Family Friday Newsletter - 2.5 min read by: Finley Robinson

A Single Sentence from a Season Ahead

You Have What It Takes

When a profound insight affects the course of your parenting for almost two decades, you cannot keep it a secret.

Exactly 20 years ago, author John Eldridge published a small 50-page book that changed me as a father forever. His short book You Have What It Takes sells for $3 on Amazon and takes maybe 20 minutes to read.

He gets right to the point from the jump...

• "Every boy wants to be a hero. He wants to be powerful, he wants to be dangerous. He wants to know... Do I have what it takes?"
  ​
• "Every girl wants to believe that she is captivating, worth fighting for. She wants to know... Am I lovely?"

He spends the rest of his digestible 50 pages explaining why boys and girls are this way and how parents can answer their 1 question.

Here's the assignment for you as a mom or dad ...

Boys

"Look at the stories boys love and the games they play. They are full of battle, adventure, and danger. They love to build things... and then blow 'em up. They love to jump off stuff.

What does a boy wear if you let him wear what he wants to wear? Let him out of his school clothes and in a moment he'll be decked out in camo, army style, or dressed up as a cowboy, superhero, or a Jedi Knight with a bath towel or cape.

Every boy wants to be a hero. Every boy wants to be powerful, he wants to be dangerous, and has 1 burning question inside of him.

The question every boy is asking: "Do I have what it takes?"

He wants to hit the home run in the bottom of the ninth. He wants to bury a three-pointer as the buzzer sounds. He wants to win the board game, ace the test, or come out on top. He wants to prove himself.

And he's looking to you to affirm and answer his unique masculine question: Do I have what it takes?"

Girls

"Every little girl is asking one basic question too, but it's a very different one.

You can observe it in nearly everything she does. Little girls typically don't invent games where bloodshed is a prerequisite for having fun or where large numbers of people 'die' as a regular part of the routine.

Boys may have invented hockey, but little girls invented games like "wedding day" and "mommies & daddies" and "rescue the princess." You don't have to teach them how to do it - it comes naturally. It's part of their design.

This is not to say girls dislike adventure or competition. But there is something profoundly different between little girls and little boys. Give a group of girls a closet of gowns and shoes and Mom's costume jewelry and they are captured for hours. They will play "princess" and "movie star" and "beauty queen."

Her question is very different from her brothers. Every little girl wants to know: Am I lovely?

All through those years when she is playing dress up and doing shows for you and playing princess and trying to look beautiful and shedding tears over the fact that she might not be, she is trying to capture your attention.

She wants to know: Am I lovely? That's the unique feminine question every little girl is asking and she's looking to you to answer it."

Once I understood these two basic questions that my son and daughters each had inside of them, it transformed my parenting approach. From my words to my hugs to challenging them to encouraging them, I tried to answer their inner question as often and intentionally as possible. I hope you'll try and do the same.

Finley