So what are those three scariest words? "Be a man."

This wisdom comes from Joe Ehrmann, a former NFL defensive lineman and now a pastor. He was interviewed recently for NPR's Utah Public Radio, and the transcript is below. This story is part of All Things Considered's "Men in America" series.

Interesting quote:

CORNISH: For you, what is masculinity? What does it mean to be a man?

EHRMANN: I think it could be only defined by two things. One, it's your capacity to love and to be loved. Masculinity ought to be defined in terms of relationships. Second thing, it ought to be defined by commitment to a cause - that all of us have a responsibility to give back - to make the world more fair, more just, more hospitable for every human being. So I think it's about relationships and commitment to a cause. That's the underlying of all humanity - men and women.

Cool interview.

The 3 Scariest Words A Boy Can Hear

By NPR Staff
Originally published on Mon July 14, 2014 

Listen  - 7:25

Joe Ehrmann, shown in 1975, was a defensive lineman with the Baltimore Colts for much of the '70s. He says that as a child, he was taught that being a man meant dominating people and circumstances — a lesson that served him well on the football field, but less so in real life.   Neil Leifer Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

This story is part of All Things Considered's "Men in America" series.

It's rare that a man makes it through life without being told, at least once, "Be a man." To Joe Ehrmann, a former NFL defensive lineman and now a pastor, those are the three scariest words that a boy can hear.

Ehrmann — who played with the Baltimore Colts for much of the 1970s and was a lineman at Syracuse University before that — confronted many models of masculinity in his life. But, as with many boys, his first instructor on manhood was his father, who was an amateur boxer.

Ehrmann says of his father: "I think his definition, which was very old in this country, was: Men don't need. Men don't want. Men don't touch. Men don't feel. If you're going to be a man in this world, you better learn how to dominate and control people and circumstances."

On the football field, those lessons served Ehrmann well. But, as he tells NPR's Audie Cornish, it was not the same case in the pediatric oncology ward. In 1978, Ehrmann's teenage brother was diagnosed with cancer. However tough Joe was on the field, he did not feel equipped to help his brother or himself.

Interview Highlights

On how his brother's death affected him

When he died, that was devastating to me. And I started to ask all the questions about what is the role, the meaning, the purpose of life. I was 29 years old, I was six years into my NFL career, and I had no concept — no concept what life was about, and no concept what I was about. And on this journey, I ended up asking the question: What does it mean to be a man? ...

I recognized that everything I had invested my life in — all my accomplishments, my achievements, the stuff I had accumulated — I recognized at that moment they offered no hope or help to my 19-year-old brother — 18-year-old brother — lying on his deathbed. ...

All I had was these old "man up" kind of things — "suck it up, we'll get through this together" — when he really needed the emotional, the nurturing, the love. And I had to really struggle to pull that out of my heart.

On the roles a coach can play in his players' lives

There's two kinds of coaches in America: You're either transactional or you're transformational. Transactional coaches basically use young people for their own identity, their own validation, their own ends. It's always about them — the team first, players' needs down the road.

And then you have transformational coaches. They understand the power, the platform, the position they have in the lives of young people, and they're going to use that to change the arc of every young person's life. I think football is an ideal place — sports in general — team sports are an ideal place to help boys become men. And the great myth in America today is that sports builds character. That's not true in a win-at-all-costs culture. Sports doesn't build character unless the coach models it, nurtures it and teaches it.

On what those philosophies look like on the field

I think there's a lot of screamers, there's a lot of shouters, there's a lot of shamers. My approach is this: Boy, you're in the middle of the game, and some kid's having a tough time. They get beat. ... I tell all my players, "Come on over to me during the game and I'll give you a hug." And you think about the power of a hug versus swearing, shouting, shaming at some kid.

When I played football, I hated [when] some kid would get a knee injury, your teammate would go down and that coach would say move the practice down 20 yards and leave that kid laying there. ... As coaches, we can kneel down next to that kid, you affirm the tears, the pain, the emotions, and you bring all the team around to say, "How can we help Bobby? He's one of us; he's done so much. He had so many dreams." So, you teach them how to build authentic community as men caring for and loving each other.

On the changes he's seen in ideas of masculinity

I think those three lies of masculinity — athletic ability, sexual conquest, economic success — in many ways, those things have been heightened. You have this increase in social media. You have young boys coming into this world, and they are hit 24/7. They're given all kinds of negative messages about their masculinity. They've been conditioned, and they have way more messaging out of this culture than I ever had as a young boy. I think in many respects, it's more difficult. There's more negative messaging out there and less positive.

On what it means to be a man

It think it can only be defined by two things: One, it's your capacity to love and to be loved. Masculinity ought to be defined in terms of relationships. Second thing, it ought to be defined by commitment to a cause. All of us have a responsibility to give back, to make the world more fair, more just, more hospitable for every human being. So I think it's about relationships and commitments to a cause. That's the underline of all humanity — men and women.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish. We've been hearing about men this summer - how their roles have changed, what their lives are like. And one thing most men are told at some point in their early lives is this - be a man.

JOE EHRMANN: Yeah, I think every boy at a very early age is given this mandate to be a man. They're actually the three scariest words every boy receives.

CORNISH: That's former NFL defenseman Joe Ehrmann. He played in the 1970s, mostly for the Baltimore Colts. As with many boys, his first instructor on manhood was his father.

EHRMANN: I think in many ways my father gave me all the wrong concepts about being a man. I think his definition, which was very old-school in this country, was men don't need. Men don't want. Men don't touch. Men don't feel. If you're going to be a man in this world, you better learn how to dominate and control people and circumstances.

CORNISH: And, of course, men don't cry. On the football field, those lessons served Joe Ehrmann well, but not in the pediatric oncology ward. In 1978 Ehrmann's teenage brother was diagnosed with cancer, and however tough Joe Ehrmann was on the field, he did not feel equipped to help his dying brother or himself.

EHRMANN: When he died, that was devastating to me. And I started to ask all the questions about what is the role, the meaning, the purpose of life. I was 29 years old. I was six years in my NFL career, and I had no concept - no concept what life was about and no concept what I was about. And on this journey I ended up asking the question what does it mean to be a man?

CORNISH: Why that question for this particular really very emotionally wrenching part of life?

