Introduction to Let Them Be Men Shelley Harper

Ok so trying to SHOW not TELL I feel like my introduction is better than when I started. It's a little more descriptive but I have to be honest, writing non fiction it's a struggle for me to tap into that.....Open to all ideas. The rest of what I've written in the book so far is much less descriptive so I'm struggling. This is new to me but I'm excited to learn. In reading everyone else's I feel like I'm writing an instruction manual for something HA!

Let Them Be Men

Forward:

Introduction: My first connection with a man was my father who was a teenage dad at eighteen years old. He was an exception to the rule who gave up a promising football career to work and support his growing family. He is a man’s man and set a high bar. He wanted a boy, but he got a girl first, me; so he doted on me but he also taught me pass patterns. I can still smell the leather football and feel how tiny my hand felt in comparison to the football when I caught it. I can still remember him telling me how to put my fingers on the laces when I attempted to throw it back to him. We did this for hours in the freshly mowed grass of the parks where he played flag football under the lights. He introduced me to the smell of frothing horse sweat under the hot sun in the high country of Colorado, and how it felt when the horses hooves slid on top of the ever moving shale rock. I learned how to snowmobile in feet of powder and the feeling of going so fast when I rode with him in high altitude. He taught me how to be competitive and aggressive in sports; as a gymnast I believe the phrase he used when teaching me about aggression was “to grunt if you have to.” He encouraged me to be outspoken, an independent thinker and a leader and many other things that have served me well but often got me into trouble with authority and men. He didn’t really teach me how to be a wife, that was my mom‘s job. In many ways I wanted to be like my dad because he was a figure bigger than life. Picture Chuck Norris, Billy Graham, James Bond and Robert Redford combined into one man. He definitely taught me what a man’s man looked and acted like. So in a lot of ways, he really set me up for failure because whoever I married had a high standard to live up to. My second introduction to a man was my little brother. We were five years apart, so at first he was more like a play doll than anything. As we grew up, he became a dear friend. In many ways, he is different from my dad but just as much a man’s man. What that taught me was that being a man’s man can look different. My brother is a girl dad, and he can be so tender and so understanding; he can make an amazing latte and pick up on all the signals that most men miss and yet he can pack out the biggest elk, hike the most miles, do the most pull-ups at CrossFit and withstand the most suffering both physically and mentally. The third and main man is my husband Chris. He was a marine. He was trained to kill a man with his bare hands, but what attracted me to him besides his manly physique and over the top confidence was the way he tenderly teared up when talking about his mom who had recently passed away. I also saw a dreamer in those baby blues of his and felt like I could see directly into his soul. I think in many ways I saw both my dad and my brother in him. Two of the men who meant the most to me combined into one. Then God blessed us with four children, three strapping sons and one daughter squished in the middle. I was now introduced to three more men that I got to watch grow from newborn stage to adulthood. They are amazing combinations of their dad and me. They are men’s men. However, I think I’m safe to say they’re all mama’s boys as well. Each one of them brings unique gifts to the table in the form of their personalities. Add to that mix my son in law and you have plenty of material as far as observing goes to see what moves a man, what struggles men have, what victories they share in, and why they are also wonderfully amazing. I watch as all of these men navigate life. The ups, the downs. Observing all of these men in my life I have witnessed firsthand that yes they are all tough but yet they’re all very tender and they are all very human and I have seen them at their lowest moments so I can tell you that they are not invincible. And I have seen them at their highest moments. They are human. They fail, they struggle, they conquer! I feel so very fortunate that my grandsons have all of these amazing examples in their lives. I will not apologize for my mens’ strength. Nor do I think we should as a society. I don’t want my grandson‘s growing up, feeling like they should change, or they should be less manly, less rough or tough in order to fit in. I can appreciate and understand that not all men are rough and tumble. I know that some of them love to play the piano or sing. Hello Michael Buble! And I am not one to say there’s only one way a man should be at all. But what I will shout from the rooftops is that men don’t need to be less anything to somehow appease the rest of us. Let them be men!