The Institute (協会)

You should see my students here in Belize.

Patheticness, if that is a word, is at an all time high here, and I would say 2/3 of my students have no father in their home, wreaking havoc on both sexes in their own ways. The girls easily outperform their male counterparts, who can't read, spell, or write for crap, and also have no desire to go anywhere near the extra mile for my class, which shows in the 71% average they have compared to the 80% I have for girls right now.

But it's beyond that. The few men who do have fathers often are taken across the border to Guatemala where they can be "initiated" by a prostitute at age 12. A female friend here told me how she could think of one Belizean man, count him, one man who she is positive would never cheat on his wife or significant other.

My boys have no mission, no reason. Lots of them will be lucky to make it out of this school without expulsion. They play soccer all day, while the girls do everything and get actual work ethics, thus my boys when the time comes to do anything are powerless because they only know how to kick a ball around.

I've got my work cut out for me. I'm excited for the challenge. I'm one of the few men most of these boys have got. I'm thinking of hanging out here for a little while--one year is, in the long term, nearly meaningless.

I think that you are correct that the issue is often on some subconscious level. One man may have guns and another be against them, one man may get into fistfights and the other break them up, one may be a carpenter and another an attorney, but there's a sense of inner strength, or strength of presence, that good fathers seem to impart.

I don't know about these men's backgrounds, but good starting pitchers seem to bring this sort of presence to the mound...Curt Schilling and Kenny Rodgers can give a look that, ends an argument in their favor in a way that, for instance, Matt Lauer, probably couldn't (no offense to Matt). I don't see this as something that is changed within an "accountability group" or improved by scripture memory.

Ugh, there's no "d" in "Rogers."

And it appears that Kenny's glare isn't always effective, given last year's altercation with the cameramen.

Even at the age of 32, I still find my father's approval important. In a recent letter, he said something at the end about how well I grilled the pork chops when they last visited. I swear, I thought about that compliment the entire day; even something as seemingly insignificant as a comment about how well I grill.

Those question plagued me at 21. Eight years later the issues are still there.

Very timely .. I've been thinking about exactly these kind of questions today, after spending some of the last two days at a mens retreat and hearing more about the "father wound" than I have before.

Personally - as I hear other mens stories - I am becoming more and more appreciative of my own God-fearing and loving father. But at the same time, just because I grew up with a Godly father doesn't mean I haven't struggled with how to be a 'man' in my own sense.

I'm completely with you on the call about the lameness of "accountability groups". I am becoming more and more of the belief that Christian men need to have *strong* relationships with 1 or 2 other guys who are able to do more than just be "accountable" to one another. Haven't figured out exactly what that looks like yet, though.

Yeah, at 35 the effects are as strong as ever. I really resonate with point #4. You may be one of the few people who has this on his mind, especially in our circles. I pretty much have come to the conclusion that it is just something that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life.

I would guess that absent fatherhood also contributes to the issues mentioned in the posts below (social/racial gaffes). Teaching my kids how to love others as themselves is hard enough--I can't imagine doing it without their father.

And, for what it's worth, they are internationally adopted, so I have fielded my share of, um, clueless questions.

Zach, wow. I don't even know what to say (BTW, I'm going to respond to your e-mail soon).

K, great point!

barlow, I totally understand!! That's a great echo. It probably gave you some confidence about your grilling abilities!!

george, you're not alone.

jsf, yeah, a group of us are trying to figure out what this will look like as well. We're working on some good stuff. More to come. .

Todd, there is a little interest growing but it's pretty sad just how many churches spend so little time on it being taught by lots of guys who haven't really thought deeply about the implications of this stuff. Hopefully, that will change soon.

I have a question about #4, though: I feel like authoritarian church environments can stifle a person's growth by telling them what to do. I think you allude to this a bit with your comments about minivans and suburbs, and our artsy guy says he didn't fit in at so many churches (the church I attended in my teens and college years would have cannonized Dilbert except that he wasn't outspoken enough in Republican politics). At the extreme end are the Gothard cultists, who would tell you what to do every second of your life (or have you ask your parents' permission to go to the toilet well into your 40's).

