Teaching Boys to Respect Women

Listen, the most important lesson you can give your sons on how to respect women is in how you treat your wife. Love your wife well because by your example, you're teaching your sons how to treat women and you're teaching your daughters what they should expect for men.

And by your example, you're either giving your kids a big head start with blessing or you're giving them some baggage that they're going to have to overcome. That's Dave Willis and he's our guest today on Focus on the Family. And your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly.

Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. You know, John, our culture today seems to have trouble with respect and we see it in so many different ways. The flurry of our busy lives and with the constant influx of news and social media. I think we've kind of let common courtesy just go to the wayside.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the Me Too movement, which escalated in 2017 when more and more stories of inappropriate behavior and disrespect toward women came to light in the media and it just kept coming. And there's a great scripture in the New Testament Romans 12 10. It says, Love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor. And that's certainly a goal for all of us here at Focus on the Family. Nobody's perfect. We get that. But our culture today needs to do a better job of informing boys particularly how to treat women and how to be respectful. And that's the topic we're going to cover today with a great guest. Dave Willis, as I said, is with us. He's got four boys. He's a former pastor, speaker, author, a relationship coach, a television host for Marriage Today, along with his wife, Ashley. And he's been here before. Today, he's with us to talk about his book, Raising Boys Who Respect Girls, Upending Locker Room Mentality, Blind Spots and Unintended Sexism. And you can get your copy at our website.

We've got details in the episode notes. Hey, Dave, welcome back to Focus. Hey, guys, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me back.

Really appreciate it. You know, this whole idea of teaching boys about respecting women really hit home for you with your son, Cooper. And we mentioned you have four boys, so that's great. I think you have a Ph.D. in Raising Sons, right? Well, we're working on it. My wife has the Ph.D. Yeah, good. I'm a work in progress.

Good for you. So what happened with Cooper that grabbed your attention? Yeah, there have been so many moments, kind of pivotal moments with the boys that were wake-up calls for us. But one, and I kind of opened up the book with it, was his first day of eighth grade, coming home from eighth grade. And he comes home, gets off the bus and we're like, hey, buddy, how was your day? He didn't really want to talk.

You know, most eighth grade boys, they just want to go play video games. They grunt well. They grunt really well. We've learned to interpret his grunts.

You know, two grunts means I'm hungry, three grunts means leave me alone. So we were like, so how was your day? And we kept kind of asking questions and say, before you go play video games, just tell us about it. And he said it was fine.

It was fine. And then he kind of paused and he asked a question that just kind of floored us. But we as parents have learned, you know, we can't look shocked around the kids, you know, whatever they ask, you know, they could say aliens are invading and you can't look shocked.

You just have to kind of roll with it and then they'll keep talking. And he said, is it normal for guys to take pictures with their cell phones and send it to girls? And I'm like, well, no, it's not.

But why don't you unpack that a little bit? Like, why do you ask? He said, well, on the bus, there were these guys and they were laughing and they were taking pictures and trying to show other people and then they were laughing and saying, girls love it when you text them stuff like this. And one guy tried to put the phone in my face and I pushed him away and say, get off of me. And it just seems so weird. But like, is that really normal?

Because they were acting like that's normal. Wow. And it was such a wake up call moment. This you picture this bus, you think that this was like a prison bus or something. But this was a bus, you know, service school bus with kids in quote, you know, good neighborhoods. It's a great school district. You know, very, very little crime in our area.

This is just a snapshot of Americana. You know, this is a regular bus full of regular kids. And apparently these were regular conversations that were happening. And I was so thankful that he trusted us to tell us what was going on, because it started a conversation of us being able to say, Buddy, listen, the world might do a lot of things that they call normal that are completely and absolutely wrong. And it gave us an opportunity to talk about God's plan for respect, about the fact that what was going on in that school bus is actually illegal. That is an illegal act.

