WHAT’S A BOY TO DO?

I’ll say this: 1997 was an interesting year to be born a boy in the South. 

When I went to college, our country was in the middle of a necessary cultural reckoning with what it means to be a man. The Western world almost unanimously decided it’s not oppression, how many women you sleep with, dominance, or the ability to assert your will over others that make you a man. In fact, these behaviors and motivations often lead us to being less of a man. Less of a human, even. 

But I have to be honest. As grateful as I am that we dismantled the unhealthy ways we defined masculinity… I still want it to mean something. The 2010’s left us with a dismantled pile of old worn out tropes. We had a lot of good and thoughtful conversations about what masculinity is not, but we didn’t invest in conversation around reimagining what healthy masculinity is. And I think that’s important for a number of reasons.

If we don’t rethink the concept, I fear it leaves a big hole. It’s like deciding the food you’re eating isn’t good for you, cutting it out, but then failing to replace it with different, better food. Eventually you get hungry. And if you’re hungry enough, that hole is in danger of being filled with things that are worse than what you cut out. I’m struck by how many men today, increasingly young men, are prone to misinformation, radicalization, and celebrating some chauvinistic idea of male superiority –probably born out of the cavity left when we took out the trash. 

There’s a parable Jesus tells about demons. He says if you kick a demon out of a house and tidy up but don’t replace it with a better tenant, the demon will come back with a bunch of friends and maybe even thank you for tidying up the place. Now, I’m not sure exactly what Jesus was getting at, but it definitely feels like the 2010’s saw us kick out some demons and tidy up the joint, but then fail to fill the lease with better tenants. So now, I’m afraid we’re watching, and will continue to watch, the demon come back with all of his buddies to the house we left empty for him. We scratch our heads and wonder why a candidate like Donald Trump takes a huge majority of young men but not young women, but it’s in large part because Donald Trump knows how to give young men some direction and identity (regardless of whether or not it's a good one) and his opponents still haven’t.

In mass shootings from 1966-2019, 98% of the perpetrators were men, with a majority of these being men under the age of 45, horrifically trying to stake some claim of significance in this world. This is tragic on so many levels, and tells us the stakes are high. When people aren't raised into a strong identity, they go looking for one wherever they can find it. Identity is like food: we need it to survive, and we’ll take a bad meal before we take no meal. 

We need to define— and even celebrate— healthy expressions of masculinity. We need to let it mean something, not at the expense of others, but because if we don’t put some sense of meaning around it, it is inevitably going to be hijacked again to wreak even more havoc. As your therapist probably puts it: you will repeat what you don’t repair.

I’ve thought a lot about this. My friends and I talk about it. I’ve wrestled with it while I try to fall asleep, and while I drive and walk from my car to meetings and back to my car and then drive some more because, candidly, I personally need masculinity to mean something. I’m not talking about gender roles or any sort of gender hierarchy. What I’m talking about is when, Lord willing, I have a son and one day and he asks me “what makes a man?” I can give him an answer that blesses him and the world around him. 

Before I go further and share some of my thoughts of where we could take the conversation, I’d like to remind us of a few things:

I’m going to talk primarily about traits, not roles. Traits are what something is made of, roles are what something is made for. Right now, I’m less interested in describing what men should do, and more interested in describing who men should be.

We should remember traits are not mutually exclusive among identities. By this I mean just because I attribute something to healthy manhood does not mean it only is available or attributed to that one identity. Americans are typically loud talkers, but that doesn’t mean only Americans are loud talkers. 

We should also remember  this is a very broad overview. There will be nuances, specifics, contexts, and caveats I am not afforded the space to unpack in this essay (and frankly some of which I just don’t have answers to). This is my offering to the conversation, and I hope it inspires more consideration and contemplation from you.

That said, in all of this mental tossing and turning, the best case I’ve come up with so far is this: healthy masculinity is (at the very least) about living a life of service, protection, and honesty. Let’s discuss each of them briefly. 

