A week or two ago I spoke about how important having parents, grandparents or aunts and uncles may be in helping a young person make big life decisions, but what I didn’t speak about was the importance of a mother, grandmother, older sister or even an aunt to a young man’s life. Hell, I could’ve also spoken about the importance of a father, grandfather, older brother or even an uncle to a young woman’s life, but I didn’t.

This week I aim to fix that by talking about some of these things.

Now I haven’t forgotten that with this topic I should be careful with the way I say things, because talking about family remains a sensitive subject to some people for a number of reasons. So I just want to tell those who’ve, for example, had to grow up without certain family members that I understand whatever difficulties you might have with this subject.

I grew up in a time when beating up a child in order to teach them a lesson, was not something that a lot of people had a problem with in our communities. In fact, when I was growing up, if your mother was beating you up (especially us boys) and you ran away from her, the older boys and men would catch you and send you back to her. Everyone believed that she had a right to discipline you, because she gave birth to you.

But what they didn’t want to accept was that, as your mother, she was allowed to teach you how to treat other women with the same respect you treated her with. I mean, I remember the reactions I got when I told my friends that I would never marry or date a woman who wasn’t as strong and compassionate as my mother is.

And when I say she is a strong woman, ladies and gentleman, I mean she has is a physically and mentally strong person even though so many challenging things have happened in her life. When we were kids she stayed up almost every night sewing clothes, blankets and other stuff just to support us, didn’t ask anyone for handouts even when things were tough, and never hired a man to do the gardening she used to feed us.

My friends didn’t want to understand that I would compare a woman I would date and perhaps even marry, to my mother. At one point, one of them even said: “Well, if your mother is so awesome, then you should just marry her, man”. They were convinced that it’s totally wrong to compare my girlfriends so much to my mother, because they are different women with different personalities and ages.

But what they didn’t understand is that having a good female role model helps a young man understand that what we’ve been taught by other men about the strength and value of women is not true. You learn that women are not the soft and weak creatures that some men say they are.

Many of them are strong, intelligent, kind, caring and creative people and they deserve every man’s respect. I was lucky enough to have my mother as that important female role model. Of course, I also have two older sisters who worked almost as hard my mother did, their entire lives so I’m pretty blessed with strong female role models.

The interesting thing is that what my mother taught me is not something I use only use when dealing with other women, it’s something I use even when dealing with men. Seeing her work so hard and hearing about all she did even before I was born has made it clear to me that no man should be admired just because he is a man.

He should prove his strength – it doesn’t really matter whether it is physical or mental strength – by putting it to good use in challenging situations. He cannot just give up on life when things get tough and still expect me to look at him like he’s a role model. He cannot treat people with unkindness and disregard, and still expect me to respect him.

These are some of the things my mother (and even my sisters) has taught me about people and life.

But now we’ve come to that part of the discussion where you tell me about your lives.

#ChatBack: As young people, who are the male and female role models in your life?

And what are some of the things those people have taught you about how to treat other males and females?