If you search the Man-Making Blog archive for "testosterone," you'll find lots of posts describing the impact of this powerful chemical on the physiology and psychology of our young males. Simply put, it radically alters adolescent males in profound ways, some of which, if not managed, will cause enormous suffering for them, their families, and our communities. As an old proverb, attributed to African tribal culture implies, if we don't intentionally enfold boys into the life of the community, they will burn the village down just to feel the heat. That's a huge topic, but not quite what this post is about.
. . . what happens to adolescent girls at puberty. . .
This post is about what happens to adolescent girls at puberty, and how their bodily chemistry radically changes them and their lives. It's about the excitement, fears, shame, and confusion that accompanies this transition. It's also about how too many of our young men are ignorant about the nuances of this powerful and transformational experience for the young women in their lives.
A recent New York Times Op-Docs piece about adolescent girls and puberty led with a thirteen-minute video. In that clip, five brave young women, ages 14 to 17, described the onset of puberty, menstruation, and the impact on them physically and socially. I'm thrilled to know we've arrived at a time when this information can be so freely shared in such a public forum. I honor the young women for their vulnerability, and deeply personal honesty about their coming-of-age experience. Thank you!
. . . where did you find helpful, intimate, and informed guidance for this transition in your life?
This is the kind of video all adolescent girls should see to help prepare them for the experience, and to de-shame and normalize what happens to them. I think this or a similar video is something our young men should see and discuss with caring, informed and trusted adults in their world. Not "the class on sexuality," but a setting that allows for the vulnerability and intimacy the topic deserves.
As an adult looking back to this time in your life, perhaps without the benefit of YouTube and other online resources kids have today, where did you find helpful, intimate, and informed guidance for this transition in your life?
I'm also waiting for the adolescent male version of this video!
SUBSCRIBE: Enter your email address below to have the Man-Making Blog post delivered to you when published.
Getting my driver’s license was one of my early teenage rites of passage. I couldn't wait for so many reasons and it was a big day when it finally happened. As is natural in most passage experiences, there were real trials on the path to getting my license. First, I had to study the arcane details that make up the “rules of the road” to get my permit. And then came the many tests of my ability such as staying in a lane, observing pedestrians, making full stops, obeying the speed limit, and the dreaded parallel parking. But it was all worth it to get the license and become a legal driver.
For me, it was not just that I could be in charge of 2000 pounds of steel and fly down the road, but much more. Driving meant escape from the pressure cooker of our small family house and all its tensions. It meant I had status among my non-driving pals and could easily pull them together for common adventures. I could often drive to school, rising above the demeaning wait and riding on the school bus. It meant I had a new and private space for hanging out with girls and that new world of emerging sexuality. Very simply stated, a driver’s license made my world much bigger geographically and opened countless doors of discovery.
...it was a golden chariot to me.
I quickly grew attached to all the excitement and possibilities of having access to a car, and it wasn’t long before I wanted my own. My first car was a beat up, black, 57 Volkswagen. The seats were badly worn, it often smelled like gas, the windshield wipers were hardly functional, it had dings and rust on the body, and it barely had enough heat in the winter to keep the windows defrosted much less provide any comfort. But it was a golden chariot to me. That’s why I was surprised to learn that for many young people, getting a driver’s license today, much less a car is NOT the exciting rite of passage it was for me.
. . . getting a driver’s license today is NOT the exciting rite of passage it was for me.
In 2019, StudentMoveTO, a research partnership of ten colleges and universities in Canada, surveyed 18,500 students at ten post-secondary institutions across the Toronto and Hamilton area. They discovered More than twenty-two per cent of survey respondents said they didn’t have a driver’s license. The group’s research also found that sixty-five per cent of students who did have a driver’s license didn’t own a car, and of those, just fifteen per cent indicated they would buy a car in the future. So much for golden chariots!
Some of the reasons given for avoiding car ownership and driving included good access to public transit services (83 per cent), all the costs associated with driving and owning a car (66 per cent), and the negative impacts of driving on the environment (50 per cent).
