Winston Churchill said “Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” I believe the aspect of this quote that is the hardest is enthusiasm. Dennis Rainey in Stepping Up, A Call to Courageous Manhood tells the story of Churchill’s early political career; the part no one remembers – the part where everyone believed the Nazi’s were the good guys and that Churchill should give them a break. Sitting on this side of history, I would imagine that many of Churchill’s adversaries at that time would rather be forgotten.

Rainey really hones in on Churchill’s persistence in spite of a vast majority thinking he was off his rocker. I appreciate Rainey’s likening the battle of raising our children to World War II. I can’t think of any battle in history that would paint a better picture of the stakes set in raising both sons and daughters. In the face of adverse conditions as our children get older our tendency will be to “pull out” as we are “pushed out.” As a father of now two, I can’t say that I have experienced this in my relationship with Addie and JB, but I do appreciate the warning. Thinking back to my own experience, I remember pushing back on my parent’s involvement in my life. Thankfully, they pushed back and didn’t pull away.

It takes both courage and enthusiasm to jump back in, especially in the face of failure. They say that with every generation raising children gets harder. If that is true, I shudder to think what it will be like for Val and I to raise both Addie and JB in the next 10 years. Yet, I think that Rainey appropriately solves the problem.  We must never stop raising the bar and expecting more out of our children. Rainey quotes Alex Harris,

“We expect immaturity and irresponsibility from teenagers, and that is exactly what we get.”

So instead of guiding our children through the minefield of life we let them walk barefoot and blindfolded. Yes, our children will push back but our response should be leaning in instead of pulling out. Rainey says,

“If we fail in this responsibility, we send our sons into battle destined to become casualties to the traps of adolescence. And ill equipped to be men who step up.”

While Rainey is point straight at men I believe there are some lessons we can learn in raising both young men and women. Here are six attributes Rainey outlines for training teenagers:

1. They need help assassinating selfishness and pride. – A man who is full of himself will never be the man God created him to be.
2. They need to learn and apply fundamental convictions and character qualities to real-life issues. – Courage is ultimately built on conviction. Convictions are developed as they learn the truth about God and life, and who they are as men.
3. They need a relationship with their dad. – Relationships are built as we are authentic with our sons.
4. The best time to begin preparing a boy for adolescence is before it begins. – Much better to have a good offense than to constantly be playing defense.
5. Young men need to be with men. – Young men need to talk about manly things with older men.
6. Teenage boys can’t be allowed to linger in adolescence. – We are meant to help them with their basic needs and at some point they need to learn to provide for their own adult tastes.

“Ask any single woman in her twenties and thirties, and she’ll tell you that there is an endangered species of real men who want to assume the responsibilities of a man. As pastor Mark Driscoll observed, ‘We live in a culture of hook up, shack up, break up. Men are marrying later and staying married shorter than ever. The average dude is not a dude but just a boy who can shave.’”