The Changing Role of Men and Fathers in the Twenty First Century

Traditionally men were the bread winners and the disciplinarians in the family. The phrase, “wait until your father gets home!,” was met with trepidation and fear by many young children. Today we live in a more egalitarian society where women are just as likely to be working full time as men and a softer approach by men toward their children is much more culturally accepted.

We are fortunately moving into an age where it is more socially sanctioned for men to express themselves and be sensitive to the feelings of their families and society at large. Men tend to be much more emotionally available to their children then in the past. Despite this there is a still a huge machismo shadow that is felt in many parts of the world. It is up to us to try to usher in the new age of enlightenment by teaching our boys that anger, violence, and harshness are not the only calling cards of a man.

There are so many mixed messages out there for boys and men today. While there is less tolerance for domestic abuse and sexual impropriety there are still so many signals that violence and fighting are legitimate ways for a man to work out his problems. If we look at the proliferation of fighting in sports we can see a great source of these mixed messages. We teach our children in school not to fight and to solve differences with their words, yet then we bring them to professional hockey to see two grown men drops their stick and gloves and punch each other out over a game. The punishment for this heinous behavior is then five minutes in the penalty box. This approval of fighting in professional sports is a terrible message to be giving our children. The message should be that violence is wrong and never solves any problem.

As if boxing was not enough to fuel the male notions of power and dominance through violence we now have the disgusting display of ultimate fighting propagating the airways. Here two men fight it out without gloves or rules in a very Romanesque gladiator free for all that is an affront to our finer sensibilities. If these men in the ring or in the NHL hockey game acted like this on the street they would be sent to jail. Why do we accept this violence as a sport?

The messages are very mixed for our young men. We want our boys to grow into strong, well adjusted, emotionally mature men who can negotiate through the problems of life with their minds and communication skills, yet all around them are the opposite messages. Young males are bombarded with violent video games where the object is to kill or destroy and the television and movie screens are littered with violent role models who beat up or shoot everything in their wake.

There is a greater number of conscious males than ever before though who can serve as role models. Great men of compassion like the Dali Lama walk the earth and teach the benefits of a calm mind and a benevolent spirit. Great writers and speakers like Wayne Dyer, Gary Zukav and Eckhart Tolle demonstrate that men can be gentle and strong, spiritual and dynamic, and compassionate and capable. We need more male role models to step forward from the light workers of the world. Fathers need to teach their boys and all their children that kindness is what matters in the grand scheme of things. Kindness is not weakness but a general outgrowth of the compassion that comes with greater spiritual awareness. Women seem to posses this quality more inherently then men so is up to fathers and mothers to try to nurture this in their boys.

We need compassion to save ourselves and the planet. When we show real love of all life and this world then things will start to change for the better. And they have started already. In the mist of all this violence and war, anger, and greed light beams of hope are starting to shine through all parts of the globe. Men are changing and becoming more receptive to the gentler energies. When men fully embrace their roles as complete human beings and realize they too must nurture the world in peace, harmony and understanding then the transformation from the old ways to the age of evolved consciousness will be fully underway.