EHRMANN: Well, 'cause I think I recognized that when my brother was diagnosed and began his dying process - I recognized that everything I had invested my life in - all my accomplishments, my achievements, stuff I had accumulated - I recognized at that moment they offered no hope or help to my 19-year-old brother - 18-year-old brother lying on his deathbed. I was a socialized male that had separated my heart from my head, trying to live life from the neck up.

CORNISH: You were saying all you had were the locker room speeches basically.

EHRMANN: Yeah. All I had was these old man up kind of things. Suck it up. We'll get through this thing together. When he really needed the emotional - the nurturing, the love. Boy, and I had to really struggle to pull that of my heart.

CORNISH: You went on to seminary and to become a pastor. And you also went on to coach high school football. Now, can you talk about what it is in particular you think coaches can do to shift this ideology and whether you really have encountered coaches who are interested in doing that?

EHRMANN: Well, there's two kinds of coaches in America. You're either transactional or you're transformational. Transactional coaches basically use young people for their own identity, their own validation, their own ends. It's always about them - the team first, players' needs down the road. And then you have transformational coaches. They understand the power, the platform, the position they have in the lives of young people, and they're going to use that to change the arc of every young person's life. I think football is an ideal place - sports in general - team sports are an ideal place to help boys become men. And the great myth in America today is that sports builds character. That's not true in a win-at-all-costs culture. Sports doesn't build character unless a coach models it, nurtures it and teaches it.

CORNISH: You mentioned that coaches are either transactional - what can you do for me - or transformational. On the field, how does that play out? Are you basically talking about the screamers here?

EHRMANN: The screamers, yeah. I think there's a lot of screamers. There's a lot of shouters. There's a lot of shamers. My approach is this - boy, you're in the middle of the game and some kid's having a tough time. They get beat. I tell all my players, come on over to me during the game and I'll give you a hug. And you think about the power of a hug versus swearing, shouting, shaming at some kid. Boy, you know, when I played ball I hated - some kid would get a knee injury. Your teammate would go down and that coach would say move the practice down 20 yards and leave that kid laying there. Boy, as coaches, we get kneeled down next to the kid. You affirm the tears, the pain, the emotions, and then you bring all the team around to say how can we help Bobby? He's one of us. He's done so much. He had so many dreams. So you teach them how to build authentic community as men caring and loving for each other.

CORNISH: I'm speaking with Joe Ehrmann. He's founder of Coach for America. And so you've actually been doing this work for decades. And has the average boy changed in some way or are there changes you've seen in how they approach masculinity than when you were growing up?

EHRMANN: Not too much. Boy, I think there's different nuances and stuff, but we have a real crisis when it comes to what it means to be a man.

CORNISH: Not too much, really?

EHRMANN: I don't think so. I think those three lies of masculinity - athletic ability, sexual conquest, economic success. In many ways those things have been heightened. You have this increase in social media. You have young boys coming into this world and they are - 24/7 they're given all kinds of negative messages about their masculinity. They've been conditioned, and they have way more messaging out of this culture than I ever had as a young boy. So I think in many respects it's more difficult. There's more negative messaging out there and less positive.

CORNISH: Can you talk about a particular incident that really drives that home for you?

EHRMANN: Well, I think the Steubenville, Ohio, rape case - two high school boys - 16-year-old girl - drunk, passed out - hundreds of pictures taken - tweets. And that one person had the moral clarity or moral courage to intervene in the midst of that. Two boys sentenced to prison - had no idea about consent. They weren't taught this stuff. A community tried to cover it up. Boy, I think that thing is played out and could play out at any high school. Boys have to be taught about - they have to have the moral clarity and the moral courage to speak up. That's not going to end. Women can't end it. It's not going to end until we raise up a generation of men that have the courage to call out other men on behalf of women in this country.

CORNISH: For you, what is masculinity? What does it mean to be a man?

EHRMANN: I think it could be only defined by two things. One, it's your capacity to love and to be loved. Masculinity ought to be defined in terms of relationships. Second thing, it ought to be defined by commitment to a cause - that all of us have a responsibility to give back - to make the world more fair, more just, more hospitable for every human being. So I think it's about relationships and commitment to a cause. That's the underlying of all humanity - men and women.

CORNISH: Joe Ehrmann - he's founder of Coach for America. Thank you so much for speaking with us. EHRMANN: Great to be with you, Audie. Thank you.

Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Understanding High Sensitivity in Boys More Deeply

I stumbled upon the first article through finding the second article yesterday on the Psychology Today blogs. Taken together, the two pieces (written more than two years apart) offer a good overview of raising and nurturing a highly sensitive boy.

I suspect there is a false belief out there that girls are more likely than boys to become HSPs (The Highly Sensitive Person). However, at birth boys tend to be more clingy and emotionally needy than girls; by the end of the first year this difference has equalized; by the third year girls are more emotionally needy than boys.

This may in large part be due to how parents raise their children based on their own gender biases. This passage comes from Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference (2010):

Psychologists often find that parents treat baby girls and boys differently, despite an absence of any discernible differences in the babies’ behaviour or abilities. One study, for example, found that mothers conversed and interacted more with girl babies and young toddlers, even when they were as young as six months old.[7] This was despite the fact that boys were no less responsive to their mother’s speech and were no more likely to leave their mother’s side. As the authors suggest, this may help girls learn the higher level of social interaction expected of them, and boys the greater independence. Mothers are also more sensitive to changes in facial expressions of happiness when an unfamiliar six-month-old baby is labelled as a girl rather than a boy, suggesting that their gendered expectations affect their perception of babies’ emotions.[8]

Even more support for boys and girls being essentially equal in their socio-emotional needs as infants comes from Lise Eliot's Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps -- And What We Can Do About It (2009).

Boys are no less sensitive, by nature, than are girls. However, before they are even born, assuming the parents know the gender, the child is being socialized according to the gender norms of the parents.

The Highly Sensitive Boy

Does your son cry often?

Published on January 23, 2012 by Maureen D. Healy in Creative Development

Does your boy cry often? Has he ever been bullied? Does he enjoy his time alone and quiet space? Is he deeply affected by violence? Or keenly perceptive to how you are feeling or thinking? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be raising a highly sensitive boy. Highly sensitive boys come with deep talents but can be "trying" if you seek to raise them in the regular way.

Sensitive Boys: Who are they?

