Man...What happened to You?

"All men enter this world through trauma." Our first experience in life is a slap on the butt from a man/woman that we don't know, bright lights, suction bulbs being shoved up our noses and our throats and finally if we're fortunate, placed in our mother's arms. "Immediately we perceive our surroundings and life begins through the eyes of a babe. It is at this time that we experience the development of our masculinity."

"Our development as men is molded by the things we learn as children. What we have become as men, has been shaped by our Dads and our relationships. Dysfunction in our adulthood life stems from or was influenced by the men who fathered us. The absence of our dads can form a plethora of questions in our minds, or lingering thoughts, that maybe it was something that I did or something that I lacked that caused him to leave." Can you imagine the frustrations and the anger that grows through the years if these questions are not answered. 

So at this moment in time, children learn the art of suppressing their feelings deeply hiding the painful questions and the sensitivity that's now bruised. They suppress more and more each day as they are constantly told to set down, shut up, be quiet, don't do that! All because we don't have the time nor the patience for this. And so the immature mind is now swallowed up by the constant put downs of those who fail to understand we are evolving by every word we hear. Our dads whether good, bad, or indifferent are our first example and illustration of what it is to be a man. "Unfortunately, our fathers' role model has caused us to identify manhood with absence, irresponsibility, silence or violence. Every fruit of our manhood is a germinated seed from our childhood. Our self-esteem, our inner awareness of who we are, our sexuality and our preferences are deeply planted in the soil of our early memories, definitions, and experiences. As our sons grow older, many will bend to indifference, ignorance, and prejudice while others give in to scorn and punishment, and eventually some will reach out to a formal education that will quench their natural hunger for knowledge."

"Inside every man, there lives a little boy who came before him. Our manhood is seeded in childhood, and many of the thoughts you and I have today stems out of our early experiences as a child. You may be among those who will read this blog and cringe at the sight of the word, father, daddy, or dad. To you, they only represent pain, loss, and bad memories."

Dads...you stimulate your son's creativity when you listen to his thoughts. Your careful and patient listening enriches his thinking process and causes him to believe that his thoughts are important. Regardless of whether you agree or not to what he said, what matters to him is that you listened to him. In this day and time, we really need to know what our boys are thinking!

"Sadly, many times our parents didn't listen to us. Neither have we always listened to our children or to one another. So we have raised a generation of angry young boys and men. They in turn have carried their inner anger into relationships and marriages in which they believe no one is still listening to them. This consuming anger has surfaced as violence, introversion, perversion, or outright self destruction. Their self-esteem and integrity have been destroyed because they have felt silenced all their lives."

Moms, dads as parents we often are pulled in many directions, paying bills, involved in social and civic duties, younger siblings, the day to day necessity to provide, but we need to listen. I know you've had a rough day, but take just a moment to listen. I realize you may have had a bad day at the office, but give them the attention they need and listen.  "Be advised, the swearing, cursing and violence displayed by these men are just overgrown little boys having a temper tantrum because they feel out of control." They are frustrated because "life isn't listening!" We all need to be able to communicate our thoughts and express just how we feel. "If there is anything more frightening than the rage and the frustration, along with the other negative stuff that can come out of them, are the things that don't come out!" 

"It is so unfortunate that a lot of men lose their ability to communicate during childhood. Now in adolescence and as young adults, they feel the rush of unchecked passions, and anger rushing through them and they can't speak! They can't effectively communicate! They can't talk about it and even if they could, who do they tell, you? They remember it was you who constantly told them in childhood to set down and shut up, go to your room and don't come out, or go away, you're bothering me!"

Here is a seed for life! It is imperative that we all understand how crucial it is for these young boys and men to be able to vent their emotions and frustrations safely through appropriate channels, for when they don't, I promise you, all hell breaks loose! When this occurs, it leaves us asking a very real question, "man...what happened to you?"