MAN-MAKING BLOG

November 23, 2015

Men, Boys, and Masculine Emotional Intelligence

A while back I put up a Man-Making Blog post titled, “Teaching Boys to Have Feelings? ” The question mark at the end of the title was there because I don’t believe we have to teach boys to have feelings. So many of our young men are already emotionally pressurized and what the world mostly sees is anger. What we do need to do is help our young men to develop a broad emotional vocabulary, the language of feelings, to help them get access to and understand their complex and rich emotional life.

I don’t believe we have to teach boys to have feelings . . .

In response to that post, I heard from Owen Marcus, the author of, Grow Up: A Man’s Guide to Masculine Emotional Intelligence. The current model of a man’s emotional life is called “Masculine Emotional Intelligence” or MEI. Owen feels MEI is not really masculine at all, but a feminine concept. Here’s how he explained it:

Two hundred years ago, when the men left the farm for the factory, the mothers were left to raise the kids. Women did what they had to do: they stepped up to fill the gap of not having men around. In doing so they modeled and taught both the girls and boys how to be emotional.

Without balanced masculine and feminine role models, young men took on what they were taught. That meant for a few hundred years, the definition of masculine emotional intelligence slowly moved towards the feminine. It wasn’t a conspiracy; it was simply women doing what they had to do. Today, men and women assume that the key to a man’s emotional success, and relationship bliss, comes from men mastering a feminized emotional framework.

In my twenty years of leading men’s groups, I learned the best, and possibly only way out of this, is through men teaching men about feelings. You may ask, how can men teach men about feelings when they weren’t given guidance themselves? Good question. But the truth is men do have their own brand of emotionality, and know it instinctually. When you put men in a group with other men, over time, they naturally begin teaching each other about feelings through their personal expressions and interactions. What eventually emerges is a true and decidedly more male style of emotional expression.

I believe all feelings are gender neutral. That said, when, how, what, and how intensely feelings are expressed has indeed been shaped differently by culture for men and women. Of course this is not a male/female, either/or discussion, and there is a range of emotional capacity spread across all genders/people. But in my experience of being in men’s groups and working with young guys, I do agree that with time spent together in safe venues, males do indeed cross-train each other in how to express a wider range of emotional expression than is seen in the public sphere. I’ve witnessed how, over time in group, the depth, range, spontaneity, and acceptance of feelings and intimate expressions do ramp up.

. . . as a man you are the book on manhood
for the young men around you . . .

There is one really important point to hold on to in this discussion. As our boys and young men are building their vision of the good man they want to become, they need to see emotionally literate and vulnerable adult men as role models. I believe the most powerful gift a man can give himself, his loved ones, and the young men in his world, is to develop his own brand of masculine emotional intelligence. Whether you know or even care, as a man you are the book on manhood for the young men around you. You can be sure they are watching and learning from you!

If you’re interested in learning more about Owen’s work on MEI, his company, Free to Win, offers men training in MEI and in how to start their own free men’s group. Owen is also looking for men interested in participating in an online pilot course with the theme of developing your own MEI. If you’re interested, you can contact him directly.

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November 9, 2015

Mo-ing for Movember and Men's Health

The word Movember is a combination of Mustache + November. It's also the name of a global campaign to raise awareness and funds for men's health issues such as prostate and testicular cancer, men's mental health, and the deaths associated with physical inactivity. The idea is in November, men grow mustaches which become the "ribbon" men wear to show their support of the Movember goals. Men become walking, talking billboards about men's health for the 30 days of November. As they say, the idea is to grow, show, and connect with your fellow Mo's to spread the word about men's health.

To support the Movember initiative, you can simply grow a "Mo." You can also go to the Movember website in your respective country and register. You can register as an individual and start collecting donations on your Mo Space, or you can create a team of brothers from your workplace, neighborhood, or campus and fund-raise together. Here is the link to the U.S. Movember website where you can learn more about getting started.

Not only do I really like the idea of men taking a highly visible stand for male health issues, but it's great role modeling for young men. It's good for our young guys to witness adult men in active service to an important cause.

Of course I support all those pink events. They are great examples of how to create awareness and raise much needed funds for women's health issues. That said, I do feel considerable masculine pride seeing my male friends and relatives growing Mo's. My hope is that men will really like the feeling of being united around an important and very masculine cause and being in service to their communities. My wish is the next cause that gets their attention will be doing something about the epidemic of under-male-nourished boys around the globe who desperately need men's support.