Last week, I had an eleven year-old client named Matt in my office. His folks brought him to me because Matt had been bullied and today — he seems to be suffering from low self-esteem and a mild depression. When I asked Matt about what happened at school, he said: "Two boys took my glasses, broke them and left me at lunch unable to see." He told me as a tear ran down his face.

What makes Matt different than the other kids? He is deeply sensitive, affected by how he is treated by other kids and is different. At age eleven, he has already made storyboards for films he "sees" in his mind and knows more about cinema than most adults. Matt's remarkably high creativity, giftedness in this area and heightened awareness of everything in his life indicates that he is likely a highly sensitive child.

Highly sensitive boys are deeply affected by what others say to them, the images in their mind and their surroundings (for example, sound, smell, taste, touch and so on). Matt was so hurt that these bullies picked on him that just remembering that moment brought him to tears. Aidan, age 8, is another highly sensitive client of mine who cannot watch violence in movies (unlike other kids) and he has to turn away at the slightest hint of it. Aidan is also a gifted musician and just hearing Beethoven's 5th symphony brings him to tears.

Simply said, the creativity and giftedness of highly sensitive boys is typically there but you can imagine the frustration as a parent (teacher or adult) when you are doing "everything" you did with his older brother Billy, and it all worked out just fine then but now it's not working with your other (and sensitive) son: Highly sensitive boys need a whole new way of nurturing to support their success (which is possible).

Supporting their Success

Sensitive boys benefit greatly from parenting (or educational) approaches that take into account their sensitivity and celebrate it. Yes, I realize this is a "challenge" at times when your highly sensitive son comes home crying and your "regular" daughter is doing just fine. I am keenly aware that this doesn't feel like the moment you want to sing and dance about the joys of raising a sensitive son. But I promise it is his sensitivity that will be his greatest strength and not the opposite.

Sensitive Boys that succeed learn:

- Sensitivity is a Strength - Our culture often teaches (knowingly or unknowingly) that boys are tough, strong on the outside and just "get over things" when that is not always the case. Embracing your child's inherent sensitivity as a strength versus a problem is "turning point" for parents. This means you no longer push your son to be "more like the other kids" but appreciate him for who he is — deep feelings, sensitive responses, gifts, unique perspective and all.

For example, I helped Aidan's parents see that his sons' giftedness and exceptional creativity comes along with his deep sensitivity. It is a package deal. So learning how to appreciate his discomfort with crowds, dislike of "regular" movies and parent him in a way that honors his sensitivity as valuable (versus a nuance) has the power to change everything for the better --- and it has!

- Different is Good - Children naturally want to fit in with the other kids. The highly sensitive boy often doesn't though like Matt discovered when his classmates took his funky classes, stepped on them and went off laughing! Matt took this personally, cried, and had to have his parents pick him up from school.

Such an experience had the potential to devastate his self-esteem or become a "turning point" in Matt's life where he began not caring about what others think of him as well as starting to see his uniqueness as a "good thing." I can report that Matt is making real progress as seeing his differences as a good. (After all the great inventors on this planet were so notably different like Einstein and Edison! They were likely highly sensitive too.)

In my upcoming book, Growing Happy Kids: How to Foster Inner Confidence, Success and Happiness, I discuss how to help kids use challenges as stepping-stones to their success because all need to learn this — but especially the highly sensitive ones.

-Self-Care is Crucial - Boys tend to want to "shake things off" like when they fall off their bicycle and bruise their knee. They don't want to appear hurt or seem weak. But the highly sensitive boy needs to learn radical self-care first — he needs to learn when it's time to walk away, when to take better care of himself and then re-enter situations when he is stronger.

Sometimes boys that are sensitive just push their sensitivity down but the problem with that is — it hides who they are and also their gifts. Learning how to be a highly sensitive boy and navigate this not-so-sensitive world is important stuff. It's where they can learn how to lead their best (and happiest) lives.

Success is Possible

Being an active parenting coach, I work with adults all around the globe to help them raise their sensitive sons (and daughters) to be who they came here to be. These children no longer fit the old model of what works and they need a whole new approach that honors their sensitivity — as well as sees it as the basis of their greatest gifts they have to give.

* * * * *

Highly Sensitive Boys

Understanding high sensitivity in boys more deeply

Published on June 27, 2014 by Maureen D. Healy in Creative Development

I am one of the most sensitive beings on Earth – and I know it.
- Jean-Claude Van Damme

One mom recently said to me, “I don’t want my son’s sensitivity to be stuck in his personality” and I get it. Sensitivity isn’t always easy. Of course, it’s also not like sprinkles on ice cream that you can either have or not have --- it is inherent to your child’s nature. The bigger (and better) questions to ask are: How can I help my highly sensitive son succeed? What does he need to learn? Can I do something today? Before I begin I want to elaborate on the complexity of highly sensitive boys, too.

Boys are Different

Highly sensitive boys may not want to talk about their sensitivity, or go around saying they are highly sensitive. They want to be strong on the outside yet inside they feel things so deeply --- words hurt them, violent images upset them, and they know that they aren’t like the other kids. Perhaps they’d rather play with teddy bears at age twelve versus football in the field.

So my recommendation isn't going directly at highly sensitive boys, and saying, “You are sensitive. I need to help you." What they do need is to make other like-minded friends (other sensitive boys), and learn how to manage their emotions while developing their unique skillset (i.e. acting like Neil Patrick Harris, or martial arts like Jean-Claude Van Damme) so they can find their place in the world.

Getting Started

Going back to my earlier questions, I’ll get you started in the “right” direction at starting to answer those questions about your highly sensitive son. Please note that this is a short article and of course, I can go into more depth in a talk or personal consultation. But here we go:

1. How can I help my son succeed? Of course, this is a complex question but for brevity’s sake let me share two suggestions: You need to make sure he’s got a like-minded friend (another sensitive boy), and also a mentor (someone besides his parents). The truth is that high sensitivity can be a liability unless you learn how to be the alchemist of your own life. With that said, I have started a mentoring program for HSC but it can be my program or something else – the point is to connect your child to someone who has learned how to be successful with their highly sensitive nature in a sometimes not-so sensitive world.
2. What does he need to learn? This is a big one. And frankly, every child is different but highly sensitive boys in general need to learn: How to manage their emotions, handle their intensity and ultimately make better choices. Oftentimes highly sensitive children are very impulsive because they are letting their “right brains” lead without assistance from their “left brains” (logic, reason) and before they know it they hit a sibling or sassed you back.
3. Can I do something today? Yes. Set the intention to embrace your son’s sensitivity as a good thing and connect him to people who can help him (or learn yourself, and commit to growing together). What I know for sure is that sensitivity was intended as a gift to your child and with guidance he can learn how to make it so.

