In Praise of Man

My husband can tie his own shoelaces. He can also cook, go grocery shopping, and take out the garbage. And he doesn’t need me to hold his hand to do them.
According to magazines such as Newsweek and Time, we have stumbled into the age of the “man child.” It seems that my generation and the next ones are full of lazy, stupid, incompetent, noncommittal men, who are only interested in beer, video games, and sex. Surely Adam Sandler movies prove this.

I recall a commercial for high-tech phones that could take pictures. (Yes, it was back in the day.) The commercial showed a man wandering around a grocery store looking lost and confused. His brilliant wife took pictures of grocery items in her kitchen, and then sent the photos to her husband’s phone. Upon seeing the photos, the husband was joyously relieved and able to buy the correct groceries. Wow. How could that woman put up with such a dunce? (But then, why was she having him shop for things she already had?)

Today’s media inundate us with similar messages. Men are so stupid they can’t buy food, figure out how an automatic room freshener works, or realize their wife is talking about yogurt when she says she’s eating key lime pie and apple turnovers (even though the fridge he is frantically searching is full of yogurt). Men burn simple meals, overflow the washing machine, and leave the house disgustingly dirty. The alpha woman on TV sighs, shakes her head, and rolls her eyes at her simpleminded husband. Then she grabs a latte with her friends and they have a good laugh about the idiot she married.

Because of the instant nature of the digital age, it seems like this man-child phenomenon is widespread, that every man I pass on the street is contemplating how to break up with his clingy girlfriend and wondering how much he can drink at his next kegger. Though I don’t doubt some men are like this, I believe that many more men are trying their darndest to support their family as well as they can. They are smart, considerate, and helpful. They do yard work and put up Christmas lights. They feed, clothe, and bathe their kids. They help their wife, even when she orders him around like he’s an extra child in the house. I see it in my friends, in my neighborhood, and in my church.

I know that in the “dark ages” women were coddled, condescended to, and treated as unequal human beings, and that it has been only recently in history that our society has realized that women are capable of more than answering phones and ordering flowers for the boss’s wife. Physics dictates that the pendulum will swing the other way eventually. I think it has swung too far. But many women will continue kicking that pendulum away from them until it breaks, screaming their exes’ names with each stilettoed kick.

A few days ago I watched a video clip from a national morning news show. An author of this subject talked about how today’s woman wants a man who is “manly” and who will take care of her, but she also want a man who treats her as an equal and independent entity, whom she can kick to the curb without complaint whenever she wants. Basically, women are sending mixed messages. Heck, I’d throw in the towel too if I didn’t know if the woman I opened the door for was going to thank me or bite my head off. It’s a lose-lose situation. Men just can’t win anymore.

Each sex has its strengths and weaknesses. We think differently. It’s how we’re made. There is no “better” or “superior” gender, as much as some women would like to believe it. We’ve all heard the cliché, “Behind every successful man is a good woman,” and no doubt in retaliation many women have changed it to, “In front of every successful man is a more successful woman.” I ask, why does someone have to be in front?

At a wedding I overheard a smirking young married woman tell the groom, “Do exactly what she tells you to do.” I bristled. I wanted to ask her if that was the secret to her marriage. Sadly, I didn’t have to. A few months later she was divorced.