterward, they were made to shake hands and forget about it. Even in the most adversarial unsupervised playground scuffle, seldom was anyone injured beyond a bloody nose.

Males always respect their opponent after doing battle with one another and frequently become good friends because of the respect they earn for one another. We did not see the problems then that we face today with high levels of violence and killing of our young men.

Our more feminized world of total tolerance does not allow a young man to seek justice, which causes him to be resentful and angry. Males are taught it is bad to fight or even be aggressive over any insult no matter how egregious the offense.

Again, I’m not promoting violence, bullying, or unchecked aggression, but this kind of feminization of young males not only results in a more intensified level of aggression, but also produces passive men who often internalize this anger and frustration, which then manifests itself in passive-aggressive behavior.

Questions:

Do you agree with my views? Do you think if boys were freer to settle their differences in the schoolyard that the level of violence would go down?

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I love watching football, especially on Thanksgiving Day.

I used to love playing it when I was in high school. Football is an emotionally intensive game. Most coaches encourage players to play with a high level of emotion because it amplifies a player’s ability to perform. I have noticed, however, a trend among many players today, even professionals. These players play at such a high emotional level that they cannot control themselves.

Their uncontrolled emotional responses on the field often lead to dumb penalties and mental mistakes that hurt their teams. These players are unable to keep themselves from breaking the rules, even when they know it will result in a penalty.

The truth is men who cannot control their emotions hurt their families as well. I encourage young men to be passionate about life; to care about things. I want my son and my future son-in-law to be passionate about things that matter in life: social injustices like prejudice, discrimination, and racism; or crimes against humanity such as abuse, genocide, and human trafficking.

Men who are passive and apathetic waste their gifts and never lift others up to greater heights, but I also want them to be able to appropriately control their emotions. I don’t expect them to be robotic or even stoic, and I don’t want them out of control and allowing their feelings to cause them to make snap judgments and decisions. I do not want them making decisions based solely on how they feel at any given time.

Doing this causes men to say and do hurtful things to those they love when they are angry. It causes them to satisfy their lusts in inappropriate ways when they feel justified in demanding instant gratification. It causes them to be self-indulgent when they want an appetite satisfied/fulfilled.

This emotional immaturity is destructive to them and the people around them.

Questions:

Have there been times when you’ve done something rash and looked back and realized that you let your emotions get the best of you? How did you feel about that?

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Early in the movie, GoodFellas, Ray Liotta’s character is a teenage boy working for the neighborhood “wiseguys” or members of the Mafia.

When he is arrested for the first time, he is greeted as a conquering hero by all the older “made” wiseguys after he walks out of the courtroom. These powerful, rich men now consider him worthy of being a man. He is given money, cheered on, and welcomed to the club of men by older men he idolizes. He is given confidential advice that now makes him an insider of their club. They were very effectively teaching him the value system (good or bad) of their “tribe.”

This is what all young men yearn for. The club of men that welcome him can determine the destiny of a man’s life. We see it with young men in gangs of all kinds. They yearn for the acceptance, validation, and even affection of a group of older males to teach them how a man lives his life. If those men are good men, he prospers, as does society. If they themselves do not know how a man successfully lives life, then the boy and everyone around him suffers.

One of the things men do is they know stuff. They know how to do things and how the world works. They learn from their experiences and from trial and error.

Our ministry once held a retreat at a ranch with a big stone fireplace in the great room. One of the young men from the city was asked to light a fire in the fireplace. I noticed he was struggling and casually gave him a few tips on how to start a fire. Soon he had a majestic fire roaring in the fireplace.

As people came along and complimented him on his great fire, he was quick to say, “Rick taught me how!” It was as if he was so grateful and proud that a man had taught him something handy that he couldn’t wait to let everyone know. That experience built his confidence because he knows he can start a fire if he needs to.

Seems like a small thing doesn’t it? But being capable is important to our self-esteem as men and boys. If no one shows us how to do something how can we ever learn to be capable? And if we do not feel capable how can we feel good about our manhood?

Being competent is one of the things we strive to teach the boys during our Better Dads Annual Father-Son Campouts for non-custodial dads. We want to teach the boys (and maybe the fathers too) some survival skills that will give them self-confidence.

