It’s Father’s Day today and a few friends were talking about what we would tell our kids when we became dads. Here’s my list of 10 things to tell my sons (if I have sons).
1. The coolest kid is the one who is most himself. You are as cool as you want to be. The coolest kid was always the one who was unafraid to be himself. He made whatever he did look cool and you tried to be like him. But you could never be like him. Remember the pen twirling craze early in the 1990s, the yoyo-heroes of the early 2000s, the kid who could do it was the king of the school, everyone followed him and tried to be like him. But no one could ever be cooler than him.
2. It’s not how many you date, it’s who you date. There’s something wrong in our society when a guy who dates a lot of girls is a hero while a girl who dates a lot of guys is a slut. You’re better than that, it’s not how many you date, it’s how many quality dates you choose to have. Getting in a relationship isn’t victory, it’s finding that person who is to be the right spouse and lasting the distance. Don’t use looks to judge anything they don’t last, Sophia Lauren used to be what Jessica Alba and Megan Fox are to this generation. The love story you most remember was how grandpa and grandma have been together so long. If you want your wife to be a virgin on her wedding night, then don’t take it away from your girlfriend – that’s not love, that’s being selfish.
3. You may be less sensitive then girls, but that is no excuse for low EQ or empathy. It’s good to be sensitive in moderation, but in general you are less sensitive then girls. Learn from girls. A sensitive man can tell how others are feeling and help them feel better, an overly sensitive man starts thinking too much. You can’t solve people’s problems but you can learn to care about other people’s feelings and yours too. If you need to learn to have better EQ and empathy then learn it.
4. People change, so don’t judge them for what you see but what they are. Just because that schoolmate was more feminine doesn’t mean he’s gay. He may grow up to be more masculine or remain feminine. In fact that is also not up to him. Being a man has nothing to do with being metrosexual or caveman-like. You won’t remember how you felt bulling him but he certainly will remember how you bullied him, and it will scar him. Similarly the big, overweight boy today could turn out to be a modern day Adonis after he grows up while you grow a pot belly despite your muscles now. The socially awkward boy might turn out to be the most charming Casanova in the future. The only thing that will not change is his deepest character.
5. The weakest people bully, the strongest people build. It’s because you are weak that you bully others, not because you are strong. The stronger you are, the more you use that inner strength to help other people and protect your friends. The winner builds people up and stand on the shoulder of giants – with time everyone can see evenlre. The loser cuts people down and harms them so that he can climb on top of them – even with time you still only see the same distance. The measure of how worthy a person you are is how you treat the weaker, less fortunate people around you.
6. You can choose to lead or to be led. You will find yourself (quite often) a lot more comfortable leading people. Don’t hide it. You don’t need an official position to lead people, you lead through character and belief. It’s about being true to what you believe and not sugar coating it, if you truly believe what you do, stand by it. Especially, you don’t have to follow what society tells you are accepted sexual behavioural norms. Just because pre-marital sex is no more stigmatized and free love supported doesn’t mean you have to follow it if you don’t agree. Just because there are adages like, “man only want sex” doesn’t mean you have to buy it. You choose to lead you life the way you believe or be led by what society wants you to believe.
7. You don’t always have to win, the one who wins the most is the one who has lost the most. Every time you lose, you gain something. When you look at defeat optimistically, you build your character. Maybe it’s a lost love, you learn where you failed to maintain attraction; maybe it’s a failed competition, then you learn to be resilient and bounce back; maybe it’s financial difficulties then you learn to plan ahead and marshal your resources. You learn more from losing then winning, and only one victory really matters (see the end).
8. Women know way better than you what a real man is and vice versa. You are on the train, you see a lady, a tight fitting purple dress hugging her body and caressing every contour, every peak and trough. The air-con weakly running through her soft, dark hair. Her eyes bright and gentle, her lips pouty and wet. She’s sexy, and every man on the train knows it. But there’s something not fitting about the way she stands. Sure you can think of her sexually, but you can’t think of her as a spouse. That’s the same thing with women (I’ve realised), they can’t always put their finger on it (just as you can’t also) but if a guy is missing something about him they can sense it better than you. I have seen friends who were ‘tall, dark and handsome’ (girls words) who they would say did not feel quite right. So if you have platonic female friends who can give good advice, listen and process it.
9. Macho and masculine are not the same. I had a form teacher in secondary school who made this lesson come alive in my mind. He was a short stocky man, probably no more than 1.55 m, he spoke softly, almost a whisper. He was slow to anger and rarely if ever scolded us, he never boasted about his achievements and instead was shy to talk about them, but praised us lavishly when we did well. He was a giant among men. When he spoke, you listened. You would strain your ear, but you would listen. Everyone respected him, he used to be the head prefect who was a top student and a top athlete, and he made it his mission to pay it forward. He was not macho, but he didn’t need it. It was not his size or anything accessory, it was his personality. When you are a young boy, you think that macho is manly, then a real man comes around and you can’t quite figure out why the macho rule book went out. And you seek to emulate him.
10. Boys blame and complain, adults act and solve. I don’t mean age, some biological adults can be big children who complain, whine and blame people for their problems or get into petty childish tiffs. Scroll to any comments page and you will get what I mean, ironically the ones complaining are usually male, and Singapore is not short of them. An adult does things without complaining, sometimes he grins and smiles through it, making it easy for everyone else too. Do you get irritated at that whiny kid? It’s worse when you see whiny adults. Be the one who makes it easier for everyone.
You are on a journey to be a better man every day, to go from a kid to an adult. Its part of coming into the adult version of you. We all fall by the wayside at points but the final victory is when you look back at know that you have become a better person than before, the best person you can be.
The Heartlander Tourist 