Just below is a fun video clip tracking the growth of the Movember movement from the start when 30 Mo Bros launched the initiative in Melbourne, Australia in 2003, to the 854,288 registered Mo's in 2011. On the U.S. Movember website you can continue to track the evolution of the movement through 2014. Today there are over 5 million Mo Bros and supportive Mo Sistas across the globe!

If the clip isn't visible use this link.

The initial Mo Bros didn't raise much more than awareness, but today the campaign they started changing the world. In addition to the enormous difference they continue to make in men's lives, they are yet another shining example of what a few good men, working together with intention, can create.

As they say, Movember is changing the face of men's health. It's never too late for you to get started. Even a shadow of a mustache in November makes you a visible advocate for men's health. Remember, in the challenge to raise awareness about men's health and well-being, every mustache makes a difference.

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October 6, 2015

Father Hunger, Son Hunger, Two Songs, and the Father Wound

NOTE: I'm still recovering from traveling in Spain. So here is one more post from the archive.

I was in a men's circle last night. It was a meeting for men interested in working with young males. To help men get anchored in the teenage male experience, they were asked, "As a teen, who were the men who were, or were not, there to support you?" It was a rich conversation and, as is always the case, men learned that when we speak our "truth," when we are real with each other, we are all way more alike than different.

As a teen, who were the men
who were, or were not,
there to support you?

One of the common themes that showed up in the conversation was about the father who was physically present but emotionally distant: workaholic, alcoholic, womanizing, angry, sometimes abusive, and/or a man without any skills for intimate connection. One man labelled him a ghost father, visible, but was not really there. For some men, it felt more confusing, painful and damaging than having a father who just left, leaving a fatherless boy.

These men, sometimes teary, talked about the profound longing for time and connection with their dad, the most important male in a young man's life. They described how, without this man's guidance and direction, it was so easy for a life to take a wrong turn. Each man, in different ways, and for different reasons, spoke to deep father hunger that was never satisfied, and the wound they have carried into adulthood as a result.

Daddy, where are you?

The film clip below is titled Papaoutai and performed by a Belgian singer named Stromae. It was sent to me by a brother in mission, Andrew MacDonald, who lives near Ottawa, Canada. Loosely translated, Papaoutai means, Daddy, where are you? I don't speak the language of the song, but no matter, its message is painfully clear.

In countless young guy circles, I've heard "Daddy, where are you?" asked many times by so many young men . . . too many young men. It's at the literal heart of what I often call "the epidemic of under-male-nourished boys." Men and young men carrying this kind of father wound may find Papaoutai hard to watch, especially the ending.

If this clip doesn't show up use this link.

As almost a direct counterpoint to Papaoutai, I want to offer up another song. This one comes from the other direction, a song about a father hungry for time with his son. Mark Chandler, in his song Making A Man, is speaking out for so many good men cut off from their sons by life's circumstances. Mark is a military officer approaching retirement. It's been difficult to get time with his son because for three of the last eight years, Mark has been deployed. On top of that, he's been divorced for the last four years.

Mark feels the core message of the song is it takes a man to make a man, and it's what "poured out of him" when he was longing for time with his son. Again, for men and young men carrying a father wound, Mark's longing, love, and commitment, as expressed in this song, may dampen your eyes.

If this clip doesn't show up use this link.

To connect with Mark Chandler, visit his Facebook page.

These songs represent two very different and profoundly deep calls for connection between fathers and sons. When that bond is broken, everyone suffers. What's left for us to do is to support men and young men who've been damaged in that unique way. Today, in so many ways, we're paying the social costs of not offering that support. We can do better and we must.

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September 28, 2015

Boys, Boobs, and Saying "Yes!"

NOTE: I'll be traveling in Spain for the month of September. Here is a popular (and timely) post from the archive.

I still remember my first touch of a naked female breast. It was in the back row of a dark movie theatre when I was maybe twelve. I was on an early adolescent date of sorts and I didn't really have a clue about what I was doing. I remember it took all the courage I had to make my way through a long run up of incremental steps to get to the object of my desire . . . that breast. I was with a girl just a little older than me who somehow managed to pretend none of it was happening, didn't say "no," and seemed to like the attention.

The breast, . . . was indeed
wonderful and otherworldly for me . . .

The breast, while it was indeed wonderful and otherworldly for me, was really just another player in the drama. I was already being propelled by my young male biology and in the grip of an ancient gender dance. Up to that moment in my life, I had NO actual experience with breasts or any other element of female anatomy. I also had no real understanding of what was going on in my body. In short, I didn’t know what I was doing or even why I was so magnetized by those breasts. I was simply operating on pure male instinct and loving it.

