Masculinity

In a fascinating article, writer Tim Grierson walks us through the history of the TV dad and shows how each dad reflects the values in America at that time. Below you will see the summary of each era of TV dad.

• Mid 1950s - Jim Anderson (Father Knows Best): Father Knows Best preached a wholesome, slightly square domestic normalcy that placed the dad at the top. His job is to go to work and make a living, enduring his little tots when he comes home at night. Everything's perfect, and nobody has any major problems.
• The 1960s - Steve Douglas (My Three Sons): Steve Douglas was the friendly, noble single dad to three growing boys. What was mildly edgy about the show was that his character was a widower, allowing Americans to see a nontraditional family dynamic on TV. My Three Sons at least started to reveal the cracks in the idealized American portrait of father-mother-and-cute-kids.
• 1970s - Archie Bunker (All in the Family): This was a father who definitely didn't know best—more accurately, he represented an outdated worldview that was quickly being shoved aside by a new (and, for him, frightening) order.
• Late 1980s - Dan Conner (Roseanne): Dan was a new kind of father: vulnerable and sweet, henpecked by his bossy wife but still hopelessly devoted to her. Dan was a man constantly ashamed of his inability to give his family a better life, but always trying to compensate by being as good a guy as possible.
• 1990s - Homer Simpson (The Simpsons): In Homer, The Simpsons found what is, to this day, the perfect modern-day TV father: drunken, well-intentioned, utterly worthless, prone to anger, always at a loss for the right thing to do or say.
• 2000s - Tony Soprano (The Sopranos): Tony Soprano is the prototypical breadwinner and head of the household; except he's so hobbled by inner turmoil and “business” concerns that he's on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
• 2010s - Bob Belcher (Bob's Burgers): In Bob we see the overextended modern dad in all his rumpled glory, just trying to keep his head above water in all aspects of his life.

Why are so many young men so angry online?

Men are trailing women in college and in the workplace, fewer of their relationships are leading to marriage, and many men feel masculinity is under attack. When young men turn to places like YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) seeking male solidarity, they often find more rage. “It may look like we have an epidemic of male anger, but under the anger is loneliness and sadness,” says Justin Baldoni, a filmmaker and actor behind Man Enough, a podcast about masculinity.

Often the result is depression, and sometimes worse. The suicide rate among men is about four times higher than that of women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Approximately 65% of men in the US say they’re hesitant to seek professional help for stress, anxiety, or depression, according to a study this month from Cleveland Clinic. And the respondents who expressed such reluctance were twice as likely as other men to spend several hours a day on social media.

Researcher and author Rodney Reeves has been studying trends in how men are faring in America. Here’s how he summarizes one of his troubling statistics:

One [statistic] stopped me in my tracks was from a 2018 survey conducted by Pew. The sample size was small, and made use of a word-association methodology, so I haven’t cited it in most of my work. But I still wonder about it. Every single respondent thought that “masculine” was a negative term when applied to women. That’s not surprising.

What was shocking was that most people—four out of five—thought the term “masculine” was negative when applied to men. (The term “feminine” was not mentioned often enough to make it into the analysis.) This finding is consistent with another survey finding that half of men, of all races, think that society “punishes men just for acting like men.”

The writer and actor Daniel Beaty recalled a childhood game he played until he was three. When Beaty’s father knocked at his bedroom door in the morning, Beaty would pretend to be asleep, before jumping gleefully up into his father’s arms. Until the morning his father did not knock, because he was in prison. Three decades later, Beaty performed his poem “Knock, Knock,” which includes the following lines:

25 years later I write these words for the little boy

in me who still await his papa‘s knock …

Papa, come home cause I miss you

I miss you waking me up in the morning and telling me you love me.

