I used to love October.
Now I kind of hate, or put in another way, dread
this month.
It is not because I live in Florida where it will be 90 degrees and muggy today (although that does not help).
It is because today my youngest son has a middle school football game, followed by my oldest son playing varsity football on Friday. In between we plan on watching the Packers-Vikings game tonight.
What should be a fun couple of days will instead be accompanied by the site of young men and grown men dressing in the traditionally female color of pink.
All.......month......long..........................................................................
I understand that breast cancer is a terrible thing. I have a mom (believe it or not), a wife and a daughter. I don't want any of them to ever have this life-threatening ailment.
But that does not mean that I feel compelled to dress, or have my sons dress, in pink all month as a show of "awareness" or a show of support or as an implicit demand that more money be spent to cure this disease.
According to the National Cancer Institute, in 2012 more money was spent on breast cancer research ($602.7 million) than on prostate ($265.1 million), lung and thyroid cancer research combined.
There are a lot of men that get prostate cancer. Why don't we put social pressure on women and girls to wear blue and not shave for an entire month?
If the National Football League and other corporations who are making a killing selling pink sportswear for men would instead just donate stadium, television and other revenue to breast cancer research it might mean more money towards this cure while keeping our sons from being further feminized by a culture that seems determined to strip all signs of "male" from males.
Happy October.
