My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys."

Killebrew recalls a family scene that contrasts two kinds of “cultivation”: maintaining a perfect lawn versus allowing children the freedom to play, roughhouse, and grow. The father’s retort—“We’re not raising grass… we’re raising boys”—frames childhood messiness as purposeful, even necessary, for developing character and resilience. In the context of Killebrew’s public image as a grounded Midwestern sportsman, the anecdote also functions as a homespun philosophy of priorities: people over appearances, long-term formation over short-term tidiness. The line has become a widely repeated maxim about parenting and values, using humor to make a serious point about what matters most.