When you realize that with a few taps on your smartphone you can call up Uber and Lyft and quickly go where every you like without paying car insurance, parking, maintenance, and car repairs, it does make sense. Not to mention the availability of electric scooters and bikes appearing everywhere in major cities.
I do get the world is changing, and less driving for all of us is really a good thing. But sitting here in this moment, I do miss my golden chariot, and all the trials and joys that came with it.
Do you remember your first "golden chariot?
SUBSCRIBE: Enter your email address below to have the Man-Making Blog post delivered to you when published.
Locking away his cell phone in a wooden box was the first challenge 17-year-old PJ had to face on his 5-day Rites of Passage (ROP) experience. He and his father got to the wilderness camp after a 10-hour drive from Canberra, the capital city of Australia. Like so many of these encounters, the wild and remote bush setting added to the power and gravity of the passage event.
From my experience, once a Rites of Passage event is launched, all the males present, but especially the young guys, naturally drop into the seriousness of the occasion. Everyone gets that something important is happening and they soon find their right place in the ancient drama. It was no different for the thirty other fathers and sons (or male mentors - uncles, stepdads, or family friends of a young man), who attended the camp with PJ and Peter. The group was made up of guys who came from across Australia to be present to honor a group of young males transitioning into manhood.
Clearly you can’t make men out of boys in five days.
Clearly you can’t make men out of boys in five days. What you can do is:
Let them know that you see and welcome their emerging manhood.
You can encourage the young men to take the changes going on in them seriously and invite them to consider some of the responsibilities waiting for them.
You can challenge the young guys with activities which contain "think about it" lessons about becoming a man.
You and the other men can share stories about your adolescent years, and what you've learned along the way.
Finally, you and the other men can witness and honor the gifts and talents you see in the young males.
For young men, being witnessed in those ways, by thirty or so adult men, is a compelling and transformational experience. It is also powerful and transformational for the adult men witnessing the young males.
You can read more about PJ and Peter's Rites of Passage camp experience in a recent Canberra City News article. The article discusses some of the camp activities, the kinds of topics covered in conversations, and the role of rituals in the process. If you want to learn more about Peter's experience you can email him at peter.lennon@mhf.org.au You can also visit the Reconxted Facebook page to learn more about this group's approach to Rites of Passage.
On the Man-Making Blog you can read more about various kinds of Rites of Passage experiences diverse groups have taken to support their adolescent boys during this important transition time. Note: These examples are taken from twenty years of posts and not all links and videos are still available.
If you're inspired to do something similar, even if it's on a much smaller scale, feel free to contact me.
SUBSCRIBE: Enter your email address below to have the Man-Making Blog post delivered to you when published.
This is another of my collection of "heroes" posts. Or, as I like to call them, "What One Man Can Do" stories. We are all regularly confronted with stories in the news about wild young guys doing foolish things, often with tragic consequences for themselves, their peers, and their community. Your community! Who among us has not at least thought, "Someone should do something about those boys!" The heroes I write about in these posts are the men who step up and act. Mario Lamarre is one of those men.
Mario Lamarre
Mario is the founder of Hoop Alliance Mentoring. It's a program built to connect coaches, mentors, and prospective basketball players in Brockton, Massachusetts. It is also a powerful mentoring program that teaches critical life lessons and gives young men a safe haven, all through the love of basketball.
. . . critical life lessons all through the love of basketball.
According to a recent story in the Brockton Enterprise, it all began 7 years ago when Mario emptied his savings account to get the program started. He set up the program at the Boys & Girls Club in Brockton where he worked. This past August, the Hoop Alliance Mentoring basketball tournament was hosted by Brockton High School, in a beautiful gym, complete with fans in the bleachers.
Hoop Alliance Mentoring has grown over the years, and now serves over one hundred students. The students are divided into six teams, with ten members each, and two co-coaches. The remaining forty kids are "playing for fun," and I suspect, hoping for a shot at getting on a team. The teams meet on Mondays for one-on-one mentoring and practice, and then on either Tuesdays or Thursdays they have games.