In my young male world at that time, there were early rumblings about girls' body parts, "scoring," and things vaguely sexual. Those ideas were mostly joked about in my young boy pack. The fact the guys a little older than us were very focused on girls wasn't lost on us, but no one in our age group really had a clue why. We knew something was going on but it was all a vague and exciting mystery.

The internet has changed everything. Today, kids with even a little sexual curiosity can go online and find all the information on the topic they can handle. An unsupervised adolescent male today can easily find enough information to become an amateur gynecologist. The good and the very bad information is all easily available. Because of how much questionable and blatantly bad information about sexuality is out there, adult guidance is even more important now than ever.

Sadly, too many parents are not having "the talk" with their kids . . . in time. A recent survey of parents and their 13 to 17 year-old kids published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (as reported in U.S. News and World Report), speaks directly to the need for an ongoing conversation about sexuality with kids. In the Talking Parent, Healthy Teens survey, just some of what they discovered included:

Almost half of teens had intercourse before their parents got around to talking with them about sexually transmitted diseases and birth control.
More than half of the teenagers had engaged in genital touching before discussing birth control effectiveness, resisting pressure for sex, and the importance of condom use with their parents.
Girls were more likely than boys to have had talks with parents about sex.

We all know someone has to talk with our young guys about these issues. Mark Schuster is one of the authors of the Talking Parents, Healthy Teens survey and is a co-author of a helpful book titled, Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (but Were Afraid They'd Ask). It's perfect for parents trying to gear up for having "the talk" with their kids. If you're a parent of a young male, read a book, if necessary, and start the conversation with your young man. There is just too much at risk to pretend our young guys aren't going to be sexual.

When considering these conversations with young males, the questions of how to talk about sex, when to bring up the topic, who should be having the conversations, and what the content about sexuality should include, combine to create an extremity complicated matter. These questions are beyond the scope of this post, but I do feel those of us working with young males should be talking among ourselves and with the parents of young guys about how to raise the topic.

That all said, there may be a conversation parents and those of us working with the young dudes can have right now.

The California legislature has passed a bill that clarifies what it means to have consensual sexual activity. “Activity" means not just the act of intercourse, but all the steps that lead up to two people getting it on. Here is a lot of information on that legal initiative.

This legislation begins to move the discussion out of the realm of someone having to say “no” and instead now requires both parties to say "yes," and keep saying yes as things progress! That means, "continuous, affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement by each party to engage in sexual activity.” Now that kind of agreement would have made my approach of a long run of incremental steps to get to the object of my desire, unacceptable. I’m thinking that would also be true of a lot of the strategies used by young guys these days.

. . . our young guys will need to know
how to have a
sexually intimate and very personal conversation.

Adolescent male sex impulses can be a lot like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining mass and momentum along the way. Given that fact, it’s going to take considerable guidance to make sure our young guys and women are safe in this new day of positive consent. In addition to managing powerful personal biological drives, our young guys will need to know how to have a sexually intimate and very personal conversation. We can and do need to teach them how to do that.

In our school-based and other circles with young men, personal truths are often spoken. When trust has been formed, there is a level of personal honesty, emotion, and real vulnerability that is often shared. The challenge will be to get young guys to bring this form of intimate exchange into their relationships with women . . . and to do so in the heat of a sexual moment.

There is plenty of grey area remaining between the California law’s legal consent requirements and the reality of human sexuality. But requiring a series of yes's along the way is a good start. Laws regarding consent won't stop someone intent on dominance, manipulating a partner, or committing sexual assault. Just having this issue in the public view can be a good reason to bring up the topic with our young men.

If all the barriers to having these intimate conversations can be overcome, discussions about having a healthy, mutually respectful, and positive relationship with a sexual (or any) partner can be launched with our young men. I say "Yes" to that!

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September 18, 2015

4 Reasons Young Men Hear The Call To Jihad

NOTE: I'll be traveling in Spain for the month of September. In the meantime, here is a popular post from the archive.

There is a lot of talk in the news today about how young men are being "radicalized" by religious extremists and being seduced into going off to fight wars in foreign lands. It's a sad story to be sure, but it's a very powerful call for young men.

The call to Jihad, at its core, is really the same call young guys hear to join street gangs, to join our military, or even to be on a school sports team. These organizations put out a call to action that matches up perfectly with the psychology and physiology of our adolescent males. What our young guys hear is a call to be a warrior. The surprising thing for me is not that some young men are answering that call, but that even more young men aren't responding to that message.