Papa, come home, because there are things that I

Don’t know and I thought maybe you could teach me:

How to shave, how to dribble a ball, how to talk to a lady, how to walk like a man …

Sis Vivian Richards is a legendary cricketer who represented the West Indies in their years of undisputed cricket dominance from the late 1970’s to the mid 1990’s. He is considered one of the greatest and most entertaining batsmen in the history of the game. During a time when many fearsome fast bowlers were playing international cricket, Richards never wore a helmet to protect himself from injury. He depended only on his skills, eyesight, and reflexes, to establish himself as one of the greatest of all time.

In a glittering career, Vivian Richards played in 121 international cricket test matches scoring 8540 runs at an outstanding average of 50.23. In spite of his extraordinary talent and the fame he found as a cricketer, Richards displayed a simplicity about his very humble beginnings.

In his autobiography, he spoke of the time when he was not well known and trying to establish himself in league cricket in England. In gratitude, he drew reference to the fact that a lesser-known cricketer from Sri Lanka, Shandy Perera, was a major influence on his cricket development with valuable knowledge and insights about the game.

It is commendable that a man who achieved such greatness in the sport would remember his humble beginnings and show gratitude to someone who had been an early influence on his successful career.

Similarly, the Bible tells us to, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7). Let’s always be grateful for those who have guided us spiritually along life’s journey.

Sam Allberry writes in his most recent book:

I’ve recently been setting up a new home and therefore spending more time than I would ever choose trying to assemble furniture. If I never see another Allen key for the rest of my life, I will be a very happy man. Needless to say, the results have not been uniformly impressive. The best appraisal I can give myself at the end of a sweaty day is, "That'll just have to do." And when you're talking about a bed that you'll be spending around a third of your life lying on, "that'll have to do" is not great. I already seem to have done my back in as a result of it.

With God it is very different. There is a rhythm to the account of creation in Genesis 1. The work takes place over six days, with a repeated refrain: "God saw that it was good." God is evidently not inattentive to what he is making. He doesn't start one aspect of creation and then turn his attention to the next project. He finishes each act, steps back (as it were) and appraises it. As he assesses each day's work of creation, he is fully pleased with the outcome. So again and again we read, "It was good," "It was good," "It was good."

That is, until we turn up. At the end of the day when God has made humanity in his image, male and female, he says something different: "It was very good" (Gen. 1:31). The difference male and female image bearers makes to his creation is to lift it from "good" to "very good." Needless to say, it is not a track record we maintain through the rest of the Bible; but the fact remains, there is a deep fundamental very-goodness to the way God has designed us to be, and our being made as men and women is at the heart of it.

After multiple fights at Southwood High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, resulted in the arrests of 23 students, a group of about 40 dads stepped up to put a stop to the violence. Known as Dads on Duty, the men work shifts, so there are always several fathers on campus from the time students first arrive to when they go home for the day. The dads are there to lift spirits, tell jokes, dole out advice, and just let the kids know there's someone looking out for them.

Michael LaFitte said he started Dads on Duty because "we decided the best people who can take care of kids are … us." Since the group formed, there have been no fights on campus, with one student explaining, "The school has just been happy, and you can feel it." Dads on Duty will have a permanent presence at Southwood High, and the group would like to see other chapters form across the country.

Filmmaker Ken Burns won an Emmy for his nine-part PBS documentary Baseball. In the second episode set in the year 1900, the New York Giants traded for a 19-year-old rookie named Christy Mathewson. He became a two-time World Series champion and still ranks top ten all-time in wins, shutouts, and earned run average. He was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.

The narrator refers to the Giants manager:

John McGraw may have championed the old brawling brand of baseball, but his greatest star was Christy Mathewson, a pitcher with a record for clean play so spotless that his wife once felt that she had to defend him, by saying that while he was a good man, he was no goodie goodie.

A writer then speaks to the camera: “He was so virtuous he would not give interviews to sportswriters who he heard cheated on their wives.

At a time when many professional players were gamblers and brawlers, Mathewson stood in contrast. The narrator says: “He was the perfect hero for his age. Sportswriters and fans across the country called him ‘The Christian Gentleman.’ No one did more to improve the reputation of the baseball player.”

Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack said, “He set a high moral code. He was (praised) by churches, ministers used his career as sermon topics, and he gave dignity and character to baseball.”

Former Boston Red Sox player, Bernie Carbo, tells the story of going from hitting a home run in the 1975 World Series to drug addiction, two divorces, and considering suicide:

I stood in the batter’s box, awaiting the next pitch. It was Game 6 of the World Series. My team, the Boston Red Sox, trailed the Cincinnati Reds by three runs in the eighth inning. And we needed to win this game to stay alive. I was sweating bullets. With two men on base, I could even the score with a single swing. I took a swing and watched as the ball sailed over the centerfield wall. A home run!

You might imagine that hitting a clutch home run in a crucial World Series contest would be the defining moment of my life. The truth, however, is that I was totally miserable. I was addicted to drugs—I had even used some before the game. I spent the next few years bouncing around from team to team until I finally washed out of the big leagues altogether. I was only 32, and my career was over.

Over the next eight years I continued to use drugs. My wife and I bought a home in Florida, hoping to settle down. But for both of us, the drugs continued to flow. Finally, I told my wife we needed to slow down, but she refused—and filed for divorce. I continued using other drugs and abusing alcohol.

(After a second marriage and divorce) I met a former major leaguer, Dalton Jones who told me about Jesus and explained the difference Jesus could make in a life as troubled as mine. I prayed that day, and I believe Jesus began to work within my heart. Even so, I persisted in using drugs, to the point of losing all hope. Sitting in my home, I was ready to take my own life. I felt like I had tried everything, and I was worthless.

After suffering a panic attack, I was sent to a hospital, where I met a retired pastor. The pastor spoke with me about the Bible and he taught me about Jesus and how true healing could happen if I would trust in him. I grew in my understanding of what it means to live for Christ every day and to rely on him for forgiveness and strength.

In 1994, I had one final relapse, which plunged me into a sea of guilt and despair. Then I met Tammy, the woman who became my wife. She reminded me about Jesus and the atonement for sins through his death on the cross. And I believed once more that his blood was sufficient to cover all my transgressions and that we can depend on him for the grace we need to overcome the strongholds of addiction or any other habitual sin.

We’ve now been married for 26 years, and I’ve been clean the entire time. I want others to know there is hope! There is a way out of the deadly seduction of abusing drugs. Not only does Jesus Christ offer the way out, but he also offers the way into a life more joyful and abundant than anyone could imagine. Truly, our God is an awesome God.

Editor’s Note: Bernie Carbo is the co-founder of Diamond Club Ministry which is dedicated to bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to young people through evangelistic baseball camps.

Harry Chapin’s song “Cat's in the Cradle” topped the US Billboard charts in 1974. The song was so popular it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. Over the years there were several movie and TV show references to the song, including three episodes of The Simpsons and That '70s Show. The official YouTube video has 11 million views.

The song has touched many people’s hearts because it is about a father neglecting his son and the consequences as a result. It is based on a poem written by Chapin’s wife Sandy, who would tell reporters after the song became a worldwide hit:

Harry introduced the song at all his concerts by saying, “This is a song my wife wrote to zap me because I wasn't home when our son Josh was born.” I was always kind of amused by that because of the fact that we learn life's lessons too late. We don't learn lessons before the fact. We don't have a child born and then have all this wisdom.

The crux of the song is encapsulated in the lyrics near the end:

I've long since retired, my son's moved away

I called him up just the other day

I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"

He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time

You see my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu

But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad

It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me

He'd grown up just like me

My boy was just like me

An excellent lyric video to play during sermon is found here.

Before he deployed to Afghanistan, Army Staff Sgt. Philip Gray sat down and wrote 270 messages for his 7-year-old daughter—one for each day he would be away. He wanted to make sure his daughter knew that she was always on his mind. His notes for Rosie encouraged her to do her best at school and excel in her activities and hobbies. His wife, Kristen, said, “He was very big on feel-good words for her. He made sure to tell her how smart she was, and run fast in P.E., and things that would really make her happy."

