I am the only son, of an only son; my wife similarly grew up in a family with only one brother. Why is that important? Other than the pressures of naming the kids and the family tradition gobbly gook, it simply means my wife and I have no idea of what brotherhood means. I think boys are fairly straight forward creatures. Feed them, feed them again, continue feeding them, give them a toy, someplace to hide it and something to organize and they are happy. (I think that most women might agree that men aren’t much different, I know my maturity is constantly in question.) Watching the boys grow you can see classic male behaviors peak through their forming personalities.
The train of thought is something like this:
“I have this thing; I need to keep it safe. The couch will be good to hide it in. Oh no, but someone might find it, so I will hide there too and defend it. The couch is now my fort. But wait, I need a weapon, look that pretzel stick looks like a sword….I have my thing, my fort and my weapon, life is good. Now I need a bad guy…daddy!!” (1 treasure + 1 fort +1 weapon+ no bad guy= boredom)
Of course I have seen it work backwards:
“I have a stick, I can whack my brother, but I can’t just whack him. He has to attack me so I can make it look good for mom. OK, I’ll take his favorite toy; run to my fort, when he chases me I can then whack him.” (Boredom+ 1 weapon = planning/ mom + fun)
My wife and I are completely unprepared for this, and have learned to discern the cries of “fair” violence from true mortal combat. Stranger yet, we find ourselves making rules that are more like the Geneva Convention than the good Christian handbook. “It's ok to hit him back, just not on the face” “you can pounce on your brother, just don’t jump on his head”, “no scratching, punching is ok.” I have actually said “fight nice!” Stopping the violence is impossible, it’s innate, its part of boys, we just try to preserve critical organs and some semblance of sanity.
What is great about the brotherly violence is its short duration. Take my toy, I punch you, you punch me, we cry, mom yells, some time out time, then we can play together for the next 5 hours, repeat as needed. They get it out of their system and move on. (Growing up with my sisters I have seen the quiet deep evil that girls can unleash on each other, not pretty.) I have hope that each mini war will help them stick together even after girls enter and complicate their lives.
At a certain level I can appreciate some of this, I know that men laugh hardest when a buddy gets hurt in a non critical way, we enjoy embarrassing each other. “I’m allowed to call my friend names, you are not” is not at all hypocritical to men. I get “Jackass”. I try to explain this to my wife, who is a bit shell shocked. She doesn’t understand why teeth brushing time never fails to involve fisticuffs. (One stool+ one tube of tooth paste +one toilet * overarching need by two boys to be first= pain, simple, boy math really.)
I keep telling my wife she will see the simple action/ reaction of boys as a blessing when they hit puberty. I try to explain how boys have a certain need to get dirty, fight, figure stuff out for themselves. She just looks at me scared, knowing that women who raise brothers change, especially those that don’t have daughters to dress in pink, shop with, braid hair, and generally balance out the testosterone. You have seen them; they are not bad, just different. They are the mom on the wrestling mat yelling, they learn to appreciate the nuance between a bait container in the fridge and leftovers, they grow accustomed to everyone one else in the house walking around in their underwear. No less feminine just different. Moms will always have the key to their son’s heart, boys will be boys, men will be boys and because of that we will always return to food, something moms know best.
If anyone out there knows brotherhood, I’m accepting guidance. Not really on how to raise them, just on how to remain sane while doing so. As for my wife she is a great cook and a great mom. I’m sure her headaches will pay off, she just needs some Advil.
I think I remember my mother yelling "Fight nice!" every now and then. I believe her secret to success was just in having so many boys...they didn't bother getting territorial or stealing each others' stuff, because it was just too exhausting. For instance, I could take a toy, get in position to defend my fort, and, instead of one attacker, the hordes would descend on me like the four horsemen of the apocalypse and rip me limb from limb. Which is why I ended up being a good brawler as a 'tween.
ReplyDeleteIt's tough when there are enough children to form a gang.
Seriously, though, part of the reason it worked was because there were significant age gaps, particularly between sons #4, 5, and 6. They were far apart enough in age that they just weren't interested in the same toys at the same time.
Of course, Mom's real secret of success was that she practiced corporal punishment. However, I don't recommend that. Just enjoy playing referee for a while. They'll grow out of it, just like they grew out of the terrible twos. This is actually how character is developed - you are teaching them, over and over, about the rules of how to be a good person, which involves knowing how far you can push boundaries before you are causing too much harm. It's one of the most valuable lessons they'll learn, but they'll never figure it out from a lecture. They've just got to practice pushing that limit and getting yoked back in by you and April, over and over and over, until they understand those limits by habit. This is how good men are made!
I'm going to disagree with my sister on this. I think the corporal punishment from my mother tied directly to the violence we all inflicted on each other. My kids fight periodically, but far less than we did and I think the fact that they are hit less makes them less likely to view hitting as normal.
ReplyDeleteThat's just my guess, though. I'm certainly no expert.
The only other thing I've noticed, which I'm sure you've seen too, is that excess energy leads to trouble. The most destruction and violence occurs on days when the kids aren't able to tire themselves out running around outside.
I'm going to assume Anonymous is the person to whom I am married. I laughed at the comment about the mom on the wrestling mat. Yep, that was me on Saturday, screaming, "roll the half! Get his wrist!" as I encouraged my sons to beat up someone else's kids in a regulated environment. I was kind of hoping that wrestling would get out some of that boy aggression/extra energy, but I had to punish one of them last night for hitting the other one with his head. Again.
ReplyDeleteI tend to reserve the corporal punishment for when someone is injured as a result of someone's bad choices. Especially since all it does is temporarily make me feel better, and it doesn't really impact their behavior at all, except to make them yell louder.
My husband assures me it's perfectly normal for brothers to beat the crap out of each other on a semi-regular basis. I'll have to take his word on it, but I'm hoping my boys will tone it down, because I don't want them growing up hating each other because they spent too much time fighting and not enough time being the built-in buddies that they were when they were 2 and 3.