No. 45 - A Son Cries Silently

He goes about his day pumped with bravado and hormones. He is first to acknowledge his coming of age… to represent his coming into manhood. He is first to brush his fingers proudly across his newly appeared mustache… first to let you know he can’t wait ‘til he gets his first car because that’s gonna be it for him. And you look at him, standing there -- all of 14 years old, and you try to figure out how his views of self and the world has shifted so quickly.

You’ve put so much of your time into helping him to grow to this point yet for some reason unknown to you there’s a palpable wall of resistance between you. You tell him that you’re only doing what’s best for him and you want him to become the best person he can. He looks at you… “I got this, all that can wait, I know what I’m doing”, he says, “Just let me handle this”. And then he goes into a discussion around why he thinks it’s okay to play video games all day, or why there’s always a good reason to be late for class.

You look at him wondering whom in the world this young human male is. For sure, this isn’t the same child you gave birth to. Your mind races as you ponder when was it that he fell and bumped his head… and how many more bumps on his head will it take for him to come to his senses.

This scene plays out everywhere as Mothers and Sons are coming to terms with their changing relationship during the Sons journey through puberty. For him everyday is a day of newfound discovery. It is a time of competing inner needs – the need to be comforted and nurtured by the Mother that has always been there for him, and the need to break away from the nest to boldly stare into the face of manhood. The Mother, immersed in her historic approach to caring for this beloved child, surveys the situation with a profound perplexity that challenges her very memories of “the way things used to be”.

Who is this child? What is going on within him that causes such a hysterical shift in the stable interaction that once was?

It is a question well worth asking because is smacks at the very core of the issue. It requires a detailed examination of all the variables that make up the world and realities of our youth. Most importantly, if cause us to wonder what role a Father might have played in helping this boy child become a Man.

Sometimes, as I talk to youth to better understand how they view and experience the world they (we all) live in, I can see in their eyes a certain disconnect. I can pick up in their voices a certain longing – a certain neediness – for something they themselves cannot comprehend. And well they should not. After all, how can one expect a young child to understand what he is missing when he has had very little – or no – real expose to that which he is in need of.

It is interesting to me to hear so many of our male youth talk about their need for real leadership. Many have been brave enough to openly acknowledge they want to feel hope in their lives. Many have lived most of their lives without the benefit of a loving and caring Father and have come to perceive the role of the Father as being absent in the lives of his children. And so, years of thinking these divisive thought pass and, with each passing year, the divide increases. Sooner or later he can no longer see the other side of the chasm, the young boy only feels a faint itching of awareness that somewhere out there is a Father who should be, but isn’t in his life.

So he becomes, in his mind, the Man he has come to understand he needs to be. He takes on the mantle of manliness and steps up to the plate. He puts all of his boyish wishes aside. He buries his every hope and longing to have that Father – his Father – in his life. He cuts his hurt, anger, frustration, fear, and sadness around the matter away from his emotional core. And he stands there, now embracing this new self, a front of confidence, wisdom, and determination, as he battles the hurt that darkens his inner being.

In the loneliness of his room, in the darkness of night, during times of physical hurt, A Son Cries Silently.

We try to understand what happens in the minds of our young men as they struggle to cope with the losses in their lives for, yes, – ‘tis true – the absence of a Father in the lives of our young men is indeed a loss. We try to make sense of their understanding of the changes that occur as they reach yearningly towards adulthood – the pitfalls of life subtly, maliciously licking at their feet. We try to rationalize an understanding of their experience but are stymied by our forgotten memories of our own youth.

Mothers, a heart filled with care and nurturing, do their all to meet the needs of our young men. They struggle to cope with the burgeoning male figure that rages within our young men, wanting to find the path to manhood.

Fathers are needed.

Fathers are vital at this juncture in growth and development because they must lead our young men into manhood. They must help our youth understand the challenges, temptations, pitfalls, values and responsibilities that come with being a Man.

It would be so easy to allow our communities to continue along the path we have embarked upon… so easy to sit by in idle observation as our young men run hither and yon in their quest to find their way. And it would be so easy for Men to scratch our heads in wonderment or point the finger at the Mothers of our future men…

But one must look at the scales that measure what we now have and what we can have. One must take the time to look at our Sons in a new light... a light that inspires us to know that when A Son Cries Silently… he will not cry alone.