Christianity

A Lesson on Raising Boys To Respect Women

If you are raising little girls or little boys, you should raise them as little girls or little boys. That means that you must be concerned to teach boys to become men, and girls to become women. Gender-neutral parenting is a fool’s errand and ignores the differences that God has created between the sexes. The implication of this is that if you want a son to grow up to treat women with respect and dignity, then you must teach him the lesson as a boy. He must learn from his parents that girls are different than boys and that little girls deserve special treatment.

That is why I love this article by Doug Wilson on raising brothers and sisters. Wilson writes,

Boys should be taught that they are to protect their sisters “from the dragon,” and the very first thing this means is that they must refrain from turning into the dragon themselves. When the protector turns into the very thing that protection is needed from, the result for the girl involved is nightmarish. The things you assumed as fixed and given turn on you; one thing morphs into another. When a brother is being annoying (say, for a wild hypothetical), his sister is dealing with two things, not one. The first thing is the annoyance itself — what she would be dealing with if her sister or a friend at school were being annoying.

But when her brother does it, a second thing comes into the picture, and that is the sense of a double-cross, or a betrayal. He ought be standing between the threat and his sister, but instead he has abandoned his post. It is this that feeds the temptation to resentment — first of her brother, then her father (who does not intervene), and then of men generally.

There’s much more wisdom in this article. Read it here.

3 Comments

  • Don Johnson

    In the Kingdom, the stronger protects the weaker; and there are various ways to be stronger or weaker, not just physical. In the Kingdom, one is to respect everyone, as all are made in the image of God.

  • Chris Taylor

    Thankfully, wisdom is proved by her children! I thank God for the good and faithful fruit displayed in Doug’s family. It gives me encouragement to keep at it with my own children.

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