Dangerous Boys

CNN.com ran a story the other day that intrigued me. It was about the book pictured here, titled The Dangerous Book for Boys.

It’s pretty easy to balk at the title and some of the premises. Our natural reaction as parents (and hopefully, as humans in general) is to protect our children from danger. We buy fences, gates, doorknob protectors, closet locks — all good things — to keep our kids out of harm’s way.

Still, something about this book is exciting. Beyond just teaching our boys about tying knots, skinning rodents, and great historical battles and wars, it helps to train them to be unafraid of risk. As much as we sometimes don’t want them to grow up, our boys will someday — and soon — be the men of the world, and over the past couple of decades, too many have been and are being coddled in home and school environments where competition is seen as intrinsically evil, where they are insulated against any sort of unpleasantness. The result has been an entire breed of “soft men” — men who take no risks in life, who take no responsibility for their own actions, who run from marriage and fatherhood, and who spend time defending nothing but their own foolish self-interests.

Don’t get me wrong. Not every man should get married. Not every man will be a father. Not every man will or should find things like guns, trucks, and Ultimate Fighting very appealing. That’s not my point. My point is that we are to be workers and we are to be defenders. Just as Nehemiah told his Jerusalem reconstruction crew to wield a shovel in one hand and a sword in the other, so all men are to labor and to protect what they’ve been given. I’m not the father of a boy yet, but if I’m so blessed in the future, I want him to love working with his hands. I want him to feel a duty to protect his mother and his big sister. I want him to “slay the dragons” and vanquish the bad guys when he plays.  Then (if God allows) he won’t be a lazy man. He’ll be bold enough to ask the girl out. He’ll know how to protect his wife and his children. He won’t be afraid to take risks in business or in ministry. This is the kind of man I want my daughter(s) to marry and the kind I want to raise if given the opportunity.

Don’t stifle your boy’s innate sense of adventure, parents. Let him play with toy swords to slay the bad guys. Encourage him to come to the aid of the fair maiden. If he wants to take a flying leap from the couch, don’t stop him (not every time, anyway). You may be helping to stem the growing tide of soft men.

I’m buying this book.

(No, I have not been reading John Eldredge. Hell no, in fact.)