We teach them how to start a fire from scratch, we teach them about the “10 essentials” for survival in the wilderness, we teach them how to use a compass, and we teach them other survival skills that breed feelings of competency and adequacy so important for a male to feel good about himself. Because I know that I can survive if dropped in the middle of nowhere with just my own two hands and a couple of basics, I believe that the other struggles and issues of life—even if I fail at them—are somehow less consequential in comparison.

When boys are brought up to feel that way about themselves they have a much better chance of succeeding at life. When they have men come alongside them and teach them how to succeed in life, they do not have to suffer through the trials of failing which lead to frustration, anger and often quitting on life.

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My senior year in high school I bought my dream car; a metallic beer-bottle brown 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner. It was 383 cubic inches of muscle car with chrome-plated side pipes, G-60 wide tires, and bench seats.

This car rumbled when it idled. As God as my witness—it rumbled! The kind of deep rumble you don’t feel any more with cars—the kind that starts low in your chest and spreads throughout the rest of your body. Just sitting in it caused your testosterone levels to rise. It gave you a little tingle in the pit of your stomach and had a high pucker factor when you floored it and it stayed in one spot while the rear tires smoked.

The smell of burnt rubber permeating the air caused male adrenaline levels to spike another notch. Pulling up beside other classic muscle cars of the day (1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda, 1969 Dodge Challenger, 1970 Chevelle SS, or a 1967 GTO) at stop lights and revving engines in preparation of a race brought on an adrenaline-induced hypnotic trance in a testosterone-laden young man with too much power and too little sense.

A couple of years after graduation, I joined the Navy and left this treasure at my mother’s. It sat beside her house untouched for over three years. After I was discharged I came home to an unrecognizable dirty heap that wouldn’t even start. But I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on it—a new battery; new points, plugs and tune up; new belts; oil change; new head gaskets; and flushed the cooling system.

Miraculously, she fired up and purred like a sleeping lion. A little more elbow grease with soap, water, and wax, and she sparkled like a freshly polished diamond in the sunshine. I vacuumed the interior and added a new pine tree air freshener, and I was ready to hit the road. I loved that car.

And so it is with daughters. They require hard work, consistent maintenance, and attention to detail in order to weather the storms of growing up. When left unattended in the elements of life they rust, corrode, and fail to operate properly and safely.

Our daughters need the same tender, loving care that we lavish on a car that we treasure. They need the same consistent preventive maintenance and attention to detail that we give to all the mechanical gadgets or tools we love and rely upon. Without that loving affection and care from their fathers, many girls end up as an “unrecognizable dirty heap,” treasures left to the ravages of our cultural climate.

When I got married I traded that car in for a more practical ride, but I still have dreams about that car and “riding through mansions of glory in suicide machines.” Fortunately, I was blessed with a baby girl to lavish my care upon.

Find out more by purchasing Rick’s book, Better Dads—Stronger Sons: How Fathers Can Guide Boys to Become Men of Character, by Revell Publishing. For more information go to www.betterdads.net.

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Since we focused on moms in my last blog, here are some tips for dads:

• YOU are the biggest influence in your son’s life—you are almost indispensable.

• Fathers have been endowed with a huge generational power/influence to impact people’s lives for good or evil (sometimes for hundreds of years) just by the things they do and don’t do or say or don’t say today.

• Boys learn how to be a man, a husband, and a father by observing male role models (good or bad ones).

• Boys learn self-respect and respect of others by being respected by their fathers and the respect they see him give others

• Character traits like nobility and honor are passed from father to son.

• Men and boys long to live lives of significance—they hunger for adventure.

• Your sons (and daughters) may be the only people in the world who want to love and respect you without your having to earn it first.

• You need to resolve any issues between you and your father, before you can grow to become the kind of father you want to be and that your children deserve.

• The greatest gift a man can give his children is to love their mother.

• Teach your son (or daughter) self-discipline by holding him accountable for his actions and decisions.

Find out more by purchasing Rick’s book, Better Dads—Stronger Sons: How Fathers Can Guide Boys to Become Men of Character, by Revell Publishing. For more information go to www.betterdads.net.

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• Boys need clear, unambiguous boundaries.

• Boys need to be held accountable for their actions and decisions (no matter how much you want to, do not rescue them).

• Boys need to learn the correlation between taking risks and success in life—let them get hurt.