The teams are sponsored by local business which ups the community involvement. The young men are surrounded by older men and program graduates who function as coaches and community mentors for the young guys. The mentors' primary purpose is to encourage the players to become better athletes and help them build outstanding character. Mario hopes to soon add a girls' division, and set up an official nonprofit organization. You can read more about Hoop Alliance Mentoring in The Brockton Enterprise article.
In the tournament, the red team defeated the orange team, 68-57. But really they are all on the same team and they are all equally victorious!
Mario Lamarre is just one man who decided to act and do something for the young guys around him. It took time and determination to keep his dream alive. The result is that he has positively influenced the lives of countless young men, and positively impacted families and his community in the process.
Mario Lamarre is my hero for sure . . . but maybe you could be too.
SUBSCRIBE: Enter your email address below to have the Man-Making Blog post delivered to you when published.
What is a more compelling Rite of Passage for a young man than his first shave. An act in most teen male minds guaranteed to push him across the line into certain manhood (even with little dots of Kleenex all over his face). Sadly for too many boys, those without good men in their lives, that act, like so many they are facing, becomes a trial and error kind of ordeal. Often with very sad consequences. In this post I offer two perspectives on this small but important passage experience.
At this link is a story from a loving father taking about how he wrangled his somewhat proud and resistant adolescent son into the bathroom to teach him the manly art of shaving. He says it's a lot like trying to give a cat a bath! Yup, it's funny, but for me, one of the guys who didn't get that guidance, it brings up sadness about the difficulties I encountered and the absence of any fatherly blessing on completion.
In the post below, taken from the Man-Making archive, is one of a couple posts I've written on this topic in the past. Seeing that post again, after almost 10 years, brings the moment alive for me all over again. The sensations, smells, the bathroom . . . all of it. I'll bet it stirs some memories of that experience in your life, too!
As a young male perched on the brink of manhood, I desperately wanted to participate in the very masculine rite of shaving. Not that it was really necessary, because in truth, I had only the softest beginnings of what would someday be called a beard. Nonetheless, I deemed it necessary to gear up with a small mountain of foamy shave cream and an unforgivably sharp razor to do bloody battle with my own face.
In my adolescence, there were no men around for training. This was long before the internet, YouTube, and all those digital forms of guidance available today for so many things masculine. All I had for instructions were TV commercials. They always showed severely masculine guys shaving, using horrible shaving technique, and lots of foam. Every commercial also featured a gorgeous and sexy woman fawning over the guy's clean-shaven face. What testosterone-fueled adolescent male wouldn't want that? Of course, those guys had real beards and no visible pimples, which functioned as road bumps for my razor. The commercial below is a good example.
More tragic than the small patches of Kleenex, that constantly dotted my face in those years, is that no one was there to witness and honor the emerging man in me. There was no one to say, with words or by their actions, "I see you're becoming a man, I honor that step in your life, and I'm here to support you on your journey toward manhood." In so many of the small rite of passage opportunities during my teen years, like shaving, learning to drive, tying a tie for prom, my first teen birthday, and help to understand a constant erection and my compelling need to masturbate, I was left alone to figure out manhood on my own.
I see you're becoming a man, I honor that step in your life, and I'm here to support you on your journey toward manhood.
It really doesn't take much in those precious, pre-manhood moments, for a teen-male-literate man to make an important difference in a young guy's life. It only takes a comment, maybe a little advice, perhaps even a small private celebration or ritual, to mark his mini-crossing into the world of the men. Males of all ages are naturally hardwired for this interaction. The young guys hunger for it. Older men, whether they realize it or not, in these critical crossing-over moments, can offer young males powerful and transformational blessings. A little instruction doesn't hurt either. It's really high quality man-making action.
Is there a young male in your life, perched on the edge of manhood, who might benefit from a small gesture of you attention, recognition, and support on his journey toward manhood?