So not only is it wrong, it's something that you could be prosecuted for. But even more than that, we got to talk to the heart behind what respect really looks like, what relationship should be, and how this world's message is getting it wrong in so many ways. And so the book is full of conversations like that, that I never thought I'd be having.

But yet as parents, I think we've got to be willing to go there with her kids. Let me ask you, why are boys more naturally inclined to respect men? I think that's true. I think it's a bravado thing. It's a testosterone thing. You know, who's the alpha male in the pack, that kind of thing. And then the follow up is why do they need to be taught to respect women? I mean, there is a difference there.

Why? Yeah, I think some of it goes to the core of just how we're wired. And God wired us up exactly how we're meant to be. Men and women are equal, but he gave us beautiful distinctions and beautiful differences.

But what happens is, in every beautiful and perfect thing God has created, you know, the world comes along or the enemy comes along and he tries to sabotage that by whispering lies instead of the truth. And some of the lies I think that our sons have believed is that, you know, we respect men, and we don't respect women. And part of it is rooted in this false view of what masculinity is, where boys will tend to look at other boys and men will look at other men as a form of competition, right. And boys will look at other women, sometimes is a conquest.

It's like, I'm a man because I can beat other men, and I'm a man because I can seduce other women. But in both of those, we're using other people instead of loving other people. We're giving away our own humanity in the process. And so God's plan for respect is something that's really rooted in love and being humble and putting the needs of someone else ahead of your own. And that's one of the core messages that Jesus gave us and one of the core messages of Scripture. But when we're using people instead of loving and respecting them, all of our relationships are going to be broken as a result.

And that's kind of a snapshot of the world we're living in. There's just brokenness all around because we've lost sight of what love and respect really means. You know, so often we hear about how Jesus brought respect to that Roman empire for women, how he brought respect for women. Let's look at the Gospels. You mentioned in the book, how did the Gospels demonstrate that respect for women? Yeah, one of my favorite chapters in the book, probably my favorite chapter in the book, is called Jesus Respector of Women.

And it's all about that issue that all of us fall short of being that perfect role model for our sons, of always showing them how to act because we're going to blow it sometimes. But Jesus is that perfect role model. And I argue that he did more to advance the cause of women than anyone who's ever lived. And I was having an interview on a podcast recently, and the woman who was interviewing me is not a Christian. And she made that clear.

She says, I'm not a believer. She said, but I wanted to talk to you because I've never learned that Jesus was such a respecter of women. And when I read that chapter, it changed the way that I saw Jesus. And it frankly changed the way I saw Christianity. And so that issue opened the door for a non-believer to say, tell me more about Jesus and what he was about. And so it led to a great conversation to me saying Jesus lived in a time when women weren't respected at all. I mean, they had no rights. Their testimonies weren't valid in court. They couldn't own property.

They were seen as little more than property themselves. And Jesus enters that scene. And all through the Gospels, he's elevating women. He's interacting with women. He's telling parables and stories where he intentionally uses female heroes. He's doing things that to us seem so natural, but to his disciples and to his contemporaries was almost scandalous. And he's giving us a model of what it looks like for men to respect women, not to look at them with lust, not to look at them with distrust or misogyny or any of that, but to engage with them as a sister in Christ who is your equal in every way and to celebrate the beautiful distinction she has in her femininity, but to respect her in every single way. And Jesus gives us a roadmap for that.

Yeah. I was thinking of theologians that at the beginning of the Me Too movement, it may have been Pastor Tim Keller who said Jesus was the founder of the Me Too movement. That's an interesting perspective, huh? And I think that's exactly right. And if Tim Keller said it, it was right.

I think that's usually right. Let me move to something, a phrase that you use in the book often is this locker room mentality. Now, I played football, baseball and basketball in high school, so I understand it. It's kind of that jocular humor that has certainly, you know, come to light and has, I think, rightfully there's been a correction or an attempt to correct that. But it's where the guys are just acting goofy and saying goofy things that they would never say outside of the walls of that locker room. But get to what you're trying to describe there.

