Joshua Ledet is My Hero

Don't know who Joshua Ledet is? You're probably not watching American Idol.

I have been, passionately. I'm not much of a TV watcher; in fact, the only thing I watch these days is American Idol. What can I say? I love music, my oldest son loves to sing, and last season, the boys and I started watching together. It kind of became "our thing."

Tonight, the top 3 singers -- Joshua, Jessica Sanchez and Phillip Phillips -- were winnowed down to two. Joshua "lost." Note the quotation marks.This boy can SING, and I'm confident that he'll have a successful career.

But it's what he did after he got the news that earned him my undying affection. While singing his farewell song, "It's a Man's, Man's World," he went down in the audience, grabbed his momma's hand, and brought her up on stage with him.

Understand, I've been reading a lot about boys and their mothers lately. Last month, I read The Mama Boy's Myth, which hopes to debunk the idea that boys have to emotionally separate from their mothers to become strong men. Today, I finished Chapter 3 of The Achilles Heel, Separating Boys From Their Mothers' Influence. For eons, popular culture has told our boys that they need to pull away from the moms to thrive.

Yet tonight, Joshua Ledet walked down into the audience, grabbed his mama's hand, and pulled her up on the stage with him. While singing:

This is a man's, a man's, a man's world

But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

Amen, brother!