Where's St. George?

If you haven't heard, my belly is growing bigger these days, and folding myself in half to pick up stuff off the floor isn't so easy now. As daily tasks take increasingly more effort, I'm measuring my success and failure in teaching my boys to think about others. Should I, pregnant, hold the baby and pull the stroller out of the car by myself?

I'm a yankee. I was raised in the North. I don't know a lot of Southern manners. Most of my friends are like me. We try, but the culture doesn't reinforce it, I forget to follow through in teaching, and I don't even know or think about some of it. But the whole matter begs the question: why? Why chivalry?

It's not a white-washed form of flirtation (or, at least, it's not supposed to be), and it's not a measure of a woman's ability or competence. But it is about Christ-likeness. Men and women alike are under the obligation to die to ourselves for the benefit of others. Rather than a survival of the fittest, the most fit stoop to bless the weakest. After all, that's what the most Fit did, dying for each of us who are most fragile and weak, whether or not we care to admit it.

I want my boys to open doors for ladies, carry heavy boxes, give up their seats, and all the other traditional gentlemanly gestures. But I really want more. I want them to think without realizing it, to always be on the lookout for how they can protect and serve others. I don't want them only doing it for pretty girls. I want them to do it for their big pregnant mama, an ugly old lady, the person with obvious brain damage, or anybody, really--weak or not. It's a mindset that is so ingrained that they'll automatically step forward to help or give up their comfort for others.

That's chivalry. Tomorrow, they get to practice it when they rebuild their little sisters' bunk beds. That would be, the bunk beds they would like to have in their room. I'll just watch from the side. A little to the left, boys.