Cowgirls Ride Too

Because Matt and I are Saddlemates, it might seem we are partial to the masculine heritage of the family.  Seems, so, but not.  We dote over our boys, savoring the remarkable variety in temperaments and the exciting treks they each take to becoming men of character...some day and not all that far away.  But our girls, oh, there is all of that and more.  It is in our smallest women, those for-awhile little girls who already remind us of their mothers—birth and grand—for whom our hearts smile, dance, and sing

When we talk of heritage and legacy and of our fathering and grandfathering there is a masculine spin.  But little girls need fathers and grandfathers, too.  In fact, truth be told, our daughters need special protection.  When it is missing, the rescue must come down the road, and may never come. It is our job to set the frame of reference that our women will use to enjoy their roles as future wives, mothers, and professionals. They will learn from us, their grandfather and their father, how women are to be treated, and woe to man or boy who doesn't pull out a chair or open a door, or, worse, who slanders the unique handiwork of God by careless references.

Beauty in His creation, especially divinely crafted beauty in the woman, His handiwork-woman, forms both the wonder and the  horror of real life on this planet we mistakenly call "ours".  For all the boy-girl, sugar and spice-frogs and mice,  Mars-Venus humor, there is something so serious about God forming both man and woman in his image that it does, really, govern our world.

The Garden wasn't about Giraffe's, Rose  bushes, and very green trees.  It was about Man and Woman and God and the Snake.  How our girls and our women are to be honored as wonderful ideas from the heart of God made in his image as a women is--catch this--the center of what makes a man.  Whatever of this central value is lost in the cultures to come, the Taylor-Pettit men and women on the rolls of future generations will not. 

Here is where our concept of shared and collaborative fathering with its overlapping and unique generational wisdom finds its real home.  Women are a forever challenge.  It has taken Matt and Gary our respective lifetimes to get a handle on the difference with a special attention to the wonderfulness of this idea God had.  The freshest credit for our maturing in understanding women is due these young daughters.  They show us raw and beautiful womanhood or, as we so often see it manifest, “princesshood”.  We rush to protect and we hesitate to correct, but we do for them all we can.

Writing this piece puts way too much weight on “we” when it is Matt who, day in, day out, faces the decision of how best to balance love with discipline of Brooke and Charis. Fortunately, the other generational duo—though not a prominent part of this site or the book—are their magnificent mother, Cari,  and her mother, "Nani."  They read this and the book to-be with a genuine smile of approval because it rolled out of our hearts on our cigar and beer rides, not promted by maternal scowl.