This is a partial transcript of an internview Glenn Beck did with the mother of a Navy Seal killed in 2011 during active duty, Karen Vaughn, who has written a book about raising strong kids. These highlights key on what I took as the main point and I see as one of the main problems with our current society. Men either aren't allowed or aren't taught to be men...
The ellipses represent text I left out.
KAREN: ...out of the blue, a friend of mine asked me to speak to a mom’s group down in south Florida, not far from my home. And she said, I want you to teach people how to raise a world changer like your son....
KAREN: And so I just sort of thought, wow, I’ll go back through these stories, and I will weave the teaching principles into every single story. And that’s what I did.
And my oldest daughter and I wrote 18 tiny chapters in the back of the study guide where moms could sit down together in groups or even dads and go through principles of how to raise strong formidable kids who don’t need safe spaces on college campuses. Kids that are willing to run in the direction of whatever it is God calls them to do with their life, instead of running away from it in fear or cowardice. Just kids who can take what life deals them.
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GLENN: What was the biggest thing that you get to now and say, had no idea, but, wow, were we lucky we did this and people should do this?
KAREN: The first thing that comes to my mind is as a mom, wow, was I lucky that I caved to the concept that my husband wanted to raise a man. It’s that simple.
You know, in our society, I believe one of the biggest breakdowns in our homes right now is this role reversal and this constant striving of women to believe that they have to be everything that a — I know this sounds — this is such a broad thing. And I know it needs to be a little more narrow than this, but there’s a lot to talk about here in our culture, you know, where we are constantly telling men, you have to be more like women. You have to be more like women to fit into this society. And, you know, I was married to a rugged farm boy who had no intention of conforming our son to my — you know, and I say in the book, I tried to fight that every way I knew — I was a 19-year-old mom, Glenn, when Aaron was born. And so I tried to fight it every way I could. I entered him in the Troy Tiny Tot Beauty Review. And he won it.
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KAREN: While Billy was constantly busy teaching Aaron that he could overcome unimaginable obstacles, obstacles that seemed too huge for him. He would have him out there helping him cut trees on our farm, helping him give birth to calves. You know — you know, things like that.
And I tell a story about White Cow, this cow who literally terrorized our children on our cattle farm in Tennessee. And this cow — Aaron was terrified of this cow. He wouldn’t walk out the pasture with it. And Billy one day, instead of letting Aaron cower in fear to this cow, he said, I’m going to tell you what, you’re going to stand at the fence right now. And when White Cow — I’m going to herd the cows in. And when White Cow confronts you, if she charges you son, you’ve got to punch her in the nose. I’m sitting there thinking — Aaron weighed like 60 pounds soaking wet. You know, he’s about ten years old, I think. And I was like, you’re going to do, what? But he let Aaron do it. I stood back and let him do it. And Aaron did.
White Cow sure enough charged Aaron that day. And he rared back in a nerve-defying — like a nerve-racking defiance and just punched that heifer in the nose. Well, you know what he learned that day — and White Cow, you know, she snorted and snarled at him and took a step back like she couldn’t believe what happened, but then in submission she went in the pen. And Aaron learned that day that there was no challenge too great for him. And this is what drove him to become not only a Navy SEAL, but all the way to the pinnacle at Seal Team 6. Those are the things. And I say the greatest principle I can teach any mom is let your husband raise a man. It’s hard not to interfere. But let him raise a man.
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GLENN: What was the thing that you found out that you did wrong?
KAREN: That’s a hard question. No one has ever asked me to evaluate that side, Glenn.
Wow. You know, gosh, I’m not like I’m flawless. But if I tried to single out one thing — I don’t know. Maybe it was that — maybe it was that I resisted things for so long. You know, that I tried so hard to resist. Speaking specifically about Aaron, not with our daughters, but maybe I tried to resist so much that forging that a man has to do with his son, if a boy is going to turn out right. You know, I did resist it for a long time.
And like I said, I’m thankful that I caved. But that’s the first thing that comes to my mind, is I really did try to resist that. And if I could just speak to women out there who are raising boys, stop resisting. Let your — let your husband have that role in his — in his son’s life. And let him be to him what he needs to be, you know, and stop trying to turn both of them into women.
source: http://www.glennbeck.com/...
