Book Review: Dave Willis - Raising Boys who Respect Girls
Good Read!
If you are raising the next generation this book is a good investment of time.
BUY THE BOOK ON AMAZON
I guess you can’t get a better endorsement than that. I put the link up at the beginning because I want to make sure you have a chance to be encouraged and just as aware as I am about the effect and cost of how our boys are being raised to either be influential or just as apathetic as all the rest.
If you are a parent like me, every once and a while the terror about how your humans are going to turn out grabs you by the throat and makes you lose your breath. That’s what interested me at first about the title of this book - Raising Boys Who Respect Girls: Upending Locker Room Mentality, Blind Spots, and Unintended Sexism by Dave Willis.
One of the phrases that caught me when I read the book for myself was something along the lines of making a difference so that our boys don’t think that worshipping the guys that are revered as Locker Room Supermen in the beginning years are the only truth. The Superboy’s of the Locker Room often end up as men who just live pay check to pay check, cursing the sun as it comes up, and being addicted to all kinds of concerns that started out as a habitual porn and defamation of women in the locker room. Normalization of such behaviors isn’t the way to raise young men to be the next her{o}s - spelling misspelled on purpose. The women of tomorrow need the hero’s of tomorrow who are being raised today.
It’s also become a passion of mine to direct the anger that I have been having lately about how there are so many concerns in the news with sexual assaults, battery, and lack of male leadership. I think these issues are able to be curbed and addressed in the home when we as families begin to change the tide with realizing the assaults that are really happening are the ones on our psyche with all the media and normalization of objectification of women. That phrase just makes my mouth hurt. There should never be a normalization because God didn’t make women to be objects for God’s pleasure. In fact God intervened and was so different in several Biblical narratives that indicate what to do instead. Dave Willis details more about how this is true in the book. Also here is more about him and his ministry with his wife. Dave and Ashley Willis Website Link
One of the things that I am recognizing in my own life is the compartmentalization of life. This is noted as potential for secrecy, and being a counselor myself, I have to watch the lines that I create in my own life so as to not follow the path of many of my clients who have mental compartments as a way of coping. Allowing my wife and other Godly men to participate in my life is an essential in maintaining good conscience and balance.
Dave also encourages conversation when conversation appears to have left the average American family. We seem to converse through screens and this only exacerbates the problem, rather than taking more than 5 seconds to find our spouses in our homes and give our eyes to them and theirs to ourselves. There is a real truth in the fact that the eyes are the window to the soul, and Dave mentions that the eyes were probably the thing that Christ Jesus utilized the most in his conversations with others and women in particular.
So if you are struggling with this topic or other topics please consider reaching out to a counselor who is seeking and learning more about how to continually engage culture and influence people toward Godly hearts that seek to provide justice and mercy to those around us.
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