Philip Gray left their home on Oct. 7, 2019, and while he was gone, Kristen put his notes into Rosie's lunchbox. Some of them included doodles like snowmen or pumpkins to represent holidays missed. He returned on Aug. 8, three days before Rosie's birthday. "Now that I'm home ... she asks me, 'Dad are you going leave me and mom a note?'" Philip said. "I say 'Yes bug, I will leave you a note.'"

Many men in the United States are struggling to thrive. Here’s how Georgetown University professor Joshua Mitchell summarizes the data:

With respect to the criminal justice system: men have a lower chance of posting bail than women; men go to prison at a higher rate and are treated worse in prisons than women; men are punished more harshly for the same crimes; men have higher rates of solitary confinement; men serve a higher percentage of the prison sentence.

With respect to education: men attend college at a lower rate, and graduate at a lower rate.

With respect to death: men have a lower life expectancy, by five years; men are 20 times more likely to die in a work-related injury; men have a higher rate of suicide.

With respect to physical violence: men endure a higher rate of corporal punishment in childhood.

With respect to war: men are forced by law and by societal pressure to fight and die in war. As veterans: men suffer higher rates of homelessness, suicide, PTSD, and drug addiction.

With respect to employment: almost all of the thankless work done "below ground"--in mining, utilities, fishing, and excavation--is done by men.

Possible Preaching Angles:

This is not intended to pit men against women and debate who has more struggles in today's society. It is merely to show that men in our culture need our grace our support.

During the War of 1812, General Andrew Jackson marched more than two thousand Tennessee volunteers from Nashville to New Orleans. With bravado they fought the decisive Battle of New Orleans. The fighting took its toll on Jackson's troops, but sickness proved to be the deadliest and most dangerous enemy. One hundred fifty soldiers became gravely ill, fifty-six of whom could not even stand.

Dr. Samuel Hogg asked the general what he wanted him to do. "To do, sir?" Jackson answered. "You are to leave not a man on the ground." It wasn't official code of conduct yet, but Jackson embodied the military motto "Leave no man behind."

Andrew Jackson ordered his officers to give up their horses to those who were sick, and the general was the first to do so. Jackson marched 531 miles on foot. Somewhere between New Orleans and Nashville, he earned the nickname "Old Hickory," the same name under which he would campaign for president fifteen years later.

Before winning the White House, the seventh president of the United States is alleged to have fought as many as thirteen duels, which explains the thirty-seven pistols in his gun collection. I'm not advocating the reintroduction of dueling, but it does reveal something about Jackson's character-Old Hickory wasn't one to shrink from a fight, especially when honor was at stake!

Jackson said, “I was born for the storm. And the calm does not suit me.” When the sea is calm, anyone can captain the ship in that situation. But when a perfect storm threatens to capsize your marriage or drown your dreams, you must play the man. A true man doesn't sit back. He steps up and steps in. He fights the good fight, even when it seems like all is lost. Why? Because a true man is born for the storm.

In a book on modern manhood Helen Smith writes:

On January 13, 2012, an Italian cruise ship, the Costa Concordia partially sank off the coast of Tuscany with 4,252 people on board. 32 people died and 64 were injured. The captain, Francesco Schettino, was charged with “abandoning incapacitated passengers and failing to inform maritime authorities.” Crew members were not much more help as passengers reported that many of them left them to fend for themselves. Rich Lowry at National Review compared the crash of the Costa Concordia to the Titanic and how men responded in each:

“’Every man for himself” is a phrase associated with the deadly Costa Concordia disaster. An Australian mother and her young daughter have described being pushed aside by hysterical men as they tried to board lifeboats. A grandmother complained, “I was standing by the lifeboats and men, big men, were banging into me and knocking the girls.” If the men of the Titanic had lived to read such a thing, they would have recoiled in shame. The Titanic’s crew surely would have thought the hysterics deserved to be shot on sight—and would have volunteered to perform the service …