© Maureen Dawn Healy

Maureen Healy is an award-winning author, popular speaker and professional working with parents and their highly sensitive children. Her books include: Growing Happy Kids (2012) and The Energetic Keys to Indigo Kids (2013). In November, she’s also releasing a new e-book titled “Playbook for Parents” about how to help highly sensitive children thrive.

Learn more, sign up for her newsletter or stay connected via twitter: www.growinghappykids.com or www.twitter.com/mdhealy

Judy Y. Chu - Boyhood is a Battlefield: The Dangerous Expectations of Early Masculinity

The article below is an excerpt from Judy Y. Chu's new book When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships and Masculinity (2014). Based on this brief excerpt, this looks like an interesting book.

Boyhood is a battlefield: The dangerous expectations of early masculinity

The idea that "boys must be boys" is pervasive in our society — and it's doing much more harm than good

Judy Y. Chu  | Saturday, Jun 28, 2014


(Credit: Ollyy via Shutterstock)

• Excerpted from When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships and Masculinity

Even before our son Xander turned 5, my husband and I fretted about finding a good school for him. Our concerns extended beyond the fact that good schools are few and hard to get into in San Francisco, where we live. Our main concern was about whether we would be able to find a school that was a good fit for him, given that he is both particularly sensitive and exceptionally bright.

In preschool, because he preferred calm, quiet activities and could feel shy at times, Xander tended to play alone. As he generally kept to himself and was rarely if ever disruptive, he was easily overlooked by his teachers, who needed to focus on kids who required more attention. But it wasn’t until our “sensitive boy” was ready for elementary school that our troubles really began.

We tried a public school for one year, starting when Xander turned 5. Although he had a good teacher and the school did the best it could with what resources it had, the curriculum was not challenging enough for Xander, who was an early reader and excels in math and science.

Next, we tried a private school for one year, when Xander turned 6. After three months, we were asked to leave the school upon completing the school year. We were informed that our son was “not a good fit” for this school. When we inquired further, we were told that his shyness was problematic. Offering an example, the teacher remarked that Xander rarely played with the other boys during recess. Instead, he often chose to sit and watch as the other boys ran around and chased each other (and occasionally he played with girls). When we asked Xander whether he wanted to join in the boys’ activities but felt like he couldn’t, he said he just preferred to sit and watch, and explained that, “some of the kids play too rough.”

My husband and I could understand our son’s decision. He had never been interested in boys’ (or girls’) rowdy and rambunctious play. Although he liked his classmates and was less reserved when interacting with them one on one, he tended to be cautious in social situations, especially with the more aggressive kids, and he generally preferred (and could be quite active and gregarious in) the company of adults, to whom he could relate more easily. Moreover, Xander was comfortable playing on his own and didn’t feel compelled to do whatever the other kids were doing. One time when a boy from his class approached Xander on the playground at school, punched him playfully on the arm and invited him to “chase me,” Xander responded by smiling and saying simply, “Uh, no.” When we relayed Xander’s preference to the teacher, she indicated that this was precisely the reason for her concern: He didn’t want to join in the boys’ activities. And so it seemed our son’s “problem” was not merely his shyness but that he didn’t behave like a typical boy or conform to the teacher’s notions about how boys ought to act. When we told the teacher that we were fine with Xander’s decision to opt out of the boys’ rough-and-tumble play, his teacher seemed exasperated:

“Well, I just don’t know what to do with him.”

Sadly, Xander knew that this teacher didn’t like him. Her disapproval was evident in the way she looked at and spoke to him (and us). As Xander observed, “She never smiles.” And it was heartbreaking to take him to school every day knowing that he was misunderstood, devalued and even resented there.

At times, we felt as though this teacher would have preferred for Xander to misbehave or act out. Then, at least, she would have a ready response or some ideas about how she should deal with him. But Xander’s mild manner did not match her expectations for boys, and this seemed to make her uncomfortable. Rather than question her own assumptions about what boys could and should be like, this teacher decided there was something wrong with Xander. Her negative assessment was especially apparent when, later in the year, she reported to us that Xander had “gotten better,” citing, for example, how she had caught him and another boy peeking into the lost-and-found box (something the students are forbidden to do). With a nudge and a wink, she added proudly that she had allowed this trespass because she was so happy to see Xander “branching out.”

As we did not want simply to ignore or dismiss this teacher’s view, my husband and I consulted a range of specialists — including a pediatrician, a pediatric neurologist, a developmental psychologist and an occupational therapist — over the course of the school year. Each of these specialists concluded that Xander is a “fully normal child” who is “very bright and cooperative” and “very sensitive” with no symptoms of pathology, either social or psychological. And so we had to reconcile the teacher’s perception that our son’s conduct was worrisome with our sense that the qualities that seemed to distinguish him from the other boys were, in fact, within the range of normal.

* * *

The issues my husband and I were confronting in our son’s education brought me back to my studies with Carol Gilligan, whose groundbreaking research with girls has inspired and informed worldwide efforts to support girls’ healthy psychological development and whose book The Birth of Pleasure makes the link between girls’ gender socialization at adolescence and boys’ gender socialization at early childhood. Drawing on her work, I undertook the first research study to apply a relational framework and use relational methods to examine boys’ socialization experiences and development during early childhood.

The importance of relationships, particularly as a context for development, has been widely recognized in most developmental and psychological theories. What distinguishes relational theory is that it starts from the premise that our perceptions of, and subsequently our knowledge about, our selves and our world are inextricably embedded within and influenced by our interpersonal relationships as well as our social and cultural contexts. That is, relational theories of human development and psychology emphasize the centrality of relationships in people’s lives. From this perspective, human development occurs not in isolation (with the option of having relationships), but through and within relationships with other people. More than a context for our development, our relationship experiences — including how we experience our selves in relationships — are a primary means by which we develop our self-image and learn how it is possible for us to express ourselves and engage with others.

