OPINION:
Young women are thriving. Young men are not.
As recently noted by Claire Cain Miller in The New York Times: “Efforts since the 1990s to provide female role models have had great success in opening doors for girls and young women, who now outpace boys in education, outnumber men in law and medical schools and excel in male-dominated fields like tech and politics.”
At the same time, males are not moving into previously dominated female professions.
Although it is wonderful that young women now have many opportunities to choose from, the doors that have opened for them are also seemingly slamming young men in the face.
Why is this so? As Ms. Miller writes: “At the same time, boys have many fewer role models in their daily lives” because women now dominate, especially in education, those professions children encounter early in life. In the meantime, there is an increasing lack of fathers or other males in boys’ lives to model healthy male behavior to them.
With no role models, especially in their early formative years, boys have increasingly become lost as they struggle to understand what it means to be a man.
Back in 1993, NBA superstar and now TV commentator Charles Barkley said in a Nike commercial: “I am not your role model!” His words created a firestorm, but his point was this: A role model should not be a detached professional athlete or entertainment celebrity. A role model should be someone actively involved in a child’s life.
Sadly, that type of role model does not exist for many boys.
That is the crux of the problem facing our boys today: the lack of male role models — whether a father, coach, teacher or scoutmaster — who helps guide boys in their formative years and turn them into what has been commonly known as a “gentleman.”
Without good role models, they turn to bad role models, such as the infamous misogynist Tate Brothers.
As one man, quoted by Ms. Miller, says, “It’s not personally my politics, but I can see how people flock to people [like Tate], because they kind of give them a structure, they give them rules, this is how you can improve your life. Basically, there is an attack on masculinity with no positive alternatives to turn to.”
This “gentlemen gap” — the lack of direction many young men experience as they enter adulthood — can be attributed to a lack of these positive male role models. Add in the breakdown of the family, especially in our inner cities, where very few boys have even one positive male role model in their lives, and you have a societal loss of male identity based on the understanding of the concept of a gentleman.
It is not just broken homes that have resulted in broken men. Even boys in intact homes may not have a father or another man in their lives who can guide them through the critical development steps that transform them into gentlemen. In many cases, these boys’ fathers — either for emotional or physical reasons — did not have fathers or significant male figures to guide them, resulting in their inability to guide their sons.
In his induction speech as he entered the baseball Hall of Fame, Minnesota Twins star Harmon Killebrew shared the following story: “My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’ ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply. ‘We’re raising boys.’”
Besides going on to a Hall of Fame baseball career, the late slugger was known for his character and humility, traits likely instilled in him by a loving and engaged father who was more concerned about his sons than the aesthetics of his lawn.
Without these positive influences, men can often become angry, despondent and self-absorbed — all traits that are not good for them, women, children and our culture. They become the antithesis of being gentlemen, men who respect women, love children and take their role as a provider and nurturer of their family seriously.
They become Andrew Tates instead of Harmon Killebrews, and our society, including women, is far worse for it.
So, even if we are not fathers, it is critical for us older men to step up to model what it means to be a gentleman: someone who takes the responsibility of demonstrating to boys how to be good providers and model citizens and value women. A dear friend of mine had a great uncle who did for him what his father could not and provided a positive model that put him on the right course to success in life.
With such a proper role model in their lives, boys and girls can flourish. That will provide opportunities and a healthier society for all. Our boys need men. Let’s be those men who will make a positive impact on their lives.
• Timothy Goeglein was a special assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison from 2001 to 2008. In January 2009, Mr. Goeglein became the vice president of external and government relations for the Christian organization Focus on the Family.
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