Lowry seems to be blaming men for what happened on the Concordia, but he misses the point. The guys’ behavior is a culmination that has been years in the making. Our society, the media, the government, and women, have demanded that any incentives men have for acting like men be taken away and decried masculinity as evil. Now they are seeing the result. Men have been listening to what society has been saying about them for more than forty years; they are perverts, wimps, cowards, jerks, good-for-nothing, bumbling deadbeats and expendable. Men got the message; now they are acting accordingly. As you sow so shall you reap.

The Concordia is just a microcosm of what is happening in our greater society. Men are opting out in response to the attack on their gender. A society can’t spend more than forty years tearing down almost half of the population and expect them to respond with “give me another” forever. The war on men is suicidal for our society and treating men like the enemy is dangerous, both to men and to the society that needs their positive participation as fathers, husbands, role models and leaders.

Psychologist David P. Schmitt has completed the most exhaustive cross-cultural research study on gender and personality. Writing in an issue of Psychology Today, Schmitt goes against the theory that men and women are basically the same.

Schmitt contends that research from neuroscience, genetics, cross-cultural psychology, and other scientific fields is conclusive and overwhelming: “There are psychological differences between men and women. And they affect matters as trivial as sensitivity to smelly socks and as significant as susceptibility to disorders such as depression and autism.”

Meta-analysis of research has found women to be more empathic, while men are more prone to sexual jealousy. Men “tend to be better able to rotate a dimensional object in their mind and to recognize, say, an upside-down character. Whereas women excel at locating an object in a visual field and remembering exactly where Big Ben is on a map of London.” Men and women are different--from puberty, size, strength, risk-taking, mortality, and reproduction.

Schmitt laments that just as all the evidence is mounting, “denial of differences has become rampant. Attempts at respectful and productive conversations about biological sex differences often end with name-calling (genetic determinist!) or outright cancellation of events.”

Dads are designed by God to be different than mothers. In Aeon, Anna Machin explains the unique and important role of human fathers. For starters, Machin argues, fathers are designed to relate to their children through what she calls “highly physical [play] with lots of throwing up in the air, jumping about and tickling, accompanied by loud shouts and laughter. Of course fathers also cuddle, but this fatherly play has two benefits:

First, its exuberant nature allows dads to build a bond with their children quickly using hits of neurochemicals required for a robust bond. Second, due to the riskiness of the play, it begins to teach the child about the give and take of relationships. Even from a very young age fathers are teaching their children crucial life lessons.

Why do kids need this dad rough-and-tumble play and not just a good cuddle? Machin says,

Because analysis has shown that fathers and children get their peaks in oxytocin, indicating increased reward, from playing together. The correspond­ing peak for mothers and babies is when they are being affectionate. In contrast, a father’s attachment to his child has elements of affection and care, but it is based on challenge. A father turns his children’s faces outward, encouraging them to build relationships, succeed in the world, and developing a child’s sense of worth.

She concludes by saying that we need to change our cultural conversation about fathers. Some fathers are absent or inept, but Machin argues,

But the majority of fathers are not these people. We need to discuss the dads who stick around for their children. Who coach football, read bedtime stories, locate missing school socks, and scare away the night-time monsters. Who encourage their children’s mental resilience, and train them to enter our increasingly complex social world.

Bruce Springsteen’s father cast a long and mostly dark shadow over his life, said Michael Hainey in Esquire. Springsteen admits that his entire career has largely been a reaction to an attempt to free himself from Doug Springsteen, a hard drinking, blue-collar New Jerseyite who bounced from job to job.

“My mother was kind and compassionate and very considerate of others feelings," Springsteen says. “My father looked at all those things as weaknesses. He was very dismissive of who I was."