• Boys need to not acquire the habit of quitting early in life (quitting is an easily learned life-long habit for males—again do not rescue too often).

• Boys need (must have) positive male role models in their lives.

• Speak to your son in simple, short sound bite-sized sentences (get to the point within 30 seconds).

• If you need to discuss something in depth, take a hike, shoot hoops, or other physical activity with your son.

• Women have much better communication skills than a boy. It is intimidating to sit across the table, eye to eye from someone so much more skilled in an area than he is.

• Start discussing sexuality early in your son’s life—it will be easier later on.

• If you are a single mom, don’t be discouraged—millions of good men have been raised by just their mothers.

Bonus tip—best thing a mother can do for her son? Pray. For. Him.

To find out more about Rick’s bestselling book, That’s My Son—How Moms Can Influence Boys to Become Men of Character, by Revell Publishing, go to www.betterdads.net.

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The word duty (from the French for “due” and Latin for “debt”) is a term that conveys a moral commitment to someone or something. The moral commitment is one that results in actionand is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition.

A duty (in either a moral or legal sense) is an obligatory task, conduct, service, or function that arises from one’s position. For instance someone serving in the military takes an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is their duty (legal obligation) to serve their country in that capacity if it should be required.

Likewise, when a man becomes a father it is his duty (moral obligation) to provide for and protect that child. Oftentimes it is also our civic obligation or duty to serve our fellow man if we are in a position to be best qualified to fulfill that function—even if we are reluctant.

Duty requires us to do things that need to be done whether we want to do them or not. Many boys I know want to become men because they believe that they can do whatever they want once they become an adult. The truth is though that the very definition of a man is one who doesn’t do things that he does want to do, and does things he doesn’t want to do because it benefits those who are under his leadership and charge.

In the past, men had a sense of pride in fulfilling what were considered their natural responsibilities and duties. Chief among these were his natural roles as a guide, protector, and provider. Those duties were his responsibility alone, and he did not lean on his wife or children; nor expect society to support him.

When burdens became heavy, he did not run away or turn to others. He looked to himself for solutions, reorganizing his life, reevaluating his situation, and possibly eliminating unnecessary obligations. These roles were accomplished through the feeling of personal fulfillment and satisfaction he received from a) proving his worth—reaching objectives, overcoming obstacles, and exercising his unique talents and abilities, b) by making a worthy contribution to society, and c) by character development—becoming a more worthy person.

This mentality is healthy for a young male for a number of reasons. He derives a great sense of self-esteem and self-confidence by being self-sufficient and fulfilling his roles as provider and protector. Overcoming obstacles and solving problems develops character and refines his spirit. As a man works patiently and diligently to provide comforts for his family he quickly learns to become unselfish. Marriage is one of the greatest tools for personal development for a young male, especially regarding his duties. It provides incentives heretofore unknown to him before marriage.

Teach your son that as a man he has the great power to impact and influence lives. In fact, even as a boy there are other people (usually younger boys) who are looking up to him and watching him as a role model—generally people he doesn’t even know about. Sometimes hundreds or thousands of people’s lives are impacted by the things we do or don’t do or even the things we say or don’t say.

Next help your son to learn that everyone can do something to make the world a better place. It doesn’t matter how old, how young, how many mistakes you’ve made, God has a plan for your life and wants to use you to impact the world. Your son’s duty is to make his best effort to find out God’s plan for his life and then fulfill his role.

Investing in family and relationships also teaches boys about duty. If dad and mom model an example of investing in family and friends, that will be passed along. Since we generally spend the most time on things we truly believe are the most important in life, this means we have to actually make sacrifices to spend time together. He learns about his duty as a father and husband by what is modeled to him by his parents.

Next you can help your son learn about duty by teaching him the value of delayed gratification. Delayed gratification is a concept that is almost non-existent in our culture today. With the availability of easy credit, almost no one waits and saves enough money to pay cash for anything today. No one has to wait for more than two minutes for their food order, and with email, text messaging, and portable cell phones no one has to wait to communicate instantly with anyone on the planet. With overnight delivery service (sometimes same day) no one even has to wait for snail mail to receive whatever they want to buy.

Delayed gratification seems like a strange way to teach someone duty, but duty is all about putting aside our wants and needs for the benefit of others. Those who have learned to value of delayed gratification understand the concept of duty at a deeper level. They understand why it is necessary and what benefits come from it. They appreciate more what they receive through the lesson of delayed gratification.

