When is a boy a man?
They now stand in our shoe rack: heavy, brown military shoes. Immediately after his enlistment, his son fetched them from the armoury - with some enthusiasm. Before he was called up, he had announced that anything other than civilian service was out of the question for him, that there was nothing he could do about it. But something has obviously shaken him. In any case, he is seriously considering completing recruit school.
Will my boy become a man in the military?
Some of my friends frown when I tell them about it. «The military?» they say, «That's where they learn to kill.» And indeed, right after his enlistment, his son cheerfully explained to me that the troop he was assigned to would be the first to fall in an emergency. I had to swallow empty. But I saw something else. That my son felt picked up on a level that I, as a mother, would never be able to influence. There was something in him that had struck a chord that I hadn't recognised before - and that I still had to respect.
Will my boy become a man there? Is that what he's looking for? If only I knew how it works with becoming a man. But in my childhood there were no men that I could have observed, only three sisters. Later, I got to know men as romantic counterparts, but even that is somehow not enough to understand what makes a man a man.
The other world of boys
When I gave birth to a son after my first-born daughter, I wondered a little anxiously how that would turn out. How I would cope with a male being under my responsibility. Would it be very different to having a girl?
It was a little different. Even in the womb, he moved so violently that he could hardly be captured on ultrasound. Even before he spoke a word, he seemed to distinguish precisely between different categories of motorised vehicles, especially those found on construction sites.
Then came his weapons phase as a four-year-old: normally a highly sensitive child, he suddenly had an armoury of pistols, rifles, swords, morning stars and tridents in his room. He liked to snuggle up to his shield and wooden pistol when he fell asleep, which seemed a bit strange to me; fortunately, his obsession with weapons soon disappeared.
I watch my son's development with a mixture of amazement, bewilderment and fascination - and my own too.
During his childhood, I learnt that boys really are a bit different. For example, they seem to like to cut into the kerb with their teeth first, race through the barbed wire on their sledge or thunder backwards off their bunk beds. I learnt that as a boy's mother, you have to get used to these things.
And now the military. Again, I watch the developments with a mixture of amazement, bewilderment and fascination. And not just my son's development, but also my own. In the past, I would probably have found this as bad as my friends. Today I can understand it.
When does a boy become a man - I don't know. But I can see that my boy will soon be on this path and that he's doing well. That makes my mum proud - even if it takes the military to do it.
