It hasn't always been easy to be a man. Fortunately, my brother and I had a great example; our father was a man of iron integrity, unshakable will, and great physical endurance. He wasn't a big man — I doubt he ever weighed more than 140 pounds — but he more than made up for it by force of personality.
He was also a man who loved and doted on our mother for the 71 years of their marriage. Everything I know today about being a man, a husband, a father, and a grandfather, I learned from him; not long after he died, my brother and I were talking about him, sharing old stories, and I opined that "...we two, you and I, are the men we are because of him." My brother agreed.
Dad was also a man of a different time, a child of the Depression, a WW2 veteran, who raised his family in the '50s and '60s. Now? Well, it's an interesting time to be a man. It's probably an even more interesting time to be raising sons, not that I'd know — my wife and I have four daughters (which explains why my hair has gone all white), and I believe that girls are probably easier. The only time I was forced to deal with teenage boys, for example, was when one came to pick up one of our girls for a date, and I was taught how to intimidate young men by a legion of professionals. I do have three grandsons — fortunately, their parents are raising them along traditional lines.
That's not always the case these days. Boys and young men are facing a lot of challenges that would have been unheard of a few decades ago, and I have a few ideas as to why that is.
First of all: The lack of strong fathers is a big part of the problem facing American boys today. I was indeed fortunate to have a strong and strong-willed father, as I've described, who taught me the meaning of masculinity, respect, integrity, honor, and the value of a good work ethic. The Old Man was a hell of a great role model. He’s been gone for six years this month, and I still am and always will be trying to live up to him. Boys need such role models to teach them how to be men. All children need fathers, of course; they need good role models in both parents. But boys, in particular, do better when they have strong, honest fathers in their lives. As of the latest census, almost 18 million children in the United States have absent fathers; that's a catastrophe, especially for boys.
Second, education in the United States has been deteriorating for some time. There have always been problems; I went to a small-town Eastern Iowa high school that focused primarily on preparing young men to be either good farmers or to hold jobs on the assembly line at John Deere or one of the other large local manufacturers. My high school experience yielded me very little, with a couple of rare exceptions, one being an American Literature teacher who got me interested in reading great books and my time as the opinion editor of our high school newspaper, which at the time seemed a lot like giving a maniac a loaded gun (boy howdy did I start a lot of yelling matches) but it seemed to have prepared me well for doing, well, what I'm doing now. And not all education comes from schooling; I worked, from the time I was twelve or thirteen, farm work in the summers, running a trapline in the winter; when I was 16, I got a job in town, selling hunting and fishing gear in the Woolco in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and immediately started putting my learnings in work ethics to work. But today, the education system seems stacked against boys; they are reviled as "toxic," and if they act as normal, healthy boys do, they are drugged into passivity.
Third and finally, there just aren't outlets for boys and their energies as there were. Sports, of course, are a great way for boys to blow off steam. So are the outdoor sports: Hunting, fishing, or just being outside. Not so long ago, boys — and girls — spent the long summer days outdoors, often being cautioned to come home "when it gets dark." Now? That would get the parents a visit from Child Protective Services.
These days, times are just... weird.
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Boys need to grow to be men who are strong, capable, respectful, honest, with strong work ethics. We can still achieve that, but it will take one thing: parenting.
Raise your sons to be men. Teach them the value of liberty, honor, integrity, fortitude, courage, knowledge, and work. Teach them that nobody owes them anything and that if they want something, they had best be ready to work for it. Teach them that money in and of itself is nothing, but how you earn money – through honest work, production, and trade – is everything. Teach them to care for and provide for their families when the time comes.
Those are the lessons that matter. And they are the ones that too many boys aren’t getting.
As I mentioned, I have three (so far) grandsons. Their parents are raising them to be men. I’m glad that I still have a part to play in that as well. In looking back at the Old Man and his life, I'm pleased to know that he would have approved.
