So there is a thing going on with the kids on Facebook (shocker, I know). Each day has a "theme" and the kids post pictures of people for that day. I think "Throwback Thursday" started it all, and people would post really old pictures of themselves. Enter WomanCrush Wednesday, Selfie Sunday, Flashback Friday, and on and on.
I own a few teenage boys, and had seen their pictures come up a few times on "Man Crush Monday". I was okay with it all, it seemed harmless enough.
Until four letters changed EVERYTHING.
Man Crush Monday morphed into Man Candy Monday. And still, there are pictures of my son. I figured it was one girl, and it would go away. Until it wasn't, and it didn't. The last straw is seeing some Girl I had never met or heard of before, posting pictures of my son for Man Candy Monday. I don't know why. It is the wrong day, the wrong time, the wrong nerve.
If I had daughters, I would object vociferously to "Sex Object
Saturday". As the parents of boys, I HATE "Man Candy Monday".
I am
CONSTANTLY telling my boys that women are not to be referred to as
"sexy" because that reduces them to little more than brainless toys
useful for one purpose only. When you call someone "candy", the
implication is the same.
You discard their intelligence,
their personality, their faith, their soul, if they are polite, or a
good friend or kind to animals or helpful to their gramma. You reduce
them to a two-dimensional object, regardless of whether they are
tenacious, or soft-hearted, or shy or crazy good at music or sports or
chess, whether they read Asimov or the Bible or Rowling or nothing at
all. My boys are many, many things.
They may be crazy smart, or an
amazing friend, or have a quirky and dark sense of humor, or love their
dog more than just about anything.
They might cry over kids who are
homeless and starving in India or go out of their way to make sure that
everyone at the gathering has a good time, or spend time thinking deeply
over politics and faith.
They might keep their rooms like a disaster
zone or fanatically neat, they may have one pair of jeans they love all
the time or more clothes than will fit in their closet.
They might be
insecure one day and everyone's best friend the next, they might be too
shy to show their true personality or be perfectly content to just be
quiet, or play music, or take a run, or be the life of the party, or all of these things in one
afternoon.
They might be handsome (and make no mistake, I am constantly
amazed at how good looking my children are. Heaven knows that didn't
come from their dad or I), but that only scratches the barest surface of
who they are. To reduce them to "man candy" kills me.
They have been
raised to be men of faith, of conscience, of thought, of compassion, of
community. If heard them referring to one of these girls in such a
denigrating way, I would not allow it. Amazing man Monday, Marvelous
Man Monday, Good Man Monday, even Man Crush Monday - go right ahead.
Man Candy Monday - no. As a mom, as their mom, it sits on every wrong
nerve I have.
