Remonstrance

I was compelled to stay up last night, engrossed with talking to Sean. I’ve always heard of these “man-to-man” talks fathers should have with sons — my dad tried it so many times I can’t even count them — but now at age 52 with three boys, I think maybe I get it. A “man-to-man” with dad always meant a lecture, which isn’t a terribly earth-shaking event since parents can dish out lectures at a-dime-a-dozen. Still, it’s the curse of parents, I suppose, to dish it out, knowing it probably won’t get heard.

But now I understand the “man-to-man” quite differently. I don’t believe it’s a lecture. It can’t possibly be. Men can’t really lecture men, in my experience. The male ego and machismo is the original “Clash of Titans” in which nobody really wins, but perhaps one gets more “beaten-down” in the end.

What proved so illuminating was to understand “Man-to-Man” means something more like, “Well hello there, son! You made it after all!” And there’s something sobering but still wonderful to see when your son is suddenly standing there fully grown and standing eye-to-eye, adult-to-adult, “Man-to-Man.”

It’s a breathtaking experience. It’s not at all like the sad-but-beautiful face we parents try put on the truly-tragic realization that “they’re all grown up now, dear.” That one comes as a rude shock, I think, because it means the kids aren’t so wonderful and sweet any more, and their delightful laughter and high-pitched voices have cracked and croaked and dipped into teenage bass tones. What a heartbreaking transition that is! Yuck!

But the “Man-to-man” is quite different altogether. You only realize it when it’s already in-motion. A real “Man-to-Man” talk can’t be contrived.

A Foundational Understanding

My neighbor across the street surely experience it when his reckless, foolish teenage son returned home on leave from Iraq looking quite different. Although he’s just a private in the army, no doubt his old man knew this boy was a man, and could talk to him “Man-to-Man” for the first time.

I experienced it with Sean last night, but under a different paradigm. Yesterday Sean spent several hours finishing his self-guided study of I & II Samuel. I initially recommended it, but didn’t press it because it made no sense to chide a 19-year-old to finish his homework. If he was going to do it, he would do it and it would do him good, but not because I made him do it.

The fact that he did it by himself and self-motivated made all the difference. He interupted me in the middle of an important conversation to announce he was done, and did it with that stereotypical puffed-out-chest and standing tall you might see in a cartoon! But this was not staged, it was something he genuinely felt.

“Ok, great, I’ll talk to you later about it,” I said, and as he walked away I wondered why it was so damned important to deserve interrupting my conversation.

Then last night it became clear as I asked him questions about King David’s life, and found he asked me some tough ones:

“Do you remember what David said when he heard the bad news about his son?”

“Oh Absolom, Absolom!” I answered quickly and smugly. (He was so sure he skewered me with that vague question! It was a toughie, but I knew only Absolom fit the description, and more importantly–this is funny–Sean wouldn’t know William Faulkner wrote a famous novel titled “Absolom, Absolom” which immortalized David’s lament.)

“Nope,” Sean answered (smugly). “He said ‘Oh Absolom, Absolom! My son, my son!” I stared at him. What’s the significance? I wondered.

“That’s what you always say,” Sean sean. “My son, my son!”

That was true. I said it alot in fact, especially to my teenagers.

“Is that just something dads say?” he asked, and then: “Or did you pick that up from David?”

I had to stop and remember. Yes, I did pick that up from David…it is, in fact, a little of both: fathers also instinctively say that, or think it or something like that.

Then my turn:

“So, when David was running away from Jerusalem during Absolom’s rebellion, that old man Shimeai came out to curse and yell at David from a distance,” I said. “Joab, the General, wanted to send a few boys to mow him down, but David said ‘No.’ Why? And shouldn’t a king cut down someone like that?”

“David thought Shimeai was probably right,” Sean said. “But that’s strange, because Shimeai was also lying about David killing King Saul. He never did that.”

Jeesh. This was getting tougher by the minute. Not only can he answer my questions, he can fire back with tougher ones.

What does it mean?

“Iron sharpens iron,” the Bible says: “So one man sharpens another.” I realized this is what a Man-to-Man talk looks like. It happens when your boy can handle you quite deftly, but not in the crude teenager way of throwing around cheap “tough-guy” talk. He’s thinking and talking like a man, and He’s formidable.

This is where the conversation launched into a wonderful give-and-take. (We looked up the passage, read it, and wow — Shimeai was wrong, yes, but also right, and God wants us to have the fortitude like David to receive even wrongful criticism, because there’s also good points in there we need to hear and wouldn’t hear otherwise!)

So it went for another two hours. During this conversation I could naturally discuss with him the role he needs to play with Connor helping that boy into adulthood, his new leadership role as a discipler with a young Christian, the importance of his supportive role with Kyle and his mother, and many other pressing issues. Yet all these issues were discussed quite naturally, without lectures, because it was a real Man-to-Man talk and not the torchured lectures that dads typically inflict on their teenagers.

I’m sure my neighbor found this out when his son came home for the first time as a man, on furlough from the war.

But Sean’s transformation to adulthood is, I’m sure, far more dramatic. Sean is autistic and typically unable to engage in such complex adult issues, but he did. It is, I believe, the effect of taking his own initiative to dig into God’s Word and the effect that has: far more redemptive than Uncle Sam’s “boot camp.”

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Tags: maturity, parenting