Yeah. And when I talk about the locker room mentality as a bad thing, I'm in no way trying to emasculate men or saying that for men to respect women, we have to give up our manhood. Really at the core, the book is pointing back to God's truth of what it means to be a real man and to be more of a man, because if men embrace real and true masculinity the way God intended, everybody wins. Women are safer. You know, men are better. But the toxic form of it in what I call the locker room mentality is just any part of your life. It didn't have to be an actual locker room. I spent some time in locker rooms, but I was I was short and had bad eyesight and was unathletic. And so I spent a ton of time in locker rooms. But the locker room mentality isn't just being in an actual locker room.

It's any place in a man's life, whether it's a chat room, a locker room, a boardroom, a group of friends, a place that he goes online, or even just a place he escapes in his own mind where he thinks in this little compartment, it's OK for me to say or do or think anything that I want related to women. And as long as I keep it in that little compartment, it's safe and I'm still a respecter of women. But our sin and our negative mindsets, it never stays in the compartments we build for it. And it always leaks out just like a kind of like a cancerous tumor that metastasizes.

It always it always leaks out and it poisons the rest of the body. The locker room mentality does that when we believe the lie that we can go anywhere and say things that are disrespectful or laugh at things that are disrespectful or believe things that are disrespectful toward women. That inevitably is going to impact every other aspect of our life. Yeah.

You see the locker room mentality and you apply it. I think you have a story in there about a pastor, a youth pastor who maybe got trapped in that thinking. What happened? Oh, yeah, this is tragic.

I was working at a large church in Florida about a decade ago, a multi-site church and a youth pastor at a different campus from where I was, but a guy I knew and had worked alongside and been in meetings with and so forth, who on the surface seemed like a great guy, you know, like he was doing things right and was a good employee and a good youth pastor and all that. Well, the community was shocked when a news story broke that he had been arrested for having a sexual relationship with a 15 year old girl in the youth group. And just the tragedy of that, that here this young girl had been used and abused in a place that she should have been so safe is heartbreaking. And to learn more about this guy's story, you know, he later confessed that he had harbored fantasies in his mind that he thought were harmless fantasies, you know, just kind of a little escape from suburban life and work and raising kids that every now and then he would let his mind fixate, you know, on a thought of a girl in the youth group and being with her as an escape. And he convinced himself that that was harmless. But Jesus tells us over and over again that what happens in our mind is never harmless. I mean, to look with lust at a woman is to commit adultery in our hearts.

And if we'll say that lust is okay on any level, it's going to lead us down some dark places. And so yeah, that's a heartbreaking situation. We still pray, you know, for that young lady and her family as they continue down the healing process. And for anybody who's listening that's experienced that kind of abuse, especially within the church and the baggage that that can bring. Just know that Jesus loves you and he is for you.

And don't turn your back on God and even don't turn your back on the church because that is where healing really can happen. Dave, let me come back to something you just said, because it's so critical. And you know, if we're trying to raise our boys in such a way that they will respect girls and respect women when they're older, how do we allow for that normal playful banter that occurs amongst us testosterone filled guys? And then where do we jump in to control it?

I know there's many lines we can talk about, but I want to give a practical help to that dad, who like both you and I and John have boys were raising. And there is a time to be playful and fun. And then there's a time to say, Whoa, okay, that's kind of too far. And here's why. But you have an example like that with your own boys?

Yeah, gosh, there are many. And we're learning this as we go again, like this book wasn't written by a guy that has it all figured out like this. It was written by me a dad that's just on the journey and desperately wanting to get this right.

And learning as I go and trying to point my boys to Jesus in the process. I think that kind of one of the places where where we can look at these conversations in a really practical way is in terms of entertainment in the home. Like recently, that's a great point. Recently, like these are the conversations we're having like our oldest son, and our second son, they're 14 and 12. Right now, there's a show that they really want to watch because their friends are into it. But it's a show that that is we kind of learn more about it is it just got a lot of disrespectful themes in it just disrespect is just part of the comedy in it. And we love comedy. By the way, we laugh a lot in our house.

