What's It Take to Make a Man?: A Handbook for the Parents of Boys
By R. O. Bloch
()
About this ebook
With engaging chapter titles like "The Hole In The Soul Generation" and "Raising vs. Nurturing," What’s It Take To Make A Man? gets right to the point, in a common sense style that is inclusive of all boys, no matter what their sexual preference, or even their parents’ gender or relationship.Over 132,000 American teens attempted suicide in a recent year. Boys were five times more likely to try than girls. Boys are seven times more likely to drop out of school before age 18, and are joining gangs at alarming rates. By any measure, our boys are timed out, disengaged, and failing fast. Most have no idea of their obligation, or even their option, to become Men of character.
Related to What's It Take to Make a Man?
Related ebooks
Make Way for You: Tips for getting out of your own way Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Good Deed Goes Unpunished Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExecutive Wellness: The 4 Week Get-Back-On-Track Program Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIndispensable: How to Succeed at Your First Job and Beyond Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oldest Code of Laws in the World The code of laws promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon B.C. 2285-2242 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLive Successfully! Book No. 10 - How to Develop Your Personality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBehavioural Pattern of Successful Businessmen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrometheus Bound Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Driver's Manual for Drunk Drivers: Car: Cognitive Apprenticeship Recovery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Employee to Entrepreneur: Five Days That Changed My Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInitiative: A Proven Method to Bring Your Passions to Life (and Work) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of Conversation: Twelve Golden Rules Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoney Circles: Freedom by Circulation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCareer Imprints: Creating Leaders Across An Industry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMany Minds of Men Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of Significant Relationships Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMore Than Okay-ish Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Business Forecasting Deal: Exposing Myths, Eliminating Bad Practices, Providing Practical Solutions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaving Main Street: Small Business in the Time of COVID-19 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWarehouse Management Policies and Procedures A Complete Guide - 2019 Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1746-47 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5More than a Millionaire: Your Path to Wealth, Happiness, and a Purposeful Life--Starting Now!: The Worry Free Retirement Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ultimate Sale: A Financially Simple Guide to Selling a Business for Maximum Profit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Albino Chameleon: The Things That Make You 'You' Can Become Your Super Power Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA New Education for New Minds: A Conversation About Mind-Centered Learning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFundamentals of Prosperity What They Are and Whence They Come Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeing a Good Husband and Father: How One Can Be a Good Husband and Father Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings6 Secrets to Leveraging Success: A Guide for Entrepreneurs, Family Offices, and Their Trusted Advisors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe White Box Club Handbook: Simple Tools For Career Transition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for What's It Take to Make a Man?
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
What's It Take to Make a Man? - R. O. Bloch
Conviction
What’s It Take to Make a Man?
By R. O. Bloch
Copyright 2012 by R. O. Bloch
Cover Design by Eric Lindsey
Cover copyright by Park East Press and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 2011.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
http://www.untreedreads.com
What’s It Take to Make a Man?
By R. O. Bloch
Contents
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1: EVIDENCE
How some experts address the fact that so many boys are unsure of their role in society and lack a sense of self-worth
CHAPTER 2: MAN THEMES
The Essential Manly Virtues: Honesty, Selfless Family Service, Team Playing, Faith In Oneself, Common Sense, and One’s Relationship to All Things
CHAPTER 3: THE DECLINE OF HONESTY
Honesty is the Universal Virtue, common to all men and women, in all societies on the face of the earth.
CHAPTER 4: SELFLESSNESS THROUGH SERVICE
Family service as a way to strengthen today’s family and as a mechanism to teach boys how to relate to others.
CHAPTER 5: RIGHT vs. WRONG: To Team, or Not to Team? That Is the Question.
Teaching respect for other people; how to make proper amends for misdeeds and thereby strengthen relationships.
CHAPTER 6: COMMON SENSE: Fairness Vs. Equity
How to identify and teach common sense approaches to problem solving.
CHAPTER 7: THE HOLE-IN-THE-SOUL GENERATION
Boys with no character training from home live their lives with a huge hole in their soul. Filling them up with character lessons, thereby making Men of Character.
CHAPTER 8: RAISING vs. NURTURING
Why many families are their own undoing; how nurturing rather than raising sons can turn their fate around.
CHAPTER 9: NEW ROLES FOR NEW MEN
A plan for parents with sons who don’t fit the college-bound model
CHAPTER 10: THE CASE FOR TOUGH LOVE: Teaching Self-Discipline to the Unconvinced
Despite adults’ best efforts, some boys require stern measures to learn self-control; how to persuade the unconvinced.
CHAPTER 11: PARENTING WITH CONVICTION
An appeal for the essential elements of good parenting.
PREFACE
All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.
Abraham Lincoln
Early on in the authoring process, one of my readers suggested I call this book Boy-Raising for Dummies. Still another offered A Grumpy Old Man’s View of Raising Boys as an appropriate title. I’m sure if I had used either of those titles sales would skyrocket. What’s more, knowing those two prospective titles in advance may actually help you understand some of what you are about to read. Nonetheless, they didn’t really give the right overall impression of my hopes for this work. Besides, it’s probably safe to say that if you are reading here you’re no dummy, and if I were a grumpy old man I’d probably be fishing instead of writing.
With the above in mind, you may then be wondering why I chose to call it What’s It Take to Make a Man? Especially, why did I choose to use the word Make in the title? Why not call it What’s It Take to Produce a Man? or why not…to Grow a Man?
If you’re inclined to think that men are nothing but apples and bananas, perhaps the first iteration might do pretty well. But to my mind, produce has more to do with horticulture than with human culture. Likewise, grow is similarly botanical. In fact, other infinitives would have missed the mark in one way or another in just the same way.
Indeed, I might very well have called this work, What’s It Take to Upgrade a Boy to a Man? for that concept is closer to the process we’re talking about. These days, we can upgrade everything from our computer hardware to our very way of life (if we believe the advertisers and marketers). To upgrade simply means to go from a lower level of existence to a better one. But that word too did not quite hit the mark.
Then what do I mean when I say to Make a Man? Let me assure you, it’s not a trivial matter of word choice. In this work, we discuss the very idea of turning a young male person into a Man, which is to say, making a Man. Note the capital M. In these pages, we are not just talking about hormonal changes that produce secondary sex characteristics. We are talking about turning the very mindset of the male from something weak and animal-wild into something strong and humanely self-controlled. As you will see, this is not easy.
Now you might think I intended this work primarily as a handbook for young males to read as they mature. I hope some of them will read it, but most will not. And frankly, if boys wait to open these pages until their muscles bulge and their peach fuzz pops, it’ll probably be too late anyway. Yet no doubt this book will be helpful to men of almost any age who sincerely wish to become Men of character and feeling. If that is you, then these words will serve you well.
But as you might have guessed, this book will be most useful for and welcomed by parents, which we will define as all the committed people who parent. Our job will be to fix in your mind humanity’s oldest and most successful method of filling the void in their characters that all too many boys these days profoundly sense and recoil from. We’ll talk about building character, using family service as the first step and most effective way of imbedding
or building character into boys from day one, not simply appending it or adding it to them as they grow