Caleb on Being a Man

If you have never had a deep philosophical discussion with Caleb, you are really missing out. That kid loves to pontificate and is wise beyond his 4 short years.

The other day I told him to put a shirt on. He replied, "I can't. A man doesn't wear a shirt."

"What?"

He continued by explaining that one is either a human or a man. If you're a man, you're not a human, and vice-versa. (OK, so far I agree.) He went on to tell me that if you're a man you don't wear a shirt, especially when it is very cold, but when it is very hot you wear a heavy shirt. If you are a man you don't wear shoes when you walk on hot pavement and you never wear sunblock (he gets that from his father). A man gets a tall ladder and goes and sits up on his roof.

"Really?" I ask.

"Ya mom, I KNOW," as if I had before me the ultimate authority on manhood.

Then I asked a really stupid question, "Are you a man?"

"Ya-ah" (as in "du-uh.")

I asked if Luke was a man, and he looked at me as if I was completely off my rocker. "Mom, he's a BABY!" So at 2 you're a baby, but at 4, your a man. Got it.

Then I ask an ever stupider question. "Caleb, I am not wearing shoes. Am I a man?"

He just looked at me. "Mom," his eyebrows furrowed as if I had completely lost my mind, "you are NOT a man."

"Good," I said, "because I don't want to be a man."

Apparently I had spoken heresy. "What!? Mom, tell the truth!"

"It's true. I don't want to be a man."

He starts to get steamed, "Mom, no lying!"

"I'm not lying. I like being a human and a woman."

He just rolled his eyes at me as if I was ridiculously hopeless, and deep inside, he knew, I must really want to be a man. How could anyone not want to be a man?

Maybe Caleb is right, and somewhere deep down inside of me I want to be shirtless, shoeless, sitting on a hot roof with no sunblock. Naw.