We love good comedy. But this show in particular, I'm like, I just don't think there's anything redeeming in it. And so our oldest son got frustrated like, you know, I'm almost a man and you're not trusting me to do this.

And so I think that how we have leverage in those moments is in us leading the way. I think if we're telling our kids to do something we're not willing to do ourselves, we lose a lot of credibility. And so the conversation with him in that moment was Listen, buddy, I don't want to invite disrespectful themes into my home. So like I as an adult as an old dude, there's a lots of stuff that I've stopped watching. There are a lot of things that otherwise I thought this could be a really good show or movie.

And if things emerge in it, like unnecessary nudity or themes where there's just a clear pattern of disrespect that they're celebrating, like, I don't want to put that in my mind in my brain. So your mom and I all the time, we're turning off stuff. And for anybody that's in this home, we're responsible for kind of what's kind of coming through those airwaves. And so he he thought more about it and later sent us a text and he and I was really proud of him for this.

He said, you know, Listen, the more I thought about that show and what it's really about, he said, I really don't want to be putting that in my mind either. And so, you know, thank you for thank you for that. Now, there are other times where the conversation didn't end so well, but I think that we've got to be willing to just establish those boundaries.

That's really good. And I want to get to the meat of what we want to talk about. And that's the seven lessons that turn a boy into a man. So let's go through those.

What's the first one? I mean, these come from Scripture. You know, I pulled these from God's standard of manhood because I don't want to get caught up in all the counterfeit versions of manhood out there.

And there are a lot of them, by the way. You know, my my little four-year-old at Halloween, I was wearing this big fake beard and he looked at me and he says, Daddy, you're dressed like a man. And I thought, well, what am I dressed like the other 364 days of the year? Is his standard like the Robertsons from the Duck Dynasty?

It was. It was a legit beard. My kids make fun of me, you know, because, you know, I talk about manhood and I still, at age 41, cannot grow a real beard.

It's all patchy and it's embarrassing. So they tease me mercilessly. But thankfully, real manhood isn't about facial hair. Thankfully, or I'd be out. But the Bible does give us some really good standards. Number one is to have the courage to fight for what's right. That we as men, we've got to be willing to enter into that fight. It's not always a fight with our fists, but it's a fight with our hearts. It's a fight of selflessness, of being willing to do what's right. I love that verse where Nehemiah challenged people, guys, fight for your families today. Fight for what's right. Number two is seek responsibility instead of running from it. I think that our world celebrates a lot of boys and men in culture that tend to just run away from the responsibility of marriage and family and thinking of anyone outside themselves.

And we've got to be willing to say, no, a true man of God is one that's going to seek responsibility to care for others and not just think of himself. And one of the big themes that link to that is we as husbands have such a responsibility in modeling that by how we love our wives. And so we can teach all the right lessons with our words, men, but listen, the most important lesson you can give your sons on how to respect women is in how you treat your wife. And my wife Ashley and I do marriage ministry. We talk about this all the time on our Naked Marriage podcast. And every chance we get, we say, men, love your wife well because by your example, you're teaching your sons how to treat women and you're teaching your daughters what they should expect for men.

And by your example, you're either giving your kids a big head start with blessing or you're giving them some baggage that they're going to have to overcome in the years to come. And three? Work hard. I think you got to work hard at whatever you do. And I elaborate a lot more in the book on these, but just kind of get through them more quickly.

Work hard. Number three, show patience and restraint is number four. I think that sometimes we celebrate guys who will fly off the handle and just lose their temper, but the Proverbs say it's better to control your temper than to take a city. You know, the true warriors of faith are the guys that have the ability to show restraint in the right moments instead of just letting their emotions rule them. And then the next one is respect your wife.

