A few weeks ago my “wife”, my son and I went to see my mother in Virginia for kind of a pre-holiday get together. The fact that my brother was coming down as well with his son, neither of which we had seen in a couple of years, made it just that more exciting.

The great thing about my “wife” and my relationship is that we don’t have a problem laughing at ourselves when we do something stupid, which we do often. So we laughed it off when we ignored my mother’s directions and turned a two hour trip into a five hour trip, choosing instead to lose ourselves in conversation and enjoy the silence that the long nap the car provided our son.

Arriving was no big surprise; my mother telling me how much she missed me and liked my new beard, my mother hugging my “wife” with an uncomfortable grip, my mother stealing our son and shoving new toys at him, my stepfather smiling, my brother holding onto some cute new girl he is dating, his son trying to hit everyone, my “wife” and I questioning our decision to come down in the first place. The evening started out well enough with wine and dinner and everyone sitting around updating each other on important and not so important events in their life while a football game that we were all trying (but not succeeding) to ignore went on in the background.

We were enjoying ourselves, but I realized that I had hardly seen my nephew so I called his name and upon racing into the room he proceeded to hit me much harder than I would have guessed a kid his age could. When I looked at his father with a WTF? look on my face my brother just smiled and grabbed his son and spun him around in some wrestling while his son laughed and tried to punch him in the face. They both laughed and I expected it to be over, but it didn’t quite. When we were growing up our father would “slap box” with us, which is essentially light boxing with your hands open. It was great fun and even though we knew dad would always win he sometimes let us get a slap in. So a little loving violence between the men in my family is to be expected, and speaking for myself, looked forward to. But this is the thing: when dad said stop you stopped or he would smack you one good time and you knew that the playing was over. What was going on with brother and his son was not stopping. I kept expecting them to hug after a bit, but nothing. It went on for hours laughing and fighting and “talking smack” to each other having a great time, but I had to finally tell them both to stop when they were getting close to my son, who was laying on the floor trying to eat his new presents.

Later that evening I asked my brother to come out and help me get some bags out of the car. Out in the cold November night I addressed him about the fighting between him and his son. I asked him if they showed affection another way and he said “Hell no, I don’t wanna raise some wussy boy” and that threw me totally off. I Wondered why a man would be worried about his son being effeminate or maybe just not super macho. I though about my son and how affectionate I am with him, giving him kisses and telling him how much I love him and how special he is. I though about how I plan on giving him hugs and telling him that I love him for the rest of his life. I wondered if this is the opposite of my brother’s approach. I wondered if it will make my son a more effeminate man who is always talking about daisies and Rachel Ray’s new dish. I doubt it. I think it will turn him into a man that is secure in knowing that his father loves him. And yeah, I hope we get some slap-boxing in there somewhere. I believe in rough housing a bit in good fun. But all of this made me question how much affection is the best affection for a man to give his son. What will shape the best adult a father can hope his son to be? In search of an answer I called my father. We talked about my brother’s parenting and slap boxing as a kid and my father laughed. I didn’t ask directly and my father didn’t offer a solid opinion on which type of fathering he felt was best, but when I got off the phone with him he said “Love ya son” like he always has and I set the phone down knowing the answer to my question.