Amy over at homesteadrevival.blogspot.com, posted a wonderful piece about the importance of raising manly men. As a mother of 2 boys and 3 girls, I could not agree with her more. There is a huge difference in the men of today and the men of 100 years ago. Years ago, men could build homes with their own hands, hunt for food and grow food to feed their family. They knew how to protect their family. They taught their sons to do these things and raised them to be tough enough to defend their family if needed, but to be meek enough to know when a softer approach was necessary. Today, too many young men can't even figure out how to feed themselves if mama hasn't gone to the grocery store. It is a real shame that our boys are not being taught to be men, rather they are left to figure it out for themselves because they are either being raised by single mothers who don't have a manly figure to help them or their own fathers have never figured out what being a man means. I am so blessed to be married to a real man. He was taught by his father, another real man, to hunt, build, fix, work, love and respect. My husband takes his job as husband and father very seriously. Is he perfect? Nope. However, he treats me with love and respect and he takes time for his children. He teaches them things they don't want to learn because he knows that one day they will appreciate it. He doesn't try to be their best friend because he knows that what they need most from him is for him to be their father. They need him to lead so they can learn to lead. They need him to teach them all the things that I can't. They need him to make the hard decisions so that they will learn to do that for their families. Raising boys to be men is a very hard job but what a wonderful gift it will be to the women they will marry and the children they will raise.