Gary V. Powell, Author

I love being the father of a six-year old boy. Each day begins with a descent down the stairs and an interruption of my writing. It may come in the form of an ambush. It may come in the form of a frontal attack. It may come in the form of a running hug. In any case, our days begin full-tilt, then it's off to school, during which I have a few hours respite, only for the assault to resume in mid-afternoon. He's heavy into marines and weaponry. Ice and snow scrapers become machine guns, discarded crutches become anti-aircraft weaponry, and a common question is when the first exploding grenade burst onto the scene.

A year from now, he will have moved on to something else, as surely as he moved from being a construction worker to a warrior. This is why I spare him the lecture about his mother and I being lovers not fighters, about how we're liberals, about how we believe in negotiated solutions rather than violent solutions.

As I consider my challenges with Reilly, I can't help but be attuned to how other parents deal with their children, especially their sons.

The other day I was working on an edit of a novel I recently completed at Starbucks. Next to me a man and his wife were distraught over how their son had been treated. I couldn't make it out and really wasn't interested. Until the guy called the offender on the phone and began to talk in a loud voice on his cell phone. A voice too loud to ignore in the close quarters of this very public place.

On Friday night the son's friends had been at the father's house. They were all drinking beer and wine and having a good time. They were underage and the father was aware of what was going on, but he considered it harmless fun.

On Saturday night the son was at the home of one of the kids who had been at his house of Friday night. He took a beer with the mother's permission from the refrigerator (or so he claimed). Later, somehow, the son was sent home for unruly behavior and for (he claimed) stealing the beer.

The father, the man I overheard, said he was devastated. Why, his wife and son were devastated. They'd never recover from the son's humiliation. The son, I heard him say, was twenty years old.

That's where he lost me.

I've been on my own since the age of 18. I put myself through college on a full ride, then through law school with loans and summer work. At age 20, I was salty and hornery and cocky and didn't give a fuck. If someone would have kicked me out of his or her home for any reason, I damn sure wouldn't have told my folks. They wouldn't have been devastated...they'd have been pissed. At me! Because surely it was something I did to deserve it.

They probably would have been right.

It was all I could do not to remind this father that boys in Iraq and Afghanistan, younger than his son, are fighting and dying, for what it's not so clear. And despite the hardship, heat, and killing, they're holding up. It was all I could do not to say that this was a battle this boy should have fought on his own, if he has any hope of becoming a man. It was all I could do not say that if I raise a son who so weak he is "devastated" by a slight of such insignificance, I'll be devastated.

We're raising Reilly to shake it off when he falls and cuts his knee. We're raising Reilly to say yessir and yes ma'am and pick up after himself. We're raising Reilly to fight his own battles.

Yeah, he's a pretty salty little guy. Yeah, he's already been in more than one fight and come away with a busted lip (you shoulda' seen the other guy). Yeah, he doesn't like always like it when he doesn't get his own way. But he can stand up for himself, he can hack it when the going gets tough, he can handle it when he has to do something he'd just as soon not do. He's not easily defeated. Beat him at pool or checkers or battleship and he'll come back for more.

He better be tough. Because I'm sure as hell not bailing his ass out at age 20.