Big boy here

The Pierini DIET - click here to learn more

In my wife’s ongoing attempt to school me in middle-age man courtesies and manners, she recently purchased a book that we’ve been reading together each night titled “Courtesy Calls Again”. I’m enjoying our evening reads together. While written from a Catholic perspective, it’s a great book for anyone sporting some rust in traditional courtesies and manners.

The book examines and debunks myths that have shaped our modern culture. Some of the myth characters include, what the author describes as, the cowboy, pioneer woman, the spontaneous man, the natural man, and that myth character that I most closely identify with – the “big boy”.

“Big boy” is none other than that young rascal for his mother/wife/sister to chide and put in order. I’m a middle-age man and a “big boy”. This is what the author has to say about “big boy”:

“In their desires to glorify youth, Hollywood and the media have accentuated this inclination for men to be big boys. More and more men have avoided seriousness and maturity. Abandoning their topcoats and the discreet colors and serious style of clothes typical of the mature age, grown men of every profession . . . have begun to dress, talk and adopt the mannerisms of their sons and nephews. Instead of representing the authority of the family, the father has begun to look and act like a big boy – joking, nonchalant, superficial, unreflective, and given to a certain brash spontaneity.”

My wife has a tall task and I wish her well in her ministry to tame this big boy here.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum