Looking Back

I've been spending so much time editing client photos lately that a few great personal photos have been sitting on the back burner getting crispy with age.

When I took the H Family pictures last month, The Chief and the boys tagged along. There is nothing that compares with the reckless abandon and laid-back splendor of a day at the beach. Especially a PRIVATE beach!

Likewise, when attempting to inspire the well-taxed heart of a family-oriented Mama, nothing compares with the tender moment, fortuitously spied and captured, of a father playing with his sons. What could be more innocent, childlike, and male than shedding distracting clothing and vigorously chucking rocks into the great, vast ocean? They bonded - as only males do. And I applaud that. I get teary any time my husband bonds with our sons in some ritualistic male experience, like kicking a goal or wrestling. My soggy reaction acts as a testament to me of the divine nature of gender-specific roles and character traits. Men are men for a reason and I hope that I do all that I can to encourage and nurture their unique gender traits rather than squash them, douse them, and disdainfully mold them into some genderless entity that society claims is enlightened and liberated, but in reality (and stark contrast) is devastatingly full of confusion and conflict.

"Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose" (The Family: A Proclamation to the World).

I love my boys.



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