SUBSCRIBE: Enter your email address below to have the Man-Making Blog post delivered to you when published.
Bill Amatneek, an experienced author and editor, has given the world a beautiful gift. His book, Heart of a Man: Men’s Stories for Women, gives all of us an intimate look under the hood of man’s world.
The subtitle of the book, Men’s Stories for Women, suggests it’s about women finally getting to see men as their vulnerable and most emotionally honest selves, a glimpse they often don’t get. The book delivers on that promise, but it’s also very much a book for men.
In a soft chronological order, thirty-nine writers reach deep into their male souls, and share true and intimate stories about many of the developmental experiences of a man’s life.
“We’ll see if you’re a man today, Donnie.”
Early on we hear the story of a six-year-old boy being prematurely forced by his father to “become a man” by killing baby squirrels with his first use of a shotgun. From there the stories take us past many of the challenging experiences in a man's life such as the discovery of girls and first love in adolescence, encountering competitive sports and teams, creating brotherhood and connections to men friends, love and marriage, parenting, and even a man’s experience of war. If you’re looking for a guidebook on manhood, Heart of a Man is a good place to start.
In a way, the book is about all men and their quest for that illusive collection of knowledge, experiences, and feelings that define fully realized manhood. Amatneek says he hopes his book will, “bring men and women closer.” I hope it does, but just as worthy a goal is that all male readers will find themselves somewhere in the book’s stories. Like sitting in a good men’s support group, reading Heart of a Man will help men to feel less alone with the joys and pain of their journey toward manhood.
You can read many stories on the book’s website (highly recommended). While there, you can also order the book, send the author a note, or even share a piece of your life story for future editions.
Heart of a Man: Men’s Stories for Women
Edited by Bill Amatneek and published by Vineyards Press in 2021
This is a repeat of an older post describing what Father's Day means to me. It's all still true for me and it feels good to honor my father, father's, and fatherless boys in this way today. It is my intention to run this out every Father's Day.
Fathers, for better and worse, are THE most powerful man-making force on the planet. In this dad season, good fathers are my heroes, and certainly deserve high praise and celebration. That said, here's another way to think about Father's day.
. . . that stew pot of memories called "Dad" . . .
As the commercial messages about Father's Day bring fathers and fatherhood into sharp focus, for me that stew pot of memories called "Dad," with its very mixed bag of confusing emotions, gets seriously stirred up. From my childhood through adolescence, my dad was lost in his marriage, was sick, and in the throes of alcoholism. While there were some gifts from him, too often he treated me horribly and I've been finding my way back ever since. Even though I know my father was the best dad he was able to be, I'm left feeling the complicated remnants of rage, love, sadness, hopelessness, and a kind of father-hunger driven emptiness at my core.
After years of self-discovery work and digging around in my family history, I've been able to find some true expressions of my dad's fatherly love. Like water in the desert, I treasure those few positive memories. Taken together, they form a small shield I can use to protect myself on Father's Day. At this point in my life, I'm exhausted by both talking and not talking about my dad issues. But when the third Sunday of June approaches each year, for me it's an Un-Father's Day. I find myself looking forward to the relief on the day after Father's Day when it all goes underground again.
In this dad season, I'm also very much reminded of the many men, adolescent males, and young boys I've come across in my man-making work who don't have any good dad memories to use as a defense on Father's Day. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm reminded of of all the really bad dad stories I've heard shared across a circle by often sobbing guys.
I'm just saying, I've heard lots of really bad dad stories.
I have heard from countless men, young men, and boys who have never known a dad because he simply wasn't identifiable, because they were adopted at birth, or because of a court ordered separation from their fathers. There are all the dads who left during pregnancy, or the dads who were shot in the hood from gang violence. Then there are all the kids whose dads are in jail, or lost to PTSD or substance abuse. I remember a soft-spoken boy of ten whose initiation name was Steel Heart. He was in the room when his dad killed himself with a shotgun blast to the head. I'm just saying, I've heard lots of really bad dad stories.
