“Every boy was supposed to come into the world equipped with a father whose prime function was to be our father and show us how tobe men. He can escape us, but we can never escape him. Present or absent, dead or alive, real or imagined, our father is the main man in our masculinity.” MenWorldRealShowsFatherBoysAliveFunctionPrimeMasculinityAbsentOur Father Author:Frank Pittman
“We become male automatically because of the Y chromosome and the little magic peanut, but if we are to become men we need the helpof other men--we need our fathers to model for us and then to anoint us, we need our buddies to share the coming-of-age rituals with us and to let us join the team of men, and we need myths of heroes to inspire us and to show us the way.” IfsMenWayNeedsLittlesShowsAgeFatherMagicTeamShareInspireHeroModelsMalesMythComing Of AgeRitualOur FatherBuddyPeanutsChromosomes Author:Frank Pittman
“Our father has an even more important function than modeling manhood for us. He is also the authority to let us relax the requirements of the masculine model: if our father accepts us, then that declares us masculine enough to join the company of men. We, in effect, have our diploma in masculinity and can go on to develop other skills.” IfsMenImportantEnoughFatherCompanyAcceptingEffectsGoes OnSkillsAuthorityModelsFunctionRelaxRequirementsManhoodMasculinityMasculineModelingOur FatherDiploma Author:Frank Pittman
“We long for our father. We wear his clothes, and actually try to fill his shoes. . . . We hang on to him, begging him to teach ushow to do whatever is masculine, to throw balls or be in the woods or go see where he works. . . . We want our fathers to protect us from coming too completely under the control of our mothers. . . . We want to be seen with Dad, hanging out with men and doing men things.” MenWantTryingLongMotherFatherTeachDadProtectClothesBallsShoesWoodsHanging OutMasculineOur FatherBeggingDoing Me Author:Frank Pittman
“What we men share is the experience of having been raised by women in a culture that stopped our fathers from being close enough to teach us how to be men, in a world in which men were discouraged from talking about our masculinity and questioning its roots and its mystique, in a world that glorified masculinity and gave us impossibly unachievable myths of masculine heroics, but no domestic models to teach us how to do it.” MenWorldEnoughCultureFatherTalkingTeachShareModelsRootsRaisedMythQuestioningMasculinityMasculineDiscouragedBe A ManOur FatherMystique Author:Frank Pittman
“Most of us have felt barriers between ourselves and our fathers and had thought that going it alone was part of what it meant to be a man. We tried to get close to our children when we became fathers, and yet the business of practicing masculinity kept getting in the way. We men have begun to talk about that.” MenWayChildrenFatherFeltOur ChildrenBarriersMeant To BeMasculinityBe A ManOur Father Author:Frank Pittman
“It's not that we have too much mother, but too little father. We can't forgive our mothers for taking the place of our fathers until we are ready to see that the point of a man's life is to be a father and a mentor, and we can't do that because we don't know how we would be a father or a mentor when we never had one.” KnowsMenLittlesWould BeLife IsMotherFatherKnow HowToo MuchReadyForgivingMentorOur FatherCan't Forgive Author:Frank Pittman
