Fathers have the authority to let boys relax the requirements of
the masculine model: If our fathers accept us, then that declares us
masculine enough to join the company of men. In effect, boys then have
their diplomas in masculinity and can go on to develop other skills. If
the father is dead, the boy can invent whatever mythology suits him and
imagine his acceptance, but if the father is alive but gone, then it
seems the boy can only feel his lack of acceptance.
A boy may spend his entire life seeking that acceptance, the love
and approval of his father, and with it a reprieve from the masculine
striving. If boys can't get acceptance from their fathers, then they. are
dependent on the company of other men to overwhelm the father's rejecting
voices or the echoing sounds of paternal silence.
Few girls grow up without mothers or some other woman as a mother
stand-in, but boys often see very little of their fathers and have no
other man in the family who is involved enough to demonstrate proper
masculinity. Most likely the fathers didn't get much fathering either,
and the mothers got even less; so no one is alarmed by the fact that boys
are being raised by mothers alone and that fathers are not teaching boys
how to be men, much less teaching boys how to be men with women.
It's hard to imagine how we can raise a better generation of sons
until we have created a better generation of fathers. The miracle in what
seems like a hopeless paradox is what can happen to a man when he becomes
a father--not just a sperm donor or a landlord but a man who nurtures his
children over time. If a man, even a fatherless father, will let himself
learn from child-raising rather than just trying to control or perfect
his children, they can carry him through all the stages of human
development from the other side and help make him aware of how men and
women develop, how masculinity and femininity are taught and learned, and
how to become a more complete human being.
But if he is a fatherless father, having grown up without ordinary
domestic models of men, he may see child-raising as "women's work," and
he may distance himself from the mysterious job of fathering and the
disconcertingly enlightening process of child-raising. Thus, while he
lurks at the periphery of the family, protecting his precious masculinity
from questioning its roots, he may miss his last chance.
SAVING YOURSELF FROM BEING A TOTAL ASSHOLE ALL YOUR LIFE All men
are not slimy warthogs. Some me are silly giraffes,
some woebegone puppies, some insecure frogs. But if one is
not careful, those slimy warthogs can ruin it for all the
others.
-- CYNTHIA HEIMEL
FOR THE LAST 30 years I've been trying to free men, including
myself, from the , spell of the masculine mystique. Luckily I found and
married a woman who stayed very sane with me. I still felt I wasn't
masculine enough, and when we had a son, I was afraid I couldn't be the
man he needed as a father. I went into psychoanalysis and complained
about my mother's failure to make me feel manly enough. My analyst was a
man whose masculinity I respected, and he declared me masculine enough,
and I got on with my life.
Wherever I turned in my profession as a therapist, I found men who
feared they were not masculine enough, so I did what my analyst had done
for me and what my father had failed to do: I assured them that they were
indeed real men. I like to bring men face-to-face with their fathers
while there is still time. I find that what men most want to talk about,
when the atmosphere is safe and it isn't too embarrassing to cry, is
their failure to get close to their fathers. Just try keeping dry-eyed in
an audience of men watching Field of Dreams.
I've sent male clients to see movies such as City Slickers, Born on
the Fourth of July, and When Harry Met Sally...--all of which gave them a
different message than the one they've been getting from Rambo or Rocky,
or some shoot-em-up that glorifies men when they die for their
masculinity. I'm not trying to give these guys wimp models or heroes of
unmasculinity.
I'm trying to show them that society is giving them permission to
expose and question the models they already have. All men need a variety
of ways to be a man, so we can be free to do whatever life requires of
us, and particularly to do whatever our marriage and our family requires
of us.
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