For instance, waiting to have sexual intercourse until you are married helps you appreciate it so very much more than engaging in it from the time you first meet. Having to save up and pay cash for your first car means you will appreciate it more, value it greater, and probably take better care than if it were given to you.

Most of all delayed gratification teaches them to understand that the world does not revolve around them, and that some things are more important than their wants and needs. Each of us must fulfill duties during our lifetime.

As a husband and father we have duties to our wives and children to provide for them and protect them—whether we feel like it or not! Some men become involved in the military and have a duty to protect our country—sometimes at great cost of life or limb. Without their sacrifices the freedoms each of us enjoy would be non-existent.

Duty matters—without it neither individuals nor cultures can attain greatness.

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“Work ethic” is defined as the principle that hard work is intrinsically virtuous or worthy of reward. It is a belief in the moral value, benefit and importance of work and its inherent ability to strengthen character.

Someone with a good work ethic is assumed to believe there is merit in doing hard work, having a “natural” feeling of satisfaction or enrichment from accomplishing things, rather than from the reward one does or does not get for it.

A person with a strong work ethic can be relied upon to always consistently do their best in every detail of a project. A person with strong work ethic is self-driven (self-motivated) to accomplish tasks properly (through self-discipline) for the intrinsic value of the work itself. They take responsibility to ensure that tasks are done right in the proper order and timing.

Your son needs to know and appreciate the value of work. No one who succeeds in life does so without working hard. Additionally, it is healthy on many levels for males to work. God created the desire inside each man to want to provide for his wife and children. He feels great contentment and satisfaction when he is able to provide for them adequately.

This is a natural instinct and not vanity. It is implanted in him by God for a divine purpose—to assure that families will be adequately cared for. Men who do not work (either intentionally or unintentionally) suffer because of it. They tend to have lower self-esteem and higher incidents of psychological problems, such as depression and anxiety.

In addition, his wife and children have less respect for him. Women tend to have stronger emotional attachments to men when they feel provided for and protected. Lack of protection diminishes femininity.

So how do we raise young men who are eager to make a difference in the world—who can be depended upon to provide for their wives and children? We can start by giving them chores from an early age. Give him chores as part of his role in the family. You might give him a weekly allowance to teach him how to budget money, but he should do some chores with no compensation just because he’s part of the family and they need to be done. They should be age appropriate, but don’t be afraid to make them difficult and even physically challenging.

You can always find other physical work that needs to be done around the home to pay him for if you want to keep his household chores and allowance separate. I had a wonderful decade or so where I didn’t have to mow the lawn after I taught my son to cut the grass at age 11.

Teach him how to work—he’s going to have to work for most of his life. The earlier you teach him the principles that help him be successful at work, the easier his life will be. I’d consider making your teenage son work outside the home. One of the major conflicts I hear from parents is whether to allow their children to experience positive extracurricular activities in school or to make them go to work. We experienced the same dilemma.

For instance, we chose to allow our son to be in band, play sports, be in Boy Scouts, attend youth group at church, and be involved in student government at school because they were healthy, wholesome activities that kept him out of trouble. We purposely told him as long as he got good grades he did not have to work outside the home. And so we provided a car for transportation along with insurance. A major mistake in hindsight—one we didn’t make with our second child.

Those extra-curricular activities are important, but he probably didn’t need to do all of them. In hindsight, he would have been better served to have to work for a boss and learned what working for minimum wage is like so that when he went into the world he would have appreciated the value of an education and been better prepared to take care of himself. Additionally, being forced to work and pay for his own car and insurance would have been an excellent lesson to teach him the value of those items. Our daughter did and was much the better for it.

Many of the problems parents experience with their sons (of all ages) can be solved through work. Give your sons chores, make him get a part-time job, and keep him physically active. You’ll have fewer problems with his attitude, with getting into trouble, and with sex if you can keep him mentally and physically tired.

The military discovered many years ago that they could eliminate fighting, horseplay, and sexual preoccupation in boot camp by keeping hundreds of teenagers and young men so physically exhausted that they fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow in the barracks at night.

