Rough Hands, Soft Hands
Training the Next Generation of Men
You can tell a lot about a man — especially a young man — by his hands. As we raise this next generation, we need to ponder how they use their hands, and what they’re learning from those endeavors.
I used to have soft hands. There was a point in my life when I considered stain-free pants as an ideal benchmark along the path toward a version of manhood content to call a guy to fix something if it broke, valued self-preservation over action, and shrugged shoulders at antiquated notions of chivalry. This Los Angeles flippancy and sixty-dollar haircut worldview traveled with me — like a parasite on its host — as I began a new life far from home.
A few years later, I met Larry.
You might describe Larry as a roughneck. Having worked Alaska’s North Slope oil fields for thirty years, Larry might refer to himself that way as well, yet no one who knows him would paste that label on him, despite the fact that few have ever seen him in anything other than blue denim Dickies overalls, or the fact that he can fix just about anything. He has rough hands. One shake and you’d conclude they’ve probably knocked out a few teeth, and for all I know they may have. He has an imposing frame, intimidating mustached grin, and deep, serious eyes that can make you flinch…and I love him.
It’s an unfortunate reality that many of my generation struggle to sift through the rubble of a legacy of divorce. It’s permeated my life, as well as my wife’s, and left our children bewildered by the multiple grandmas and grandpas who’ve come and gone over the years.
My wife and I are a transitional generation. The men we grew up with didn’t espouse many of the values we were trying to teach and we were desperate for examples of steadfast character; men who’ve stayed with the same woman their entire lives, who honored them, and who weren’t afraid of accepting correction or admitting failure.
The kind of man I wanted to be — and that I want my sons to be — speaks up for his wife and cherishes her. He brings out the best in her and faithfully provides.
Larry was the first man I’d ever met who carried the perfect balance of fierceness and gentleness, and I’ve come to know it well and recognize it in others. These men would never put a calendar of half-naked women on the wall in their garage, and ensure their wives never need to pull into a gas station when driving alone.
Like Larry, they would never speak an ill word against their wife; not in public, nor in private. The men with rough hands aren’t afraid to point out their own flaws, but they also don’t wallow in shame or look back.
Guys like Larry will occasionally have fun at others’ expense, yet they’re never cruel. It would bother them greatly if they offended you – unless you needed offending, in which case they wouldn’t be afraid to tell you, because those types of guys care too much to let you go on destroying yourself with foolishness.
With them, you get challenged when you’d like to coast along. You get honesty, even if you’d rather be lied to. You get loved when you feel isolated.
When you look around wondering who will show up to see you get baptized, you see the roughnecks like Larry, because an hour’s drive in the snow on their day off means nothing when compared with seeing you give your heart to the Savior they love.
I’ve met a lot of Larrys since then. Some of them are reading this and I’ve had the good fortune to call them allies.
They show up and unabashedly cry at funerals. They get choked up when discussing their children’s victories and struggles, and they don’t give a rip what anyone thinks about their wavering voice. They pause for a second and then carry on because they only really speak up when it matters.
Larry and the rough handed guys like him are the ones who always show up; they’re the ones who make the difference.
When the red and blue lights of the ambulance are shining in your driveway at 3:00 am, carting off your wife to an uncertain outcome, it’s the gentle spirited giants who show up at your door. And in that moment, as you ask them through tears of desperation what you’re supposed to do.
“Don’t worry about it,” they tell you firmly. “You just trust God.”
Their certainty straightens your spine and propels you to walk out into the night and face the storm. Their heart for others teaches you how to love others as yourself, and it’s their hands, rough and weathered, that teach you that strength matters. That strength is achieved by not being afraid to get them dirty.
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Since my car burned up and then the bus service became 'nonessential' in 2020, I've had to walk everywhere. It is the Larry's of this world who stop to let me cross the busy intersections, while others are too busy to slow down for an elderly lady just trying to get home with her groceries. The people with the nice cars are racing to turn and block the crosswalk, but it is those men and women with the older more beat up cars who will always stop to let me cross. They are the ones who stop and see who and what is right in front of them. They live in community and not just for themselves.
My husband of 41 years was a white collar utilities manager.
He was a Larry with soft hands, rarely fixing anything himself but an shining example of an honorable man. Since retiring, he now has rough hands working outdoors. My adult sons can fix almost anything by YouTube videos but they still call their dad to talk it through. Nothing binds sons to their fathers like watching the man they want to become.