There are certain principles that a mother needs to know about her sons.
First, a mother needs to blend respect and toughness. Mothers with a critical or harsh spirit can certainly be hard on their sons, but it is a demeaning and emasculating hardness. And at the other end of the spectrum, mothers can be respectful of their sons in such a way that they never require anything of them. This kind of respect deterioriates into a mollycoddling mess. But a mother who approaches her son with wisdom is one who respects and consequently expects. When a wise mother sees insecurity in her son, the response should not be scorn, it should not be sympathy. The right response is respect. Boys can rise to respect, when they might crater under harsh pressure or puff up in response to excessive praise.
Second, a mother needs to see small boys as future men. The way boys learn to deal with their various immature "passions" will generally be the way they deal with adult passions. A boy who is not obviously learning self-control with regard to temper, his stomach, his video games, or his school work is a boy who will still lack self-control when sexual temptation arrives. Many times mothers unwittingly train boys to mistreat their future wives through sinful indulgence of boyish passions. It is important to distinguish between the godly service a mother is supposed to supply the household (like cooking the meals) and an ungodly catering that will help destroy her son (like cooking a second breakfast when her son gets up hours after everyone else, and for no good reason).
Third, a mother needs to learn that when a godly father is disciplining a boy, he is doing so while remembering. He used to think the way his son thinks; he used to receive what his son is now receiving; he used to connive the way his son is conniving. A mother can and should discipline her son, but she cannot do it while remembering. She therefore needs her husband's perspective in order to aim the way she ought. For her to have his perspective, he must talk about it with her, an dnot just assume that everyone in the world has the same memories and experiences he has.
Fourth, a mother needs to realize that when she gets exasperated or annoyed with her sons, she is helping them learn how to control or manipulate her. It usually goes like this: A son doesn't do what he was asked to do seven or eight times. Mom finally gets steamed and flares up over it. Mom has more of a tender conscience about her annoyance than the son does about his disobedience. She consequently apologizes and he magnanimously forgives her. The solution is for Mom to cheerfully require obedience from her sons long before annoyance is even a possibility.
And fifth, a mother needs to know that God has given her to her sons, and her sons to her, and that when the gift is received with wisdom, the blessings are tremendous and flow in both directions. But if the relation is foolishly embraced, the book of Proverbs poignantly prophecies a coming maternal grief.
Transitioning to another important aspect of raising boys is understanding that there is a type of toughness in discipline which must be built. Discipline is not limited to responses to disobedience and sin; discipline also includes patient instruction when a child encounters some of life's ordinary difficulties.
Instilling toughness in boys is very important. A masculine toughness is the only foundation upon which a masculine tenderness may be safely placed. Without a concrete foundation, thoughtfulness, consideration, and sensitivity in men is just simply gross. So mothers must take particular care against allowing some of their feminine strengths to be the occasion of stumbling for their sons.
First, a mother should talk regularly with her husband about her sons and her relationship to them. Any number of things may be happening which she does not see and concerning which her husband's advice would be invaluable.
Second, a mother must have the respect and obedience of her sons. The older and bigger they get, the more obedient they should be. A son who is a foot and a half taller than his mother should hear her with respect. Of course she should be careful not to issue needless requirements, but when she requires something, it must be cheerfully done. If it is not, then she should immediately involve her husband. The central issue is not the thing to be done, but rather teaching the son to honor his mother and to respect women generally.
Third, a mother must never subsidize her sons' laziness. Masculine inertia is difficult for anyone to deal with, and the aversion which many boys have to academic rigor is renowned. But educational laziness is the mother of poverty and sloth. The word that should characterize the academic activity of the home is industry. Boys can usually work much harder than they say they can. In all this, under the father's supervision, the mother can equip her sons to rise up and call her blessed.
Another aspect of this is the task of teaching sons how to treat their mothers, and this means instruction in manners. Boys have a need to be respected, but sometimes this need can be communicated in some strange ways. And because boys can gravitate toward such strange forms of communicating their boyhood, they may come to think that manners are for sissies. A well-mannered boy is not a boy who acts like his sister.
Manners for boys should be a means of disciplining and directing strength, and not a means of denying it. This means that boys need to be taught that manners are a means of showing and receiving honor. Honor is a concept which boys instinctively understand and love, but they still have to be taught to direct it with wisdom. Honor, in its turn, cannot be understood apart from authority and obedience.
Boys thrive under authority and are not threatened by it. At the same time, the authority must be of the kind which understands masculinity and nurtures it by hammering it. One of the "hammers" should be a short course in manners.
Boys should not be allowed to think that manners are something which women impose on men. Rather, they should see manners as something which men teach boys to do, for the sake of honoring and protecting women, and for the sake of living graciously with them.
A priority should be placed on those manners and customs which place a distinction between men and women. For instance, men seat women at the dinner table, open and hold doors, stand when a woman enters the room, walk on the sidewalk between a woman and the traffic, etc.
The next class of manners would focus on disciplining a young man to think of the comfort and possessions of others - not tipping back in chairs, not putting feet on the coffee table, and not bouncing the basketball next to the china cabinet.
A third category would be in the realm of personal presentation: not dressing like a slob, not scarfing food, not wearing a baseball cap indoors, etc. In this section, a boy is being taught to present himself as trustworthy in all the categories.
All these manners are a way of showing honor to others in areas which are not of cosmic importance. At the same time, because they are acts of love, even though they are live in trifles, God considers them important.
<"Future Men" by Douglas Wilson>
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