A relational approach to psychological inquiry reframes the study of psychology as a practice of relationships and emphasizes the need for researchers to account for the fact that the quality of collected data depends in part on qualities of the researcher-participant relationship.

In other words, relational methods center on the understanding that the stories people tell us, or what people are willing to share with us about their experiences and their lives, are partly determined by how they view us and our intentions, and whether they trust us. In my study, I used a voice-centered relational method that involved attuning myself to what the boys said and how they said it, and also reflecting on how the boys responded to me and how I responded to them in our interactions.

Revisiting Boys’ Development

In the autumn of 1997, Carol Gilligan and I went to the Friends School—an independent primary school (pre-Kindergarten through grade six) in New England — to study the boys in the pre-Kindergarten class. Carol had studied sixth-grade girls at this school with her colleagues from the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development, and their research had revealed ways in which heightened pressures at adolescence — to conform to conventions of femininity, or notions about what qualities and behaviors are appropriate and desirable for girls — could constrain girls’ expression of a full range of thoughts, feelings, and desires, and thereby hinder their relationships.

In this work, Carol had been particularly impressed by the girls’ knowledge about the relational world (including their attunement to interpersonal dynamics, their ability to reflect critically on gendered norms of behavior, and their ability to distinguish between appearances and reality), the girls’ resistance to giving up their voices (including their struggles to remain open and honest within their relationships), and the girls’ ability to articulate both their knowledge and their resistance.

Based on the research with girls, Carol introduced the concept of resistance as a way of capturing what she had come to see as “a tension between psychological development or well-being and an adaptation that was both culturally scripted and socially enforced (i.e., an initiation into gender binaries and hierarchies that divide human qualities into ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ and privilege the masculine while at once idealizing and denigrating the feminine).” Carol had observed girls resisting this initiation and described “the paradox girls face when pressed to silence an honest voice in order to have ‘relationships’ that girls recognized were not relationships in any meaningful sense of the word.” The significance of this work is its emphasis that, as individuals, “we have a voice and, with it, a capacity for resistance.” Subsequently, Carol asked whether boys also know about the relational world and show a similar resistance (e.g., against compromising their sense of agency and choice) when faced with pressures to align with conventions of masculinity that — despite the social advantages of being male and acting masculine — may be detrimental to boys’ psychological health and jeopardize boys’ relationships. It was this question that led to my study with 4- and 5-year-old boys.

I was interested in learning how boys at early childhood experience and respond to their gender socialization, and specifically how boys negotiate their self-image, behaviors, and styles of relating to others in light of cultural constructions of masculinity that manifest in their everyday interactions with peers and adults at school. I had spent the previous two years studying adolescent boys and found that most of the boys had already resolved any conflicts they may have experienced regarding their gender socialization. For instance, many of the adolescent boys in my studies had come to accept any gaps between the way they experience themselves to be (e.g., their self-knowledge) and the way they are said to be (e.g., societal norms and expectations for boys) as being the way things are. With Carol’s encouragement, I decided to study younger boys in hopes of gaining insight into how they reconcile any tensions or contradictions between their self-image and prevailing assumptions regarding what makes a boy a “real boy,” at a moment in boys’ development when they are increasingly exposed to cultural messages and societal pressures pertaining to gender and when they are in the process of figuring out how they can act and be with others.

I was also interested to learn what young boys are capable of knowing (about themselves and others) and doing (in terms of expressing themselves and engaging others) and how these capacities evolve through and are influenced by their socialization and development. As every human is born into relationships with other people (otherwise one could not survive), we all begin with an original sense of relational connection. Studies of infants have shown that both boys and girls are also born with a fundamental capacity and primary desire for close, mutual, responsive relationships with other people. Thus, boys are not inherently less capable than girls of being attuned to emotions (their own and others’) and responsive within their relationships. Moreover, studies indicate that boys as well as girls seek to cultivate and sustain close interpersonal relationships throughout their lives. Yet, older boys and adult men report having fewer close relationships and lower levels of intimacy within the relationships they do have. This discrepancy between infancy and adulthood suggests that boys’ development is somehow associated with a move out of or away from relationships. However, few empirical studies have examined boys’ relational development — that is, boys’ development as a process wherein relationships play a central and critical role, and boys’ development of certain styles of relating to other people — much less from boys’ perspectives.

Popular Discourse on Boys

I conducted my study against a backdrop of literature that highlighted ways in which pressures for boys to conform to conventions of masculinity could negatively impact boys’ development. Research on girls’ development conducted by the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development during the 1980s and early 1990s had inspired a resurgence of interest in boys’ development during the late

1990s. Specifically, revelations regarding the centrality of relationships in girls’ lives and the relational nature of girls’ development called into question traditional models of human development that promote individuation and separation in the name of growth, health, and, for boys, manhood. Following the studies of girls, a number of books focused on how boys’ socialization — towards masculine ideals that emphasize, for example, physical toughness, emotional stoicism, and projected self-sufficiency — may lead boys to devalue and disconnect from their emotions and relationships.

While this popular discourse on boys has been helpful in drawing attention to possible problems pertaining to boys’ gender socialization, it has been limited by its tendency to pathologize boys and problematize boys’ development. For example, most of these books are based on clinical populations of boys and adopt a diagnostic approach to understanding boys’ development. Starting from the assumption that there is something wrong with boys, these books emphasize their alleged emotional and relational deficiencies (as compared to girls) and aim to identify what is wrong and who or what is to blame. Boys’ emotional capacities and relational strengths are rarely mentioned, much less addressed. Furthermore, these books do not account for group and individual differences in boys’ socialization experiences and outcomes, including how some boys manage to thrive, and not merely survive, within the same contexts that can be debilitating for other boys.

There is also a tendency in much of the literature on boys to conceptualize boys’ gender socialization in terms of a linear model of cause-and-effect wherein cultural messages about masculinity and societal pressures to conform to group norms manifest in boys’ everyday lives and subsequently affect their attitudes and behaviors. In depicting boys as passive recipients of culture and helpless victims of their socialization, this approach tends both to objectify boys and to discount their ability to influence their developmental outcomes. Seldom considered are ways in which boys — as active participants in their learning and development — can mediate the effects of their gender socialization, for instance through ways in which they make meaning of cultural messages and respond to societal pressures.