Boys also develop confidence and competency (which define their self-esteem) by accomplishing masculine chores that increase their skills and abilities. They learn this best under the guidance of a father or other older male. Masculine chores include activities like building things, yard work, pouring cement, repairing a car, fixing a home, painting a house, repairing a roof, plumbing, or any other number of things that are best accomplished by his own two hands, his muscular physique, and the sweat of his brow.

Males are physical beings. We process information and emotions more easily when we move, we develop self-esteem through accomplishments, and we channel aggression into healthy physical activities. Without the chores and hard work that used to be necessary in order to survive, young males are turning more toward sedentary activities that keep them from becoming powerful physically, which in turn also contributes to their emotional and mental health.

Teach your son to work and everyone will be happier.

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The Warrior-Poet is the ancient tradition of dedication to developing the body and the mind equally as one, using each to guide the other. The warrior-poet is often a spiritual warrior as well. They have higher standards that they live their life by than average men.

Many of the current special forces warriors of the US military branches might be considered today’s warrior-poets. They are highly trained and skilled in all areas of warfare, yet many have advanced degrees in subjects such as Philosophy, Literature, Engineering, or even Poetry. They are all the more effective because their minds and bodies are highly developed to function as one. They are no longer just programmed machines, but highly intelligent and adaptive “whole” men, trained to use their minds as well as their bodies.

Throughout history there may have been no more rugged, masculine man or powerful leader than King David. David started being passionate, courageous, and spiritually faithful very early in life.

One time when he was a young teenage shepherd boy, a bear made off with one of his flock. David tracked it down and killed it with just his bare hands to get his sheep back! Another time he did the same with a lion! Think about that, killing bears and lions without a weapon!  Then, as if those accomplishments weren’t enough, while still a teenager, he killed a heavily armed nine-foot-tall giant with a bad attitude using just a sling and a rock while all the rest of the army of grown men and battle-hardened warriors trembled with fear in a ditch behind him.

The book of 1 Samuel, Chapter 17 describes David’s battle with Goliath. I think it’s important to put this confrontation into perspective so we can put ourselves in David’s shoes. David was a young man—just a teenager. He was described as slight of build, fair-skinned, and not very tall.

While bringing lunch to the battlefield for his brothers, David heard Goliath insulting God, and laughing and taunting the soldiers and the God of Israel. This righteously displeased David. He was perplexed and angry that no one was doing anything about it, and so he confidently volunteered to shut Goliath’s pie hole. David probably figured he’d already killed a lion and a bear with his bare hands—how tough could a measly giant be? David knew he had the holy spirit within him and likely did not fear a mere mortal man.

Goliath was the mightiest warrior of the entire Philistine army. The Israeli army was deathly afraid of him as every day he strode forward from the enemy camp and hurled insults at the Jews and their God. He was reported to be six cubits and a span tall. A cubit is approximately 18 inches in length and a span is about nine inches, which would have made Goliath a towering nine feet, nine inches tall. He wore a coat of armor (plates of bronze sewn overlapping on a leather coat), which weighed 5,000 shekels of bronze, or about 125 pounds.

He carried a bronze javelin, the staff of which was like a weaver’s beam—between 2.5 to three inches in diameter. I don’t know how long it was but it had to be huge if the diameter was as big around as the head of a baseball bat.

Let’s estimate for sake of speculation that an average spear is one inch in diameter and approximately six to eight feet long. That would, by extrapolation, make Goliath’s spear about 15-20 feet long. If it was made of solid bronze, it would weight at minimum about 270 pounds at 2.5 inches in diameter, and about 345 pounds if three inches in diameter, which would seem excessively heavy even for a behemoth like Goliath.[1]

An Olympic javelin used today is approximately one inch in diameter, weights about 800 grams (1.76 pounds), and is about 2.6 meters long (8.5 feet).  So even if Goliath’s spear was made out of wood and not some lightweight metal (or fiberglass) like today’s javelins, I estimated the weight of an average wooden pole, one inch by 8.5 foot long and came up with about four pounds (I readily admit my math skills are rusty—any engineers out there please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).

Since Goliath’s javelin was about three times as thick and twice as long as that model, I estimate that his wooden spear probably weighed in the range of 22 to 26 pounds. Attached to this pole was an iron spearhead weighting 600 shekels or about 17 pounds for a total weight of maybe 43 pounds—a pretty hefty chunk of weight to carry around and throw. He also wore a bronze helmet on his head, bronze armor (greaves) on his legs, and had a shield-bearer in front of him. He was a veritable war machine—bigger and more powerful than any three men combined.

