I’ve learned a lot this year. As usual, most of it the hard way. But in the last few months, with the help of some really wonderful people in my life, things have become quite clear on a few subjects.

Growth is hard. True growth takes work. Sweat. Tears. Struggle. Insight. All of that and more.

Part of what I’ve learned are things I’m trying to teach my son. He’s at that age where he needs to learn these lessons. He’s becoming a man, and many of these lessons are about just that: Being a man. So I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about that. About what it means to me, and about what I have learned about it.

A friend of mine posted this picture on Facebook, mostly as a joke, but she posts lots of “Cowboy Meat” these days.

Nice Cowboy Beefcake. Is that what it means to be a man? Big bulging muscles and all? Hmmm … I suspect that he’s not all that secure with himself. See that hand placement? Right. You see that all the time with men that aren’t secure in who they are as men.

Being a man isn’t about how you look. It isn’t about how big your muscles are. That’s all on the outside. Being a man comes from the inside.

And the grabbing your penis all the time? Watch just about every rapper strutting around on stage, one hand on the microphone, the other on … himself. As if he’s going to lose his penis if he’s not holding it in his hand at all times. That’s insecurity about who you are. You may be rich and famous, and yet …

They aren’t men. They’re just rich and famous.

Farther down the ladder are the ‘men’ that hit or otherwise abuse women. I’m of the firm belief that hitting anyone is counter-productive and wrong. It never teaches anyone anything — other than “getting hit hurts” — and it is all about expressing power and anger. Mostly because you have no other way of expressing your anger, and because you feel like you have such little power. Whether you’re hitting your kids, or hitting your spouse, it’s not about them. It’s about you, and how powerless and insignificant you feel on the inside.

Hitting other people doesn’t make you a man. It makes you an abuser. It shows me that you aren’t mature enough to handle your emotions. It shows me that you feel so powerless that you have to try to exert some physical power over someone else, because that’s the only power you have.

My son came home with that song a few weeks ago. A teachable moment for sure. Especially given the current culture teens are growing up in. It’s not okay to hit other people. It makes you a bully and a coward.

Then there are the guys that think that if you cook, or sew, or do any of those “female” things, that you’re not a real man. You know, the old “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche” deal. I have news for you. Real men can do whatever they want, because they’re not worried about what you, or anyone else, thinks about them.

When I first got to college one of my roommates didn’t know how to do his own laundry. He didn’t even know which was the washer and which was the dryer. He didn’t know how to cook. He couldn’t have sewn a button on a shirt to save his life. He was, in essence, a helpless little boy. He certainly wasn’t a man.

I’m teaching my son that lesson. I’ve cooked with him since he was a little boy. He loves to cook. He knows how to do his own laundry. He can sew — both by hand and with a sewing machine — and likes it. So do I. I quilt, too. I made that quilt over there for him. I’ve made him several quilts which he loves. He made one for his Grandparents. One thing he won’t be as he grows up: helpless.

I quilt because I like it. I also make jam and jelly and can out-cook most people — other than a few friends who are actually chefs. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks about me because I can cook and sew. Because I’m not afraid of who I am, and I don’t need external approval for who I am, or for my ‘manliness’ to be ok. That’s the other lesson I hope my son is learning in all of this.

There is another whole class of things that some men do in order to feel more like men: Drinking, women, danger, etc.

Drinking. How many beers you drink, or shots, or whatever. Even what you drink — beer or wine or scotch — really doesn’t make you a man any more than drinking fruit juice makes you a child. All it makes you is drunk. And, more often than not, stupid.

Women. Whom you sleep with, how many women you sleep with, etc. None of that makes you any more of a man. Wwat makes you a man is how you treat those women. With dignity and respect? ✔ in the man column. Dishonestly? Shabbily? Hit them? Emotionally, physically or otherwise abuse them? Not a man. Really.

Money. How much money you make, or what you do with it, doesn’t make you any more or less of a man. I know plenty of what I consider real men who don’t make much money. I know plenty of men that I have no respect for who make a lot of money.

It’s not about how much of anything you have — money, power, women, muscles — that makes you a man. It’s about how you act. About how you treat other people. About how you are in the world. Mostly, it’s about how you respect yourself and others. Those that have no respect for themselves seldom have respect for others. And those that have no respect for others are hardly men.