A more balanced depiction of boys’ agency and awareness appears in Niobe Way’s and Carlos Santos’s research on adolescent boys. In her studies of boys’ friendships, Way acknowledges the obstacles that boys commonly encounter in their efforts to develop close friendships, including issues of trust and cultural stereotypes that denigrate emotional intimacy as feminine. However, Way also underscores the intense emotional intimacy in boys’ close friendships, especially during early and middle adolescence, and she emphasizes how boys value and fight to maintain (but often end up losing) their emotional connections to others. The core finding of Way’s “Deep Secrets” is that boys resist as well as adhere to norms of masculine behavior. She also indicates that a boy’s refusal to buy into masculine ideals is ultimately beneficial to his psychological health. Building upon Way’s work, Santos’s longitudinal survey study with middle-school boys similarly emphasizes boys’ resistance against societal pressures to align with masculine norms, and shows this resistance to be linked to higher levels of academic engagement, as well as to higher self-esteem and lower levels of depression. These studies add depth to the discourse on boys by highlighting boys’ resistance to gendered norms and expectations that constrain their self-expression and hinder their relationships, and by demonstrating that this form of resistance — which emerged and gained prominence primarily through research with adolescent girls—is also vital to boys’ development and important for boys’ well-being. Moreover, these studies suggest the need to examine patterns of resistance in boys’ development prior to adolescence, in order to understand how and why, in the course of their socialization and relationship experiences, boys’ healthy resistance to gendered stereotypes might eventually give way to accommodation.

Importance of Early Childhood

Developmental theorists have identified early childhood as an important time of change, particularly for boys. Jean Piaget referred to early childhood as the time when gender bifurcated schemas that shape human behaviors and experiences are constructed and reinforced.

Lawrence Kohlberg concluded that children acquire their gender lens by age six. Erik Erikson observed that, from this age on, “Conscience . . . forever divides the child within himself by establishing an inner voice of self-observation, self-guidance, and self-punishment,” as children learn to reconcile their desire to act on their impulses with their desire to avoid the disapproval and rejection that can result from behaving inappropriately. And Sigmund Freud described early childhood as a pivotal moment in boys’ initiation into manhood — a moment when boys establish their masculine identities by separating from women and girls and aligning with men and boys.

Although ideas about gender and gender-appropriate behavior may be introduced as early as infancy (e.g., through adults’ differential treatment of and responses to boys and girls), it is during early childhood that boys (and girls) begin to understand how these ideas may have implications for how other people view them and also for how they can be with others and in the world. Moreover, studies have found in boys a marked increase both in symptoms of psychological distress — including depression, learning and speech disorders, attention deficits, and hyperactive or out-of-control behaviors — and in the use of Ritalin at this age. Yet, little research has been conducted to explore how boys experience their socialization during early childhood and how these experiences may have implications for their connections to their selves (e.g., self-acceptance, self-esteem) and to others (e.g., relationships).

The growing realization that pressures for boys to conform to masculine norms may negatively impact their development—coupled with concerns about young boys’ susceptibility to behavioral and learning problems—suggest our need and readiness for a new way of looking at boys and thinking about their development that both emphasizes their agency and awareness and considers what factors influence and motivate individual boys as they respond to their gender socialization.

Excerpted from When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships and Masculinity by Judy Y. Chu. Copyright © 2014 by Judy Y. Chu. Reprinted by arrangement with NYU Press. All rights reserved.

This event occurred at the University of Minnesota in March of this year (2014). This conversation is a companion to the Office for Equity and Diversity's Critical Conversations about Diversity and Social Justice series at the University of Minnesota. Co-sponsored by the University Libraries.

Breaking the Man Box: Reconstructing Masculinity in America

Friday, March 28, 2014

Watch this event here!   (requires Microsoft Silverlight)


What does it mean to be a man? Historically, certain images of masculinity have been foundational to American beliefs and values. Challenging these rigid constructs has resulted in major shifts in American society, opening up opportunities for new ideas about gender, identities, and behaviors. How are Women/Gender Studies challenging traditional cultural behaviors? How are ideas about masculinity shifting and helping families raise feminist sons? This conversation engages panelists and participants in an examination of manhood, maleness and masculinity by discussing cultural contexts such as sports, gaming and guns; male power in the market place; ethnic masculinities; paternity and parenting; artistic expression; and sexual expression and identity.

This is a companion to the Office for Equity and Diversity's Critical Conversations about Diversity and Social Justice series at the University of Minnesota. Co-sponsored by the University Libraries.

If you are interested in learning more about this topic, check out some of the highlighted resources.

Books

• Affirmative reaction: New formations of White masculinity by Hamilton Carroll
• Artistic impressions: Figure skating, masculinity, and the limits of sport by Mary Louise Adams
• Boyhoods: Rethinking masculinities by Ken Corbett
• The caveman mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the debates over sex, violence, and science by Martha McCaughey
• The Chican@ hip hop nation: Politics of a new millennial mestizaje by Pancho McFarland
• Deconstructing Tyrone: A new look at black masculinity in the hip-hop generation by Natalie Y. Moore
• Dude, you're a fag: Masculinity and sexuality in high school by C.J. Pascoe
• Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities
• For colored boys who have considered suicide when the rainbow is still not enough: Coming of age, coming out, and coming home by Keith Boykin
• Guyland: The perilous world where boys become men by Michael S. Kimmel
• Looking for Leroy: Illegible black masculinities (Postmillennial pop) by Mark Anthony Neal
• New Black Man by Mark Anthony Neal
• Pimps, wimps, studs, thugs and gentlemen:Essays on media images of masculinity by Elwood Watson
• We real cool: Black men and masculinity by bell hooks

Videos

A call to men by Tony Porter from TEDWomen 2010



How movies teach manhood by Colin Stokes TEDxBeaconStreet 2012



Violence against women—it's a men's issue by Jackson Katz TEDxFiDiWomen 2012



Ten responses to the phrase 'Man Up' by Guante

Articles

• Superflies into Superkillers: Black Masculinity in Film from Blaxploitation to New Black Realism by Katharine Bausch
  Journal of Popular Culture, 2013 Apr, Vol.46(2), pp.257-276
• Meat, morals, and masculinity by M.B. Ruby and S.J. Heine in Appetite, April 2011, Vol.56(2), pp.447-450
• An Analysis of Hyper-Masculinity in Magazine Advertisements by M. Vokey, B. Tefft, and C. Tysiaczny in Sex Roles, 2013, Vol.68(9-10), pp.562-576
• The Spectre of the Wheezy Dad: Masculinity, Fatherhood and Ageing by Fiona Shirani in Sociology, 2013, Vol.47(6), pp.1104-1119
• Please be that guy: 7 Men who are transforming masculinity from the Change From Within Blog

