Straight Talk, No Chaser

by Gena D. Lutz

  It is, for sure, the completion of manhood.

  And it’s high time we started teaching this to our young men early. We need to pull them aside and explain that there comes a time in which they need to cut out the foolishness. Because once we do we can get back to the business of finding one another, falling in love, creating a family, and spending a lifetime supporting and dreaming and growing—together. This is not something a woman can teach; a man who is twenty-two or twenty-three years old cannot have his mother sitting him down and talking to him about what it takes to be a man; she has no idea of the competition level on which we operate, what drives us, and what we face every time we head toward the front door and out into the world—no more than a man can possibly fathom what it means to be a young woman. We love and admire our mothers to death, but they can’t walk in our shoes; men and women are much too different, and she will miss the mark—from the simplest things, like how to shake after you pee, to the most complex situations, like how to square off against another man and, without anyone getting hurt in the process, still be able to walk away with your dignity intact.

  Of course, I realize that telling women they can’t teach boys how to be men isn’t helpful; the world is full of single mothers going it alone while the fathers of their children run from the awesome responsibility of raising them. And it seems that many men who commit to their families by staying the course are often psychologically absent, lost as they are in their work. But it’s imperative that boys who do not have their fathers around to show them the ropes get acquainted with some positive, smart, strong male role models—an uncle, a counselor, a coach, a teacher, a neighbor—so that they have someone to talk to, and that someone is vested in making sure that our sons learn the most important lessons.

  For sure, I’ve been teaching this to my own sons, Wynton, Jason, and Steve. And that training starts the moment I open my eyes in the morning. Every day, I have my sons wake up the same time as me—no matter what ungodly hour in the morning it is. If I’m hitting the treadmill and weightlifting at 4:30 A.M., so are they. If I’m going into the office at 5:30 A.M. and I’m working by 6:00 A.M., they’re dressed and on their way somewhere too. If they’ve got school or their study workload is a little heavy, they still have to wake up and, before they get themselves ready, text me their plans for the day—what they’re working on and what chore they’ll be completing before they sit down for breakfast. This is what typical morning texts from my sons look like:

  May 22

  7:06 AM (JASON): Soon, I will be an official Harvey Academy graduate. I take one more test next week and then I’m off to make you proud of me. Today I will sweep the front courtyard and study. Love you Dad, talk to you later.

  7:10 AM (ME): I’m already proud. Just give me something to brag about. Give your dad some great moments for his twilight years.

  7:11 AM (JASON): Yes sir. Looking forward to making that happen.

  And when they mess up, I bring the pain, too. Like just this morning, all of them were supposed to be front and center down in our family gym at 4:00 A.M. to do a group workout with me. Hey, if I’m going to wake up and get on my grind before the sun rises so that I can provide their lifestyle, the least they can do is keep me company while I’m doing it. Well, 4:10 A.M. rolls around and I’m well into my workout and all of my sons were still knocked out; when I called Steve’s cell phone, he told me they’d all “forgotten” the plan. I sent a text to Jason first, reminding him that just like in the jungle, the gorilla (me) is always on top of his game and the gazelles (my boys) aren’t swift or strong enough to keep up:

  7:59 AM (ME): Gorilla Silverback, 2, Gazelles, 0

  8:00 AM (JASON): How’d you score two?

  8:01 AM (ME): Gorilla takes what he wants. I get two points.

  8:02 AM (JASON): I’m going to take one back this afternoon. Your Bible is in my room—LOL.

  8:02 AM (ME): I told Ms. Anna to put it there. Now you can figure out why. Gorilla 3, Gazelles, 0.

  8:06 AM (JASON): Dad how do you keep scoring all the time?

  8:15 AM (ME): I never stop coming. This is from your insides, your guts, you hear? Your sinew. Your will to win. Your desire to show up and be counted. Your pride. Where is your pride for doing what you said you’re going to do? If I didn’t do what I said I was going to do, you all wouldn’t respect me. My desire to be respected is so great in me that it pushes me to excel. Where is your pride?

  I needed them to know that their father is cranking—that while they were sleeping, I was downstairs doing wind sprints and abs, and then at work earning a solid paycheck so that I could pay our bills to ensure we all have a roof over our heads, beds to lie in, and food on the table—a home. For me. For their mother. For them.

  For all of us.

  And I talk to them—constantly talk to them—about what it takes to be a real man. If more men truly understood what that means, it would really eradicate so many of the negative relationship issues we grapple with—fatherlessness, low marriage rates, divorce. The list goes on. My dad didn’t talk to me a lot, but he showed me by example what it means to be a dedicated father and husband, taught me about hard work and the importance of using it to take care of your family; respecting your significant other and requiring your children to do the same; and being the best father you can be to the babies you make. Did I get it right? Not all the time. I failed at two marriages before I found my relationship stride. That is human. But each time, I drew lessons from the darkness—from the failures. And then I vowed not to let them happen again, not only for the sake of my wife and our marriage, but also to be that example to my children—my sons and my daughters—who are watching me and, like I did with my dad, using my example to get clues about how they should treat a love interest, and certainly how they should expect to be treated by that love interest.

  Topping that list of traits every man should have is “Do What You Say You’re Going to Do.” This is the hallmark of manhood. It’s how people judge you—how others determine which level of respect they’ll give you. We men brag about what we’re going to do all the time—“Oh, don’t worry man, I got your back,” and “No worries, I got you covered,” and “I promise you, I’ll be there”—but unless those words are backed up by actions, they mean nothing. Not to your boys. Not to your children. Not to your friends. And especially not to women.

  Women don’t want to hear excuses for why you didn’t follow through on a promise you made, especially when it concerns the well-being of their children. But the man who says he’s going to protect his lady needs to be ready to do what it takes to make her safe. A man who promises to provide for his lady works hard every day to make a decent enough wage so that she and the family they made together can have what they need, and maybe even a little bit of what they want. A man who promises to love his lady doesn’t step out on her or hit her or wear her out emotionally and mentally; instead he loves her the way a woman wants to be loved—by being faithful and respectful and attending to her needs.

  Success in doing all these things is based on that simple tenet of manhood: doing what you said you would do. If you’re not doing this, then everyone around you has the right to think that you’re just a raggedy dude—your woman has the right to say, “Girl, he ain’t worth nothing.”

  I learned this the first time in my life when I was thirty, after I got kicked out of college and lost my job at the factory and my marriage hit rock bottom. I was living out of my car, driving up and down the road to comedy gigs, trying to establish myself as a comedian, and talking to myself all the way, from city to city, town to town, club to club. I wrote all my jokes out loud; I talked about life and how I got myself into the position where I didn’t have a home to go back to. When you’re by yourself, you can really get some stuff worked out. I once went for three weeks without having anything more than a quick “Hello, how are you?” conversation with other human beings. I mean, I’d walk into a club, find the manager, and he would say, “Thank you for coming,
buddy. You’re on for twenty minutes, you get one drink at the bar,” and then I’d go up there, tell my jokes, then the manager would come over to me after I’d go offstage and say, “Here’s your money, sir—great job,” I’d get back in my car and do it all over again. If I was only making seventy-five dollars per appearance, I couldn’t blow my money on a hotel, and I sure couldn’t waste it on phone calls to anybody, so I would stash my cash and stay in the car and wait for my next gig. You try going even two days without talking to somebody. I’ll bet you can’t do it. But I did that for three weeks and started asking myself some questions and answering those questions too. I found out a lot about myself and recognized that I wasn’t being the kind of husband my wife needed me to be or the kind of provider I needed to be for her and the kids and even for myself. Simply put: I wasn’t doing what I said I was going to do. And until I did that, I couldn’t truly be a man.

  I am not the only man who thinks this way. Over and over again while I was on tour with Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, men stood up and repeated the same ideals and sentiments. I’ll never forget one man who made his way to the microphone at one of my events; he was bald, had a stylish beard, a nice blazer, and a white shirt. The women in the room took notice of him; he spoke about how in his last relationship, he was ashamed because he hadn’t gotten himself together—hadn’t achieved the career and financial status that he wanted to achieve. But, he added, he’d been working on himself and understanding what he was capable of and he was in a good place. “I’m a good guy,” he said, “but I’m a helluva man. I don’t have all the money in the world, but I got all the traits that make for a good husband. If you need protecting, I got you. If you need money, I don’t have much but what I do have, I’ll bring it home. I’ll give you my last name. I can do most anything with my hands, so if you need something fixed around the house, I got you covered there, too. And I do what I say, and say what I mean.” And then he brought it on home: “What I’ve been missing is the right woman. If I had the right, stabilizing force in my home—the right support system—I would be even better.”

  That man finally knows what we all eventually come to know: that we have to learn how to be men before we can be anything to anyone who wants to love us—and certainly before we can love them back. But once we get it right? We come to something close to completion, the thing that makes men want to be better, not only for ourselves, but for the people we love. I can’t count the many incredible things that have happened to me as a businessman, a provider, a husband, a father, and a man since the right woman came into my life; I’ve never in my life gotten the kinds of accolades and accomplishments I’ve achieved since Marjorie and I started our journey together. I’ve been on Oprah, Ellen, a correspondent on Good Morning America; I’ve been invited to speak at a church. A church. In my life nobody has asked me to be the keynote speaker in a house of the Lord. Ever. These things I’ve earned come not only from my deciding to do better, but from somebody seeing that there was better in me. People who’ve known me for years notice it. Hell, I have a picture of myself from 1995 in which I could see it—the physical toll that my lifestyle and choices were taking on my body, from not being the kind of man I needed to be and not having the right woman to complete the cycle of manhood. My face was sagging, I had put on a ton of weight, I just looked done; it was hard to believe I’d been that miserable.