Service

Service means looking out for the needs of others. It means finding where you could make someone's life easier, to share some of the load. It is the opposite of the Pharaoh who demands more while providing less. We all know how amazing it feels when someone goes out of their way to make our life a little easier. 

To me, this is one of the misunderstood cornerstones of masculinity. Sometimes people (including men) think this means men should see the rest of the world as too weak to handle their own problems, and therefore must step in to give their strength in place of someone else’s. But it’s not about pitying someone else, it’s about honoring them. Holding the door, helping someone move, or taking out the trash for someone else are not signs they aren’t capable; they’re how we communicate to someone that they are worthy of honoring.

Why wouldn’t we want to teach our men to be constantly looking for opportunities to honor someone through service?

Protection

Also often misunderstood, this is not a viewpoint that others are weak, I am strong, and therefore I must help those who are weak against strong evil people. The main heart of protection in masculinity is this: life is really painful and hard sometimes, and we need to try to bear the brunt of that awfulness on behalf of others often. Sacrifice through protection is the act of laying ourselves down for the sake of someone else. It is the opposite of possessiveness and greed.

I grew up as a middle child between an older sister and a younger brother. My family found out my brother was on the autism spectrum when he was very young, and I wasn’t much older. Of all the things my dad taught me growing up, I can remember this most clearly: I was supposed to be a safe place for my brother, not a dangerous one. The world was going to be dangerous enough for both of us; my job was to be a safe place for him, and he would be for me too, as we got older. Now we're both older, and I thank God all the time that we are safe places for each other. That, to me, is the heart of protection: being a safe place for someone, not a dangerous one. Greed and pride make us dangerous. Generosity and humility make us safe.

Honesty

Lastly, let’s look at honesty. If so far you’ve been reading and have been able to draw both service and protection onto the broken maps of stereotypes, I hope this one colors the picture differently for you. This to me feels like the biggest miss in the entire conversation around masculinity. 

From my perspective, there are two ruling implicit opinions on male vulnerability. Either our internal worlds are to be disregarded and shoved away for the sake of being seen as strong, or they’re supposed to rule us and be the excuse as to why we’re unable to be a contributing member in society. It feels like we can either bottle it all up, or we let it pour out and poison everything around us. But I’d like to suggest that is a false dichotomy. There is a way to share your honest experiences with people that doesn’t mean hiding, and it doesn’t mean surrendering to the mess and it’s consequences. It means, in the company of a few people we truly trust, to share, name, and open up the places we feel like we’re failing, missing the mark, behind everyone else, or in danger of being exposed. 

The paradox is we think we’ll be rendered powerless by admitting the things that pain us. We’re just scared boys convinced there’s a monster in our closet, and equally convinced if we check for it with our dad, we’ll both be eaten alive. But in fact, it’s in the sharing we realize those things are not as powerful in reality as they are when hidden. The shame we carry, the doubts, the anger, the confusion, the embarrassment, none of it disqualifies us when it’s brought into the open. It is in hiding and dishonesty that they render us powerless. The monster can’t eat you, but your secret belief in its power can. 

These are traits that I’m stumbling my way towards. This wasn’t written from the other side of mastery. I wrote this while I’m still very much on the way, but hoping to sharpen my own focus at the horizon.

If you’re a man, I wrote this for you. I want us to think deeply about what our identity means and how we give ourselves to the world. 

If you are not a man but you know and love any, I wrote this for you, too. I want you to be in this conversation. I want you to reflect on the men you love and respect most and try to trace back the characteristics of their lives to some common values we can foster in men today.

It is a very good thing that we took out the trash on the false messages around what makes a man a man. I’m praying my son doesn’t have to link his worth as a man to how much he’s got in the bank, whether or not he’s better than someone else, or how many sexual partners he’s accrued. And I’m praying for that with my ears open and my hands busy, building a life and a vision that offers him a better answer that is a ballast in his boat through the uncharted waters all men face.

Maybe you have sons. Or nephews. Or grandsons. Or young men who look up to you. When they ask you what it means to be a man, what will you say?