I asked my 6-year-old to make his bed this morning and I
paid him with 10 kisses. He took 30. Two
days ago I was telling Carson and Dylan how handsome they are and that all of
the girls are going to want to be their girlfriends one day. Dylan giggled and asked
why. I said “Because you and Carson are blonde and beautiful and have pretty smiles.” I also told them that girls will like
them because they love their mommy and that they are going to open the door for
them. I said they are going to listen, never talk down to them, they aren’t
going to hit them, and they are going to pay for the movies and never lie to
them. They giggled, but when I asked
them if they could do that for me, they said yes. Of course, I know that that is just the
beginning of what my boys need to learn to do because opening the door for a
girl means nothing without true respect, love, and admiration for women as a
whole. I want to raise men, not
boys. Real men. And I want my daughter to know how she
deserves to be treated and that she is to respect a real man just as much as she
respects herself.
Just a quick note...this post is not in any way meant to offend men as a whole
or to claim that I have not been part of the problem by accepting it, because I
have, but it is more so to tell men
out there that you are becoming more important to me over the years and that I
applaud you. I am trying to model my
boys after you.
I listened to one of my younger friends talk about her
“boyfriend” who I am not sure is a boyfriend a few nights ago. She said he made out with many, many girls in
front of her the other night and had the nerve to text her a nice, long apology
the next day. I am angry. This morning I
got a series of screenshots from a friend who is feeling like trash right now
because all of the men she meets seem to be unavailable in some way, or they
send her dick pics, or they immediately jump into discussions about which
sexual positions she likes the most rather than ask her on a date. She has gotten cheated on and lied to in the
past, a lot. I am angry. One
of my friends has recently decided to leave her husband because he has been
violent. I am angry. One of my friends
got drunk a few months ago and was taken advantage of. I was pissed as hell. The span of The Unlikable Man is very wide to
me at this point in my life and the truth is, no matter what the level bastard,
we as women shouldn’t be putting up with any of it because we deserve better. I
have three boys and I would lock them in their room and strip their life of all
things fun if they treated a woman like a commodity. Why on earth would I allow someone to treat
me or my friends like one?
Due to some recent events in my life, I have been thinking
about the men in my life; really amazing men.
I have been especially thankful for them lately because I think I have
underestimated how many horrible examples I have been given and how many men
have walked across my soul and left their muddy footprints like the bastards
they are. How have I underestimated
their impact on my life? It’s
simple. I have assumed I was stronger
than the actions of a bastard. How? I
have made excuses. Being called a cunt has no bearing on me
because it is, after all, just a word, right?
I know I am not a cunt. My
boyfriend who swung a baseball bat at my head was an idiot. Who cares what an idiot says or does anyway,
right? Some guys can’t keep it in their pants, right? So he’s a man. Men often fear commitment, ok. Got it.
And I “move on” intellectually, knowing that I am not the problem and I
am lucky to be out of that situation and free, but what happens
emotionally? Once upon a time, I was a
little girl. And then I grew. And parts of me are still a little girl. And there is no possible way that these
things have not impacted me, no matter how tough I am because there is still an
innocent part of me that needs to know she is safe. Needing to feel safe, loved, and special is what makes us
girls forever, no matter how strong we are.
Someone told me years ago to protect my heart. I never gave my heart much thought. I am a giver by nature, I am forgiving, I
love when I want to love, and I have never viewed my heart as something that
can’t be repaired. But the older I get,
the more I understand what that woman was saying. What I heard was “It hurts when your heart breaks” and I thought “So what, I will recover. Love on.” But I never considered the damage you can
do to yourself in the long run by not guarding your body and your heart from
the ones who continue to disregard you.
I have believed I am stronger than anything that has been done to me and
stronger than the weaknesses of these men, but what if I am wrong? What if by taking a risk like that, with
every hurt, you build up a wall, and another wall, and another wall, and
eventually, you can’t even trust the ones who really do just want to love
you? What if you paralyze yourself?
What makes a bastard a
bastard? A bastard is selfish and
everything he does is based on what makes him the most comfortable at any given
time. When he has an inkling of
conscience or feeling, he runs because he is a coward. He is full of excuses that he knows you need
to believe. Instead of making a
decision, he avoids. He prances around
disregarding, even cursing those who love them, cursing them for making him
feel anything but blissful ignorance. He
takes what he wants. He says what he
wants. He does as he wants. Bastards die a shell of a human who was never
brave enough to self reflect.
Now does that sound like it has anything to do with you? We have no control over them. We can't fix them. In fact, it doesn't matter that we can't even understand it. The only thing we can do is to demand more, from the very beginning.
When I picture what I want my boys to look like one day, I see men who feel an emotion and attempt to put a word to it, and then an action. I want them to be brave enough to be honest, gentle enough to hold his wife and strong enough to tell her that she is safe. I want their wives to ask for ten kisses and he gives her 30.
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