Panelists

• Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre, hip hop artist, two-time National Poetry Slam champion, social justice activist, and educator
• Gavin Grivna, Director, University of Minnesota Housing and Residential Life,University of Minnesota Men's Network
• Zenzele Isoke, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota Gender & Women’s Studies
• Jason Jackson, Assistant Director, University of Minnesota GLBTA Programs Office,Tongues Untied

Moderator

• Owen Marciano, Co-Chair, University of Minnesota Transgender Commission

This page was created by Jody Gray, Diversity Outreach Librarian.

Ray Williams - The Male Identity Crisis and the Decline of Fatherhood

This article appeared in Psychology Today's blog section a few days ago, presumably timed for Father's Day on this coming Sunday. In it, author Ray Williams laments the crisis in male identity and the decline of the nuclear family.

Williams identifies a real and serious problem - family research tends to focus on mothers and children, healthcare agencies tend to exclude fathers (unwittingly), child welfare agencies tend to exclude fathers from case planning, and the list could go on.

For their part, men are less engaged in the family because so many children are now born to single mothers. We do not have fathers, we have "baby daddies."

Perhaps this is a return to our primal background - males deposit sperm in as many women as possible to ensure their gene line continues. Meanwhile, the females are left to tend to the children. When there was a strong tribal community to raise children collectively, this may have worked. Now, however, we lack that support system (unless there is a strong family support) and women are left to raise children on their own, often in economically disadvantaged circumstance.

Clearly, there is a problem. Our society has changed exponentially since the industrial revolution.

The solution to change, however, is seldom to "return to basics," or to reclaim the "golden age." Going backward does not move us forward through change. 

If we want to deal with this problem, we need to create new structures that can include the father in the raising of the child, whether their is a nuclear family or not. And we need to move agencies toward a more inclusive model of the family, in which the father is included in health care planning, education, and child welfare.

But that isn't where Williams goes with this article. He seems to favor a return to the traditional family, which is all well and good, except that is not where we are heading as a society.

The Male Identity Crisis and the Decline of Fatherhood

Is America becoming a fatherless society?

Published on June 8, 2014 by Ray Williams in Wired for Success

America is rapidly becoming a fatherless society, or perhaps more accurately, an absentee father society. The importance and influence of fathers in families has been in significant decline since the Industrial Revolution and is now reaching critical proportions.

As Alexander Mitscherlich argues in Society Without A Father, there has been a "progressive loss of the father's authority and diminution of his power in the family and over the family."

"If present trends continue, writes David Popenoe, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University, "the percentage of American children living apart from their biological fathers will reach 50% by the next century." He argues "this massive erosion of fatherhood contributes mightily to many of the major social problems of our time...Fatherless children have a risk factor of two to three times that of fathered children for a wide range of negative outcomes, including dropping out of high school, giving birth as a teenager and becoming a juvenile delinquent."

According to David Blankenhorn, author of Fatherless America, chair of the National Fatherhood Initiative and founder/president of the Institute for American Values, organization, and research conducted by Popenoe and scores of other researchers:

• Approximately 30% of all American children are born into single-parent homes, and for the black community, that figure is 68%;
• Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, suicide, poor educational performance, teen pregnancy, and criminality, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics.
• Over half of all children living with a single mother are living in poverty, a rate 5 to 6 times that of kids living with both parents;
• Child abuse is significantly more likely to occur in single parent homes than in intact families;
• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census;
• 72% of adolescent murderers grew up without fathers. 60% of America's rapists grew up the same way according to a study by D. Cornell (et al.), in Behavioral Sciences and the Law;
• 63% of 1500 CEOs and human resource directors said it was not reasonable for a father to take a leave after the birth of a child;
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes according to the National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools;
• 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes according to a report in Criminal Justice & Behavior;
• In single-mother families in the U.S. about 66% of young children live in poverty;
• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes;
• Children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes. Almost twice as many high achievers come from two-parent homes as one-parent homes according to a study by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
• 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes according to a study by the Center for Disease Control;
• Of all violent crimes against women committed by intimates about 65% were committed by either boy-friends or ex-husbands, compared with 9 % by husbands;
• Girls living with non-natal fathers (boyfriends and stepfathers) are at higher risk for sexual abuse than girls living with natal fathers;
• Daughters of single mothers are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 111% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a premarital birth and 92% more likely to dissolve their own marriages.
• A large survey conducted in the late 1980s found that about 20% of divorced fathers had not seen his children in the past year, and that fewer than 50% saw their children more than a few times a year.
• Juvenile crime, the majority of which is committed by males, has increased six-fold since 1992;
• In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed "greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than from boys in mother-father households," according to a study published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
• The Scholastic Aptitude Test scores have declined more than 70 points in the past two decades; children in single-parent families tend to score lower on standardized tests and to receive lower grades in school according to a Congressional Research Service Report.

Blankenhorn argues that America is facing not just the loss of fathers, but also the erosion of the ideal of fatherhood. Few people doubt the fundamental importance of mothers, Popenoe comments, but increasingly the question of whether fathers are really necessary is being raised and said by many to be a merely a social role that others - mothers, partners, stepfathers, uncles and aunts, and grandparents - can play.

"The scale of marital breakdowns in the West since 1960 has no historical precedent that I know of," says Lawrence Tone, a noted Princeton University family historian, "There has been nothing like it for the last 2,000 years, and probably longer." Consider what has happened to children. Most estimates are that only about 50% of the children born during the 1970-84 "baby bust" period will still live with their natural parents by age 17-a staggering drop from nearly 80%.