Again, I just kind of touched on that a lot. We've got to lead the way by that example and how we respect her. Number six is keep your word and honor your commitments. The Bible says keep your word even when it hurts, you know, keep your commitments. And the final one is to trust God. We can't do this in our own strength and thankfully we don't have to. We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. We as men sometimes try to do things in our own strength and we're always going to fall short. But if we can let our kids see that we're trusting in God's strength to guide the way, then we're always going to be headed in the right direction. And those are great principles. I mean, those are things I think every father who follows Christ wants to teach their sons, right?

And you've done a great job kind of organizing that in your book, Raising Boys Who Respect Girls. Let me ask you, what would you say to the parent who feels like they've blown it? Maybe let's go with the dad, the dad that feels like he's blown it. They're discouraged and unsure of that next step.

So how can they recalibrate, even if their boys are out of the home, say they're in their 20s? Yeah, yeah. As long as you've got breath in your lungs, you know, it's not too late to do something that's right. I look at God's plan for our life a lot of times, like the GPS in our car. You know, when you miss a turn, it doesn't say, well, you missed it. You'll never get there.

It just says recalculating, recalculating. We're going to start from where you are right now. And we're going to make a route from right here to get back to where you need to go. And no matter how much you feel like you've blown it, God's grace is always there to say, you know what, we're going to make a route from right here. If you're willing to repent, which is just a big word that means I want to turn from my own way of doing things, my own prideful, stubborn way of doing things, and I'm really going to follow God's plan this time. And I think that starts with being humble enough to apologize, to admit that you've blown it and fallen short in some areas, and humbly seeking an opportunity to really reestablish a relationship and influence with your son at whatever stage of life he is, even if there's been years of absence there.

It's really never too late. I've seen over and over and over again God's story of redemption unfolding in people who are willing to forgive and seek forgiveness, and willing to start where they are, swallow their pride, and say, God, with whatever time I have left, use me. You know, I think about Samson in the Old Testament, who with his very last act on earth, you know, did his most powerful deed after years of doing it wrong. And you can be Samson, you can turn things around, and you can end strong.

You can't change the past, but you can change the future, and you can start today. The good thing that you do in the book is you break down conversations you can have in an age-appropriate way. You want to give us a couple of those questions at a young age and then maybe that teenage year?

Yeah, yeah. All through the book, I try to get as practical as I can of, like, how to talk to your boys and what's happening in their minds. So to kind of show moms what's going on in an eight-year-old boy's mind, in a 15-year-old boy's mind, a 20-year-old boy's mind, because I've been all of those things. So I can point to research, but I can also remember this is what I was feeling. And then also to kind of challenge us dads to be more intentional.

Starting young, I think you've got to look for opportunities. I was at the barbershop with our seven-year-old at the time. He's 12 now, but when Connor was seven, he was reading a magazine, and I hadn't really perused the magazines to see.

I just assumed they were all safe. But I look over and he's reading a really provocative magazine, and his eyes are huge, and he's holding open these pages. And I run over there and he's looking at this bikini-clad young lady, and he goes, Dad. He said, I just really like looking at these ladies. How old was he?

He was seven. And so I closed the magazine, and I didn't start with shame. That's not the way we ever engage. And I said, Buddy, listen, you like looking at those ladies because God made women beautiful, and he put within you, your young man's heart, a desire to celebrate the beauty of a woman, because one day he's going to bring you a wife. And one day in that relationship, you're going to be able to spend your whole life just celebrating her beauty. But to just look at some woman who's not wearing much clothes just because we like looking at it, it actually hurts God's heart, because that's one of his daughters that he made, and she's so much more than just a picture or a body to look at. And he was like, Oh. He said, Okay, I understand. I said, So let's not look at magazines like this. It's okay that you want to. That's natural.

But let's not do it. He says, Okay. And so I go back feeling like dad of the year. And then 30 seconds later, I felt like the worst dad ever because I look over and he's reading Field and Stream. But his eyes are just as big as they were. And I walk over and my seven year old has put that original magazine hidden it inside of a Field and Stream and is looking at the same pictures.