His father dominated the family home, radiating menace as he sat in the darkness in the kitchen, drinking and brooding. Later in life, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

After Springsteen became famous and wealthy, his father said to him, “You’ve been very good to us. And I wasn’t very good to you." When his father died at age 73, Springsteen stayed behind after the graveside funeral, taking a shovel to finish the burial with his own hands. “I wanted that connection,” he says. “It meant a lot to me."

Possible Preaching Angle: Fathers have tremendous influence in shaping the inner person of their children; some positively through love and support, and some negatively through anger, abuse, or abandonment. However, all who come to the Heavenly Father will find love, acceptance, grace, and healing from past injuries.

Kristina Dove is a volunteer event coordinator at Billy Earl Dade Middle School in Dallas, Texas. She helped to spearhead a "Breakfast with Dads" event at the school, where students are encouraged to bring their fathers, or people who are father figures, to school for breakfast.

"It's a way to engage the students' families during the school day," says Dove. "It's especially important for middle school students."

So when Dove found out that nearly 150 of Dade's eleven-to-thirteen-year-old students were not expecting to have their fathers in attendance, she decided to put the word out. She posted a request for volunteers on Facebook, hoping to get fifty.

Instead, hundreds of people responded overnight. Within a few days, she'd reached over four hundred men interested in mentoring, and at the day of the actual event, over 600 showed up.

Event photographer Stephanie Drenka told an ABC News reporter that she was so moved by the display, "I started crying behind my camera."

One of Drenka's iconic photos showed a man clad in a black suit jacket, festooned with a simple, powerful message:

"Our sons matter."

Potential Preaching Angles: God calls us to stand in the gap when others won't, you don't have to be a parent to have a positive impact on a child, fathers are necessary for an upright family, even if you can't see them, God prepares people to do the right thing when called upon.

With eleven Grammy awards, Eminem is the biggest-selling rapper of the last decade. So it is clear the message in his style of music is resonating and connecting with a very diverse audience, especially young men. In this autobiographical song, "Cleaning Out My Closet," his rage is palpable when he speaks about his father, who abandoned him when he was just a few months old. He says, "I wonder if he even kissed me goodbye. No, on second thought, I just wish he would … die."

Not surprisingly, Eminem, who is (or was for many years) an unmarried father, has had a tumultuous life, which has included a recent battle with drug addiction. Despite his attempts, I don't believe that he has truly been able to "clean his closet" of the damage that his father's absence left behind. His father left him when he was six months old, and Eminem never knew him. There is still pain there. When a reporter asked if he'd like to meet his father he said: "I don't know. I don't know. Some people ask me that. I don't think I do … if my kids were moved to the edge of the Earth, I'd find them. No doubt in my mind. No money, no nothin', if I had nothing, I'd find my kids. So, there's no excuse. There's no excuse."

GQ had a humorous analysis on when guys should or should not be allowed by society to shed tears. "Male crying is not new," the female author notes. "It's been happening for as long as men have had eyeballs. But it was almost always done behind at least three closed doors." Here are some of GQ's rules about public crying for men:

• It is okay to cry if you're in extreme pain, like, say, a piano were dropped from a fifty-story window on your foot. If you're gonna cry from pain, it has to be at least an eight on the pain scale.
• It's okay to cry at certain works of art or film. For instance, if you don't get misty-eyes at Toy Story 3, you are a monster.
• It's almost weird if you don't sob the first time you hold your newborn baby. No shame in that, bro.
• It's definitely weird if you sob during a sports event, although you can cry if you are actually one of the athletes out there on the field. But even then, you should cry only if you win. And if you're just a fan, the rule here is much simpler: never, ever cry.
• Never, ever cry during an argument. As the woman who wrote the article notes, "Sorry, guys, but crying during an argument is kind of our thing."

Possible Preaching Angles: Men; Fatherhood; Father's Day; Masculinity—a humorous way to set up a sermon on the challenges of thriving as a man and as a father in today's culture.