Despite current interest in father involvement in families, an extremely large proportion of family research focuses on mothers and children. Health care agencies and other organizations exclude fathers, often unwittingly. Starting with pregnancy and labor and delivery most appointments are set up for mothers and held at times when fathers work. The same is true for most pediatric visits. School records and files in family service organizations often have the child's and mother's name on the label, and not the father's. In most family agency buildings, the walls are typically pastel colors, the pictures on the wall are of mothers, flowers and babies, the magazines in the waiting room are for women and the staff is predominantly female. In most welfare offices, fathers are not invited to case planning meetings, and when a home visitor is greeted at the door by a man, she often asks to speak with the mother. Given these scenarios, fathers are likely to get the message that they are invisible or irrelevant to their children's welfare, unless it involves financial support.

Popenoe and others have examined the role of fathers in raising children and found there are significant differences than that for mothers. For example, an often-overlooked dimension of fathering is play. From their children's birth through adolescence, fathers tend to emphasize play more than caretaking. The play is both physically stimulating and exciting. It frequently resembles an apprenticeship or teaching relationships, and emphasizes often teamwork and competitive testing of abilities. The way fathers play affects everything from the management of emotions to intelligence and academic achievement. It is particularly important in promoting the essential virtue of self-control.

A committee assembled by the Board of Children and Families of the National Research Council, concluded "children learn critical lessons about how to recognize and deal with highly charged emotions in the content of playing with their fathers. Fathers, in effect, give children practice in regulating their own emotions and recognizing others' emotional clues."

At play and in other realms, fathers tend to stress competition, challenge, initiative, risk taking and independence. Mothers, as caretakers, stress emotional security and personal safety. Father's involvement seems to be linked to improved quantitative and verbal skills, improved problem-solving ability and higher academic achievement for children. Men also have a vital role to play in promoting cooperation and other "soft" virtues. Involved fathers, it turns out according to one 26 year longitudinal research study may be of special importance for the development of empathy in children.

Family life-marriage and child rearing-is a civilizing force for men. It encourages them to develop prudence, cooperativeness, honesty, trust, self-sacrifice and other habits that can lead to success as an economic provider by setting a good example.

Mark Finn and Karen Henwood, writing about the issue of masculinity and fatherhood, in the British Journal of Social Psychology, argue that the traditional view of masculinity, with its focus on power, aggression, economic security, and "maleness", and the emerging new view of fatherhood, which incorporates many aspects of motherhood is a source of struggle for many men who become fathers.

In a study of fatherhood in popular TV sitcoms, Timothy Allen Pehlke and his colleagues concluded that fathers are generally shown to be relatively immature, unhelpful and incapable of taking care of themselves in comparison with other family members. In addition, the researchers found that fathers often served as the butt of family members' jokes. All of these characterizations, while the intention may be humor, depicted fathers as being socially incompetent and objects of derision.

In a study of depictions of fathers in the best selling children's picture books, researcher Suzanne M. Flannery Quinn concluded that of the 200 books analyzed, there were only 24 books where the father appears alone, and only 35 books where mother and father appear together. The author concludes, "because fathers are not present or prominent in a large number of these books, readers are given only a narrow set of images and ideas from which they can construct an understanding of the cultural expectations of fatherhood and what I means to be a father."

It seems to me that the issue of the decline of fatherhood and the problem of the male identity crisis are inextricably intertwined.

In my Psychology Today article, Our male identity crisis: What will happen to men?, I said, "In a post-modern world lacking clear-cut borders and distinctions, it has been difficult to know what it means to be a man and even harder to feel good about being one. The many boundaries of a gendered world built around the opposition of work and family-production versus reproduction, competition versus cooperation, hard vs. soft-have been blurred, and men are groping in the dark for their identity."

Overwhelmingly, the portrayal of men and the male identity in contemporary western societies is mostly negative. Men today are extensively demonized, marginalized and objectified, in a way reminiscent of what happened to women. The issue of the male identity is of crucial importance because males are falling behind in school, committing more suicides and crimes, dying younger and being treated for conditions such as ADHD more than females. There has also been a loss of fatherhood in society as artificial insemination by anonymous donors is on the rise. Further, medical experiments have shown that male sperm can now be grown artificially in a laboratory. There has been a rise in divorce rates where in most cases, child custody is granted to mothers. Continuous negative portrayal of men in the media, along with the feminization of men and loss of fatherhood in society, has caused confusion and frustration in younger generation males, as they do not have a specific role model and are less able to define their role in society.

From once being seen as successful breadwinners, heads of families and being respected leaders, men today are the butt of jokes in the popular media. A Canadian research group, Nathanson and Young, conducted research on the changing role of men and media and concluded that widely popular TV programs such as The Simpsons present the father character, Homer, as lazy, chauvinistic, irresponsible, and stupid and his son, Bart, as mischievous, rude and cruel to his sister. By comparison, the mother and daughter are presented as thoughtful, considerate and mild-natured. The majority of TV shows and advertisements present men as stupid buffoons, or aggressive evil tyrants or insensitive and shallow "studs" for women's pleasure.

According to J.R. Macnamara, in the book, Media and the Male Identity: The Making and Remaking of Men, less than 20% of media profiles reflected positive themes for men. Violent crimes, including murder, assault, and armed robberies accounted for over 55% of all media reporting of male activities. Macnamara says that over 30% of all discussion in the media of male sexuality was in relation to pedophilia, and males' heterosexuality associated with masculinity is seen as violent, aggressive and dominating. Men are frequently shown in TV shows and movies as lacking in commitment in relationships and are shown as frequently cheating on women. And with increasing frequency, women are shown on TV shows and movies as being independent single mothers, not needing a man.

Guy Garcia, author of The Decline of Men: How The American Male is Tuning Out, Giving Up and Flipping Off His Future, argues that many men bemoan a "fragmentation of male identity," in which husbands are asked to take on unaccustomed familial roles such as child care and housework, while wives bring in the bigger paychecks. "Women really have become the dominant gender," says Garcia, "what concerns me is that guys are rapidly falling behind. Women are becoming better educated than men, earning more than men, and, generally speaking, not needing men at all. Meanwhile, as a group, men are losing their way."

"The crisis of fatherhood, then is ultimately a cultural crisis, a sharp decline in the traditional sense of communal responsibly, " contends Popenoe; "It therefore follows that to rescue the rescue the endangered institution of fatherhood, we must regain our sense of community."

So as we annually celebrate Father's Day, and reflect on it's importance to social stability, more men in our culture need to find their male identity and commit to the central importance of fatherhood.

You can follow me at Ray Williams Associates or on Twitter.