One of my heroes was taking a bath. He began to wonder how it would be to pull one of the full-sized bath towels into the water. Watch it and all. Pretty interesting. How about the other towel? He is four. His mother was quite irritated. She was irritated the other day when he did this and maybe more so this time.
Mommy just can’t understand. She had explained what a mess and a waste the towel experiments are. They accomplish nothing and require extra laundry. They are without purpose or value. What makes a nice, bright, loveable little guy do something like that?
A friend of a friend is exasperated with her son, who is 12. She just has to ride him constantly to get him to do his chores, to pull his weight in the household, to make his contribution. At the same time, her son is making quite satisfactory progress on his summer project of learning to play the guitar. He shows imagination and skill at finding YouTube videos that show how to play. He shows diligence at practicing the guitar. Why can’t he show those qualities with helping do his part for the house and the family?
A wise woman friend once spoke in one of my classes as a guest. She began with the statement “Men wear blinders.” I was puzzled. They do? They don’t seem that way to me.
As time goes by, I think I begin to understand. A boy wants to play Wii or swim or watch SpongeBob. Those activities are fun and exciting. What is fun and exciting is what he wants to do. He is built to try and secure opportunities for fun and excitement. Unfortunately for mommies and those trying to persuade and improve males, males are not especially built for get much fun or excitement from pleasing. They do have emotions and they do want admiration and appreciation. However, those wants generally have distinctly lower priority than fun and excitement.
Note: their definition of fun and excitement is the one that counts. When mommy or the teacher or the boss or the sergeant or the king announces a different definition, their own original definition still has priority. Hence, the appearance of one wearing blinders, one who can only see his target. It is difficult for the male to remember the additional, official definition – the one concerning the needs of sisters, groups, duty, etc. It is almost as difficult to remember that there even was an announcement or an additional definition.
When my hero takes another bath and remembers the fascinating way that last towel slowly sank, he may wonder what would happen if he blew on it a while. Would that speed up the absorption and the sinking? He may not be able to remember that it is the towels in the bath that upsets Mommy. Upsetting her is not fun and he doesn’t enjoy her anger nor her displeasure but it is hard to remember it when he is thinking of the way towels absorb.
