Beautiful Boy

     Part of Kevin Brockmeier’s Illumination revolves around a sensitive boy, the kind of boy I was, the kind of boy Dylan is.  His parents argue over how to raise this boy:

"You're saying he'll cry whenever he doesn't get his way."

"I'm saying what harm does it do to humor him?"

"The world will eat him alive when he grows up."

"That doesn't mean that we should eat him alive, too."

I’ve had moments with Dylan when I can’t believe the first response which bubbles up to my lips; Stop being such a crybaby.

Stop being such a crybaby is how we teach boys to suppress their emotions, how we turn them from communication and understanding, pushing them toward stoicism and silence, it’s how we make boys into “men”. 

I might have heard it from my cousins a time or two, but it wasn’t a family motto.  Where does stupid shit like that come from?  My worry that he’ll have a tough time in school, like I did?  Shame at seeing my crybaby behavior mirrored back to me?  Wherever it comes from, I’m thankful I’ve kept it inside.  

As a momma’s boy, his social life might be hard.  I say “might” because maybe things are changing from when I was a child.  But if he’s like me, it will be tough for him to relate to other boys, who have so much to prove with physical and emotional violence.  When they speak in locker rooms about girls they supposedly like in graphic and derogatory terms, loneliness will whistle through him as he realizes how different he is from these boys.  It will take him time, maybe decades, to find people his gender who share his sensibilities, to look past “men” and find men.     

However tough his life might be, it’s not for me to make it harder.

"You're saying he'll cry whenever he doesn't get his way."

"I'm saying what harm does it do to humor him?"

"The world will eat him alive when he grows up."

"That doesn't mean that we should eat him alive, too."