I wonder how we can do #4 while realizing that it is indeed a journey, and we need to facilitate that without short-circuiting people's growth and development process with legalistic prescriptions. I almost think this is part of the problem with Evangelical men...we didn't go through normal adolescent development in some levels, and were instead just kind of forced into a role. Not that we didn't choose to accept and internalize church teachings, but I don't know if it might have been ultimately more healthy to experiment a little and go about constructing our own identity rather than having one handed to us.

Perhaps men who have done more searching and experimentation when young find themselves better able to truly choose their role, career, and relationships when the time comes for that.

Let's just say that although I did well at school, I found that I wasn't mature enough to marry until I'd watched my step-dad show how a man shows love for his wife for a few years. It's caught, not taught, IMO.

K, perhaps the answer isn't in authoritarian church environments, but in men willing to mentor young men. A pastor I know personally has three young men that he has mentored and continues to mentor. With all three of these men, the fathers really dropped the ball--absent, alcoholic, abandoning. So the pastor was willing to step into "father" shoes for them. Church men need to be encourage to model leadership, to be involved in the lives of young men who don't have present fathers, to show them how to grow and lead. This eliminates the list of rules and "do this" check boxes and replaces it with interaction and Christly discipleship.

i think that writers such as eldredge, dalbey, etc. have made significant attempts to address this. there's also a ministry based in arkansas called men's fraternity that my church has adopted that seems to be making some progress in terms of helping men understand the concept of authentic manhood.

i've found them to be helpful, but even they may have only outlined the tip of the iceberg. this is not the appropriate place to go into a novella, but from what i can figure out from what i've seen:

a primary goal is to prepare and affirm their children's passage into adulthood this includes helping them develop their own relationships with god. (K - instead of being told what to do, children should be taught how to seek god for wisdom to distinguish for themselves what is right and what is wrong - look at the examples of joash & josiah - joash did well only as long as the high priest told him what to do before he died).

nature abhors a vacuum - children need to bond emotionally - if they do not bond with their father - something else will fill the void (soccer?) - and i suspect that this is a fundamental root of addictive behavior.

accountability groups may be "lame" but for most guys, it's still probably a step in the right direction - if there's at least one healthy guy in it leading the way & setting the example.

I'm glad you're reading that book, I remember recommending it to you. I've gained some insights from it. Once again, thanks for all you're doing. I listed your blog as a resource for the guys I just started leading.

Perhaps accountability groups are the best thing we have, but I think the premise is a bit demeaning to men, frankly:

"Because you are a man, you are fundamentally dangerous and disordered, so we are going to put even more people in your life to nag and shame you. This will hopefully put a bit of a dent in the number of bad things you will do. And give your wife and bosses a break.”

Not that it's completely invalid, but it's a bit infantilizing. It’s not like we’d see a program at church called “Sanity Keepers: A shopping-mall-like experience designed to help women move away from their emotional hysteria and into balanced, rational living.”

(for the thinking-impaired, I’m using absurdity and humor as rhetorical devices, not insulting women)

Here’s kind of a controversial observation which I may later abandon: Why do men get “accountability groups” but women get “support groups?”

It seems that the para-church psychology movement seems to often invest a great deal of energy trying to understand what’s driving women’s undesirable behavior and explain it away (for instance, a woman’s gluttony and resulting 100 lb weight gain is called the result of her husband’s failure to give her enough compliments or not earn enough money*). This seems like the opposite of accountability. But men’s accountability groups (in my very limited experience) don’t try at all to understand the motivations, issues, and journeys facing men: they only shame both the behavior and the desire behind it (not that this isn’t correct in some cases).

*OK, it’s Jewish, but representative: “Are husbands to blame for their wives becoming fat?”
http://www.shmuley.com/addComment.php?id=86
Dobson, a few years ago, admitted a bit of imbalance on this…I don’t listen to him anymore so I don’t know if he really did anything about it.