If we want to prevent our young men from being lost in tragic ways to the warrior call, we have to learn a little about the adolescent male experience, and then come up with alternative activities that really speak to them. Here's a four-item, short course in what I've learned about why our young men are vulnerable to extremist messages or any call to become a warrior.

. . . why our young men are vulnerable
to extremist messages
or any call to become a warrior.

1. The Biological Imperative: From adolescence to around the mid-twenties, young males are biologically vulnerable in at least two ways that set them up for a warrior call to action.

They are experiencing something like seven to ten surges of testosterone a day. Testosterone has been referred to as an aggression hormone, and it causes young males to feel powerful as their muscles are getting stronger and their sexuality is emerging. Testosterone drives a combative nature and hungers for physical activity, testing through competition and physical challenges, to demonstrate skills and prowess. You can see all this working on neighborhood basketball courts or skateboard parks.

The second biological issue is a young male's well researched and poorly wired prefrontal cortex. Simply stated, it's the part of the brain that helps them to think through the consequences of their choices. Sadly, up until the mid-twenties (and possibly beyond), this part of the brain is still under construction and is marginally functional.

If you take this biological picture as a whole, you come up with a very restless young guy, who is feeling powerful beyond reason, who is naturally combative, ready for action, and who isn't thinking clearly about his choices. This combination makes the perfect young warrior.

2. Tribal Nature: Simply stated, guys need a tribe. Men have operated in packs for eons. Look at the fans in any sports stadium. You'll find mostly men, wearing similar colors, and cheering on "their" team. This sense of belonging, membership, and being part of a pack, is very masculine behavior. For the young guys, being part of a tribe, having an identity as a member, is pretty important.

Males also like hierarchies, think of a military or bureaucratic structure. In a hierarchy, the pecking order is clear and a guy's place in the order of things is laid out. Beyond just belonging in a pack, you know your place in the masculine order of things.

Being in a male tribe gives a young man access to the book on manhood. A tribe gives a young man a smorgasbord of men he can look up to for guidance. He's surrounded by masculine role models and men who may teach him important life skills. There may even be a path of testing or ordeals necessary to achieve full membership and acceptance into the group. This is a perfect match with a young man's need for challenges and proving his worthiness.

Tribe = the book on manhood!

Getting blessings from older men and ultimately acceptance into the adult male club, getting a place around the fire, or honored status in the pack, is a big hunger in young men. A Jihadist group, street gang, or football team all meet the young guy hunger for a tribe.

3. Honor, Respect and Contribution: What our young males want is to be seen (at all) and then respected for who they are and for their unique gifts. They want to stand for something, and if it's a good or noble thing all the better. And though you might find it odd, young guys want to contribute, to make a difference, to be in service. After a community service project, I've see young men smile and stand straighter in the sunshine of gratitude expressed by the food shelf staff, habitat house owner, or elder food delivery service.

They want to stand for something. . .

What too many young guys get in our communities today is pressure for invisibility and often no young guy park or guy place to hang out. Their graffiti "art" is criminalized and over-painted as soon as possible. Their appearance is ridiculed and their music often disrespected. They slink around in alleys, the woods, or at the mall trying not to attract negative attention. So if someone offers them honor, respect, and an opportunity to contribute to an important cause, why wouldn't they say "yes."

4. Hope: Too many young men simply don't see any kind of a desirable future. There is little hope for good work, advanced education, or any legal economic success. Without those things, the idea of being a family man, father, provider, husband, are all just distant concepts for other people. So many young men have been fatherless or under-male parented and don't have good role models for any life but the street. Living with chronic hopelessness as the background to your life is sad business and makes angry and resentful young men. If someone shows them a quick path out of that place, and offers some hope of reclaiming self-respect with a few goodies attached, why wouldn't a lost young man choose that path?

There are lots more reasons many of our young men are vulnerable to the call to become a warrior. Whether or not they make good choices is really up to us. What is clear is that our young men need our support, intentional guidance, positive community, and especially good men around them.

When it comes to Jihad, like Ebola, we don't have to wait till the epidemic of under-male-nourished boys is at our door and starts taking even more of our young men from us. We can start acting now. It's not really that hard to do, we just have to be willing.

If you want to talk about what you, your group, or your community can do four young men, give me a shout and let's talk about what we can create. The young guys are waiting and the time is now!

Follow @earlh