As David approached the field of battle with just his shepherd’s staff and sling, Goliath sneered, “Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks? Come here [boy],” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!” Then David, in classic line, responded with complete confidence, “You come against me with a sword, and spear, and javelin. But I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you over to me, and I will strike you down and cut off your head.” (1 Samuel 17:43-46 NIV) 

Enraged, Goliath charged. It must have been like being charged by an angry bull elephant, ground thundering and dust flying. But David calmly picked up five smooth stones and running forward slung one from his sling which struck Goliath and embedded itself in his forehead, dropping him like a dirty shirt. David then walked over, picked up Goliath’s huge sword, and hacked off his giant head, taunting the enemy army with it. The entire Philistine army turned tail and ran.

But for all his skill as a warrior, David was also an accomplished poet (he wrote most of the psalms in the Book of Psalms), a songwriter, and a musician. He also liked to dance in public (naked if possible) to worship God. He was a noted musician who had soothed Saul with music during his periods of insanity. He was educated and could read and write when many men (especially warriors) couldn’t. This gave him a distinct advantage over his less educated opponents.

David was a Poet Warrior. He was a man’s man. And yet he was flawed. He made many mistakes. He wasn’t necessarily a good husband. He committed adultery and then had the woman’s husband killed by sending him into a battle that he could not survive.

He wasn’t necessarily the best father around. One of his sons tried to overthrow him as king and have him killed. He wasn’t the holiest man to walk the face of the earth. He was often scared and frustrated with God.

But David had great faith in God and cried out to him in his fear, pain, frustration, anguish, and joy. God called him a “man after my own heart.”

David shows us that even if we are imperfect men, reliance on God can make us men who can change history.

Question: Can you share with your son the “Goliath’s” you face in life and how you do battle with them?

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I was recently honored to be invited to attend a ceremony at the White House as part of a select group of people working with fathers around the country. We were given a tour of the White House and attended a ceremony honoring 10 people in which Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric Holder both spoke to us and thanked us for the work we are all doing.

Making headlines a few days after our ceremony were the actions of three individuals invited to a LGBT reception at the White House. Gay rights activists Zoe Strauss, Mark Segal, and Matty Hart photographed themselves posing in front of the portrait of former president Ronald Reagan flipping him the bird.

My first thought upon seeing this picture was, “I was just standing in that very spot, and it never would have entered my mind to engage in that kind of behavior.”

Even when gazing at the portraits of past presidents who I largely disagree with—such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—the thought would never have entered my mind to be that disrespectful, especially in an as august and dignified environment as the White House. I am sure these people do not represent all of the LGBT demographic, yet I wonder about the image their actions project.

Putting aside the issue of homosexuality (which is irrelevant to this issue—this is about character, not sexual preference), it makes me wonder about the decision-making ability, maturity, and leadership abilities of these individuals. These were not young people, but appear to be middle-aged adults.

Frankly, their behavior does not make me sympathetic to their cause or even want to sit down across a table from them and discuss their concerns. Nor would it make me comfortable in trusting their judgment or following their leadership.

True leadership recognizes that our actions represent more than just ourselves or our beliefs. It also represents our families, the people who follow us and look up to us, our organizations, and even to some degree our race and ethnicity. As leaders our actions can reflect poorly on those we represent as a whole merely by association. We’ve certainly seen that to be the case in the Christian community where one individual’s actions reflected poorly on all Christians.

I cannot think of many (if any) issues that President Obama and I agree upon—except perhaps the importance of fathers. But I also cannot imagine myself ever committing such a disrespectful act towards him or any former president of the United States. Even more so, I cannot envision if I ever did, that I would be so immature as to photograph that action and share it with the world. How embarrassing would it be to have my family and friends see me engaging in such despicable and disrespectful behavior? What kind of example is behavior like this for our sons and other young men who look up to us?

As men, it is our duty and obligation to exhibit healthy leadership skills through our actions, especially in today’s climate of divisiveness and confusion.

Question: Talk with your son about a time you were ashamed of your behavior.

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Photo of White House from http://www.bellona.org/weblog/1309027676.82

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