“The problem with men is they were raised by women.”
~Virgie Wicks (1923 – 2000)

Our mothers made it up
as we went along early on:
they loved us, hugged up, scrubbed us,
taught us our little appendage was a
urinary device without imparting
the mystery we all stumble
over much later in our growing.
They never gave us our favorite toy.
We were born with it.
Sure, they did the heavy lifting
as it formed in the amniotic sac
where we were womb-locked fish,
breathing with magical gills,
oxygen somehow infusing us
in the miracle of our amphibian way.

Our mothers must have wondered how to
tell us what they did not know.
How could they know?
For all of that familiar texture and
behavior, it was ever foreign equipment.
As adolescents, as men, we spend too
much lifetime following it around,
pretending we’re driving,
conquest to conquest, heartache to heartbreak.
If we get lucky, maybe we find a partner with
whom we share our ignorance and make do
with what we uncover along our way.

Our mothers did well if
they gave us humor to cope with absurd.
If we join fatherhood we must
frame our ignorance and share
the depth of it with our boy children,
something to help with that first rise surprise.
Kindness is always the place to begin.
It will unwind with a mind of its own as
our mothers laugh and hope for the best.

(menshealth.com)