A Reminder: It's Good To Be Tough

Have you seen this video about the damage we are doing to our young men in America by sending the wrong message -- by telling them to "be a man"? The anger this video raises in me comes from so many places, I don't know where to start. You can watch it here, but be careful in work and around the kids, because there is profanity.

First, I am angry to think that there are fathers who still operate on such a cave-dwelling level that they try to teach their sons to disregard their own emotions. Maybe I am an idiot. I thought that was a thing of the past.

Maybe I am also angry for being an idiot and not knowing that this is not a thing of the past.

I am also angry because videos like this feel so much like an attempt to capitalize on or to gain fame for their creators by exacerbating a problem. If I, in fact, am not an idiot and this type of fathering is a thing of the past, these people are making a small portion of fathers look like the majority (media's lens in the sun). (Herein lies the problem in "raising awareness." Sometimes, it raises actuality.) But I can't be sure.

If a video like this is needed, it makes me angry that it is so. If fathers can't see that is it wrong to turn out a generation of hammers, what hope is there? It makes me feel pessimistic. I see no hope in a future in which we think we can solve all problems by "raising awareness," analyzing data and "starting conversations." People only get better one-by-one. That only happens by seeking truth, not evidence. Evidence wins arguments; truth fixes hearts.