And so I I didn't win that day. But it's it starts conversations. But it's a good point. You got to do building blocks with your kids at age appropriate stages and let them begin to understand what is attracting them and what is pulling them in that direction. I think that's great. In fact, elementary school kind of broadens the scope. You're mentioning that I think one of your sons when he was six played basketball with a girl on the team.

This is so common today that I definitely want to hit this. How did you use that moment to teach your son that this is okay? This is a good thing. Yeah.

Yeah. So I was coaching little kids. For those of you that coach little kids a lot, you're going to be in the gated community in heaven. Like it's really God's work. It's not easy.

But I got talked into doing it. And there was only one girl on the team and she was precious and she was awesome and was really a good player. But there was a moment where she didn't pass the ball to my son in a time where he wanted it. And in his selfishness, he lashed out at her and said, you're just a girl and you shouldn't even be on this team.

This shouldn't even be a sport that girls can play. And she started crying. I mean, it really hurt her.

It was really and it was uncharacteristic of my son who, you know, normally, it was out of character. But at the same time, it was like, we've got to call this kind of behavior out and do it in a loving way. So I call the team huddle. And I said, Listen, we are all on this team together. And I celebrated her. I said, she's one of the hardest working players on this team. I said, in fact, she wins what I call the red cheek award almost every every practice, which is, if you work so hard that your cheeks are redder than everybody else's by the end or sweatier than everybody else's by the end that you win, like the hustle award, basically. And I'm like, she wins that almost every single day. She's leading the way in this. And I said, we need to be so thankful that she's on this team.

And Connor, I want you to apologize, because that's really hurtful. And we've got to treat team like family that we love each other, we respect each other, we all wear the same jersey. And we all have a part to play on this team.

And we never want to make anybody on this team feel like they don't belong for whatever reason in it. And then we kind of went around and said affirming things, we all had to say something really nice and respectful to each other to kind of celebrate that value. So at different ages, I think we need to just be open to hitting the pause button and whatever's going on and look for teachable moments. No, that's great. Dave, this has been insightful and much needed. And you're giving such great tools to help our sons to learn to be respectful and dads to help equip their sons.

So it's terrific. I want to remind you, the listener that focus is here for you. John mentioned that earlier, we want you to have a rewarding and God honoring relationship with your son. That's the bottom line.

It's not going to be perfect. And I'm thinking of that dad who has been compartmentalized, who is not opened up to that opportunity when they see something on TV or the magazine or whatever it might be, use it as a stepping stone as a teaching moment towards something better as to how your son views women and will respect women. We have so many resources available for you, web articles, a team of caring Christian counselors, broadcasts like this one, and especially Dave's book, Raising Boys Who Respect Girls.

This is one of those segments where you really got to concentrate as a dad and put some effort into it. And I'd like to offer it to you for a gift of any amount today to support the ministry of focus. We'll send you a copy of Dave's book as our way of saying thank you. Get in touch, donate, and get your copy of Raising Boys Who Respect Girls when you call 800-A-family or look for further details in the episode notes. Dave, this has been great having you with us. You've inspired me. I hope you too, John. And hopefully thousands of other fathers to really engage with their sons and help them to learn how to respect girls. Thank you. Yeah, really good stuff. And again, our number is 800, the letter A and the word family.

If we can be of any help to you or if you'd like to get a copy of Dave's book, Raising Boys Who Respect Girls. And tomorrow we'll share a timeless presentation, a classic focus on the family presentation from Mike Adkins describing how he befriended a strange reclusive neighbor named Norman. What happened to Norman was he was brilliant. He was a genius.

He said, in fact, he was such a genius that his mind exploded one day. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Be fun for your kids just a click away. And now Adventures in Odyssey. The Adventures in Odyssey Club, where your eight to 12 year old can find trusted faith building entertainment in a safe online club. It features almost every episode ever, plus special monthly club only episodes and content and a Focus on the Family Clubhouse magazine subscription. Sign up today. Just go to AIOclub.org slash radio.