Ideal Son

Chuck really wanted a second daughter after forming the perfect bond with his first... but instead he is learning to deal with his very own mini-me.

by Chuck nice

Every man wants a manly son; ideally, that first born male child. We see ourselves as some kind of conqueror; it really doesn't matter what we lord over as long as we've found something that makes us feel like we've just pillaged a village. This is why we want so desperately to have a son, so that we can have someone to leave our legacy of nothing. "My son, my son... I shall have a son; someone to carry on my name and inherit all that I am".  He shall be strong and wise, he shall make up for all of my failures, and I shall glory in his success-because I have fallen short.

And then you have a daughter.

Wow, who knew that there could be a person that embodies everything that you are and more; but they are two feet tall and they have girl parts. It's crazy! All I've ever wanted was a son. If you ask any man who is having his first, he will tell you that he just wants a healthy baby; but deep within the recesses of his heart he wants a boy. Well, my first born was a girl--and I fell in love with her. She is the epitome of everything I had ever hoped for in a child. She is beautiful; with a sparkle reserved only for brightly polished showroom cars or the twinkle in toothpaste commercials. She is also the reason I have a son. You see, I was so enamored with my little perfect girl that I wanted another, so I convinced my wife that we should get busy making a replica of daddy's little girl. What a shame that God had something different in mind. To put it in my father's words, "I'm soooo glad to see you with the son I have always wanted you to have."

Well that brings us to the movie that I watched recently-300. It is the story of a great conqueror who, when faced with certain death, decides to fight anyway. The movie is littered with muscularly cut warriors who engage in terrible battle with gory consequences. I saw it as a cautionary tale of what happens when men deny the fact that they are gay and express they're closeted suppression in the form of war...but that's another story all together. The movie is very violent and I was riveted. I mean, I was so engrossed that I didn't realize that my two year old son had wandered into the room and started watching the most horrifying scene in the movie. The scene consists of the Spartans constructing a wall of freshly murdered Persians, and then toppling said wall onto a new crop of Persians that they will ultimately kill-great viewing for a two year old, kind of like Barney buries a hooker. The only reason I knew my son was in the room was because my wife walked in and screamed, "What the hell are you doing"? "What!" I responded. "Why are you letting him watch this?" she fired back angrily. "I didn't know he was in here; he snuck up on me" I said defensively. "You're an idiot" she replied, as she scooped him up and stormed out of the room. Over the next few days my TWO YEAR OLD son picked up anything he could find and turned it into a sword and ran around the house screaming and stabbing everything, "AAAAAAHHHHH! AAAAAAHHH"! And my wife blamed me; but for all of the wrong reasons; it had nothing to do with the movie.

I have always disliked the part of me that is a conqueror; I think it's stupid and silly but it's in me...and it's in my son. That's why I wanted another daughter, because I saw her as the perfection of who I am and not a replication of the same. But I learned a valuable lesson from that experience; the true measure of a man is to teach his son to conquer what is right, not just to be a conqueror.