The Story of a Bad Boy

In my world growing up, life centered largely around girly activities like pretending to be Ariel as she sings on the rock, waves crashing strategically around her ruby red hair. Other girl activities included playing with Barbies and improvising on Barbie's furniture by wrapping a VHS cover with a washcloth--voila! Barbie's bed! Little did I know I was putting my "hand to the spindle" even then. I could turn virtually any activity into a game of "house."

In other words, I had no clue what being a young boy was like. Couldn't relate. Didn't want to relate. They were messy, dirty, and I wanted them to just be still. I wanted to poise myself elegantly on that Ariel rock and sing, and my male friends wanted to heave themselves off of it, grunting victoriously on the way down.

As the mother of a son, I've gotten to experience the birth of boyhood, the first vestiges of proof positive that God has designed boys and girls to be different. I don't even try to "build" something with Eli's blocks without knowing he'll King-Kong it before I can finish. Obviously, this is a whole new world to me, about as foreign as Oz was to Dorothy. How does he not find the utmost glee at seeing a beautifully symmetrical stack of bocks?

The Story of a Bad Boy, apparently one of the first books to chronicle American childhood, taught me a great deal about what it means to be a boy. It's a semi-autobiographical tale of Thomas Aldrich's childhood, although he changes his name slightly in the story. Even though the title didn't personally resonate with me, I knew I was in for it when I read the second paragraph of the book:

"I call my story the story of a bad boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young gentlemen who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly because I really was not a cherub...in short, I was a real human boy, such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more like the impossible boy in a story-book than a sound orange is like one that has been sucked dry."

Aldrich later, in his description of a childhood arch-enemy with whom a playground "fight" was inevitable, quotes from what he calls "one of the best books ever written for boys." (Tom Brown's Schooldays at Rugby). Two years ago I would have read over the quote cursorily, not unlike you do when you read the exhaustive genealogies of so-and-so in the Bible (it's okay to admit it). But since I have a boy whom I desire to actually be a boy, I thought I'd read carefully.

"Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and football. Not one of you will be the worse, but very much the better, for learning to box well. Should you never have to use it in earnest, there's no exercise in the world so good for the temper and for the muscles of the back and legs.

As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all means. When the time comes, if it ever should, that you have to say "Yes" or "No" to a challenge to fight, say "No" if you can--only take care you make it clear to yourself why you say "No." It's a proof of the highest courage, if done from true Christian motives. It's quite right and justifiable, if done from a simple aversion to physical pain and danger. But don't say "No" because you fear a licking, and say or think it's because you fear God, for that's neither Christian nor honest. And if you do fight, fight it out; and don't give in while you can stand and see."

This is a lesson I'd like to Eli to learn--to be open and honest in his dealings with other boys, to be courageous and honorable, and if necessary, fight to the end and refuse to be "licked" by someone else. He'll have his own stories to tell, and chances are they'll be a lot more adventurous than my games of fake grocery shopping as a 6 year old.