  Now I’ve put my house in order. I cleared my life of all its debris so that when the blessings did come, including first and foremost my relationship with God, my discovery of what makes me happy—success in my career and a strong, loving woman by my side—I could receive those blessings and start doing right.

  And I’m passing that message on to my sons so that they know the secret too: learn how to be a man first. Then find the right woman who can bring out the best in you—make you better. Marriage is not a death sentence. It’s a completion.

  My sons.

  Steve and Jason passed those tests and earned the right to apply to college this past spring. With them, we’re going to build a tradition. I was the first one in my family to go to college, but I flunked out. But my sons got accepted into Morehouse. When they got their letters, I sat in the chair in my office and cried; my sons are going to a prestigious college with a rich and proud legacy, and I couldn’t be more pleased. When Jason saw me, he got a quizzical look on his face and asked me why I was upset, what they’d done to make me react in that way.

  “You don’t even know what this means for me, son,” I said simply. “I’m not turning out convicts, there are no babies popping out of the woodwork, and the two of you are going to Morehouse. Give me a moment to celebrate getting it right. This isn’t about you.”

  I recognize my job isn’t over—that Jason and Wynton and Steve have quite a ways to go before they are full-on men. But they’re on their way.

  And I pray that they take the lessons I’m teaching them, and the lessons they’ll learn along the way, and make quick work of being the kind of men capable of making someone—themselves and their intendeds—happy. That said, will they make mistakes? Yes. But my job is to limit them.

  2

  Dating by the Decades

  A Guide to How Men Feel About Relationships in Their Twenties, Thirties, Forties, Fifties, and Beyond

  I took my daughter Lori to lunch recently—just me and her, one on one—and I’m not going to lie: I was a little bit more than concerned. It was, after all, the first occasion we’d spent any quality time with each other without her mother, Marjorie, there to quarterback the flow of conversation. I mean, when I take my sons to lunch, the fellowship is pretty low-key; I say, “Find yourself something to eat, man,” they order, and we eat. Everybody pushes back from the table happy and satisfied. But the idea of sitting in a restaurant alone with Lori made me come to terms with a couple of things, namely that I haven’t a clue what thirteen-year-old girls like, care about, or have on their minds.

  But I got a lesson that day.

  “So, Daddy, when can I start dating?”

  In my head, I was screaming, “Who in the hell is this big-headed boy trying to take you out? You’re thirteen—a baby! I’ll kill him with my bare hands!” In real time, though, all I could manage was a slow count to ten, some swallows, and a couple of blinks. Finally, when I was sure I would neither shake nor stutter, I dove in.

  “How old do you think you should be?” I asked innocently.

  “Oh, maybe fourteen or something like that,” she said.

  I swallowed hard. Again.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but nobody can come by the house for you when you’re fourteen to take you out. That’s way too young.”

  “Well, my friend Cat dates older guys,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Of course, in my mind, I had a vision of myself sharpening knives and loading guns and yelling from the front stoop in a housecoat and slippers that anybody named Cat should be forewarned not to so much as step on our block trying to corrupt my baby girl. Little fast butt. Out loud, though, I kept my remarks as calm and measured as I could muster.

  “When you say ‘older guys,’ ” I asked politely, “what do you mean?”

  “She likes guys who are, like, fifteen or sixteen years old,” she said.

  I blinked a couple of times and did a few more hard swallows. “Well, baby,” I said between sips of ice water. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

  By lunch’s end, I was real clear on this one thing: Lori is not a little girl anymore, and we are in the middle stages of that dance—the delicate tug-of-war between age-appropriate attraction to the opposite sex and all-out boy craziness. I now understand that our conversation didn’t mark the first time my daughter’s thought about boys and dating and even marriage; if she’s anything like every other little girl on the planet, she’s considered down to the most minute details what her husband-to-be would look like, what kind of wedding they’ll have, where the wedding will be, what kind of material her wedding dress
will be made of, and whether she’ll smush the wedding cake in her new husband’s face. She’s probably considered, too, how many kids she wants to have with this dream husband of hers, what their names will be, and whether she’ll hyphenate her last name with his.

  You know I’m right. This is what girls do; they dream about the Happily Ever After—the wedding, the kids, the married life. Everything they watch—from their Disney movies to their tween television shows to popular music, magazines, and other cultural bellwethers—tells them that while it’s okay to be independent, smart, and strong, it should be their priority to meet, get, and keep a husband. And the moment the biological clock starts ticking, whoa! Finding a man to settle down with and have babies becomes quite the priority.

  Rest assured, it doesn’t work this way for little boys. Ever. There’s not a man I know who’s sat around dreaming about his wedding day. He may dream of certain women—more specifically, what he’d like to do with them—but trust me when I tell you this: boys and men don’t care about marriage the way women do, and we certainly don’t sit around fantasizing about it or worrying about biological clocks. Indeed, the way we look at relationships is so far the opposite of the way women see it that it’s a wonder, at all, that we even figure out how to be together.