Superheroic World Wide Entertainment

Being in a house full of boys has been fun. I mean, the boys can't take two steps without some kind of sound effect coming out of them, purposed or otherwise.

I awakened Saturday morning to the sounds of wrestling and body-slamming....at 6:15 A.M. Recall that I am on Mountain Time, so it was really 5:15 (even as I type this the six year-old is making motorcycle sounds which sound a lot like other "sounds"). I love these three boys like they are my own, so I lay in bed amused. I then crept across the hall and teased them for awakening me so early. I was informed that this was a regularly scheduled activity on weekend mornings. I stopped and listened to see if their parents were awake, but they lay snoozing.

Yesterday, while I was taking a power nap, I listened to the boys playing PS2 and the little one once again animating his people and vehicles. I thought about how loved these little boys are and how good it is that boys and girls are different. Yes, people are the same in that they need to be loved and to know that people care about them regardless of their gender. But the sound effects echoed through the walls of my home are not exploding things and punches. Boys and girls do differ in their dramatic play, and it's o.k.; it's natural; it's normal.

R and I were talking last week about the whole women's movement. We wondered whether the good gained negated the good that was lost. I really do want for my girls to marry a man who holds the door for them, pulls out their chair, helps them with their coat, who offers to carry something heavy. My heart melts when I see an elderly couple leaving a restaurant and the husband holds out her coat, the door, and gently yet protectively takes her elbow and maneuvers her when he perceives someone as getting too close. Can I put on my own coat? Of course. Can I hold the door? Yes, and I often do. Am I strong? Very. These things don't connote weakness. They show respect and consideration.

K and her husband are raising valiant young men; men worthy of my daughters; men worthy to fight for the country they believe holds the light of democracy. Men who will be respectful and considerate of their wives, cherishing her when the strength of her youth has given way to her aging body, respecting her as the mother of his children, and the one who has loved him and been faithful for so many years.

Thank you, A and K for loving and training your boys, and thus growing them into true men. Thank you for knowing and training their individual talents and gifts (piano, basketball, art, baseball) that as knights their armor will be unique as their swords are strong.

The sound effects are starting again, so I must finish that I may give my attention more fully to Spiderman annihilating his enemies and making a safer world for all the Mary Jane's and Aunt Mae's and Uncle Ben's. And remember, it was the contributions of these people together that shaped Peter Parker into the hero he became.