I always wonder if just the idea of Father's Day results in re-wounding these fatherless young males. I wonder if the day stirs up their deep, confusing, profound, and not very well-defended sense of abandonment and father-loss. For them and me, again this year, it will be very much an Un-Father's Day.
So on this Father's Day, if you have the good fortune to have a good dad to honor, count yourself as lucky, and don't miss a chance to say thank you. However imperfectly he fathered you, he was there and doing the best he could do. He deserves to be thanked and celebrated. Thanks Dad, I love you.
After honoring your father, please take a moment to allow into your heart all those tragically abandoned or under-fathered young guys in the world around you. The boys, young men, and men who won't feel those good-dad feelings on Father's Day. Remember that on Father's Day, and every other day of the year, these guys will experience a profound hunger for the blessings that can only come from having a caring father in your life. Remember all the boys and men who, maybe like me, are just hoping all this complicated emotional dad business will pass by soon, go back underground, and that life somehow will get back to a survivable normal on the day after Un-Father's Day.
. . . I believe there is/was a father who loved you.
On my Un-Father's Day card I'd write:
Today I honor good dads everywhere. Thanks you for all you have done and will do. Blessings also on the dads who in some way checked-out, who walked or were not available to their sons, and on the sad legacy they have to live with as a result. And especially, blessings on confused, sad, and dad-hungry males everywhere. Buried underneath all the drama and tragedy that kept you and your father apart, in my heart I believe there is/was a father who loved you.
SUBSCRIBE: Enter your email address below to have the Man-Making Blog post delivered to you when published.
There's a recent CNN interview of President Obama with Anderson Cooper titled Obama reflects on Becoming a Man. I love how President Obama shows up. You'll hear him being vulnerable and speaking his truth about his life as an adolescent. In a circle of men and boys, he discusses the positive difference a supportive circle of good men and his peers could have made in his life as a young man.
"I understood what it meant to not have a father in the house."
This interview with Anderson Cooper made me proud of him all over again.
WARNING: The second segment of this video clip is about politics!
If you can, please forget about politics for a moment, and just listen to what President Obama has to say about and to men and young men sitting in a circle with him.
I've just returned from a Rite of Passage Weekend in which twenty men
"initiated" thirteen young males into man's world. With the young men being
between twelve and twenty years old, we certainly were not welcoming them to
"manhood." If they're lucky, that passage will come much later, and sadly, some of them will never
experience that line-crossing. But that is a different discussion.
2021 Boys to Men Tucson - Rites of Passage Weekend
The young males on this passage weekend became what we call Journeymen. Meaning we honor the fact
that they are leaving boyhood behind and that they are beginning to take their
emerging manhood seriously. We, the men of their community, witness, honor, and
support that line-crossing. We no longer refer to them as boys, but Journeymen.
Apparently, the adventure these newly minted Journeymen are being launched into
is getting to be an even longer road. There is now research to describe a new
phase of development called "Emerging Adulthood." This is a life-stage that lies
in between adolescence and young adulthood. I think this is important
information for those of us working with young men because it explains a lot of
what we all have intuitively noticed. It's that the process of becoming a
"full-fledged young adult" takes much longer today than it did 50 years ago. In
fact, as you'll hear in the video below, thirty really IS the new twenty!
…thirty really IS the new twenty!
Jeffrey Arnett, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark
University in Massachusetts. Dr. Arnett believes Emerging Adulthood is a period
of development between the ages of 18 to 25 years, which is distinct from
adolescence and later stages of adulthood. In his article in Psychology Today
titled,
The Big Challenge: Jumping From Adolescence Into Adulthood," he articulates five features that support Emerging Adulthood as a distinctly
different developmental stage. They are: 1. Identity Exploration, 2.
Instability, 3. Self-focus, 4. Feeling In-between, and 5. The Age of
Possibilities.
In this video Dr. Arnett describes this unique time in a young persons' life.
See if it's a fit for your experience of young men today:
