Questions for Men about Man-Making

Question 5. When YOU Became A "MAN"

This question is about you becoming a "man." What was THE moment in your life when you knew, for sure, that you had become a "man"? Who was there? What was done? What event, action, or ceremony took place so that you knew a line had been crossed and you were now a "man" (or at least more man than boy)?

If you can't remember any defining moment, how do you feel about it now? How do you know if you are a "man" today?

(Return to all the Questions for Men)

Mike P. - 53: I became a man in an instant when I was 16. I broke my neck playing football in high school and was instantly thrust into a very different, new world. Paralyzed from mid-chest down, I grew up over the next seven and one-half months in three different hospitals.

Essentially, I spent my junior year of high school learning how to be an adult from doctors, nurses, therapists and aides in a world completely foreign to me.

One day in the physical therapy gym, while my therapist was doing range of motion, my doctor came in and gave me the best advice I have ever received. He told me I needed to learn everything about my condition I could because I was going to be in situations where people who were going to be responsible for taking care of me and they would not know what to do. He said I would have to tell those people what I needed and be able to explain how to do whatever it was I needed. That was in 1971 and I have never forgotten his advice.

It wasn't my choice, but I had to grow up in a hurry and be responsible for making the right decisions that would have a huge impact on me for the rest of my life.

(Check out Mike's great blog at: http://iamnotdoneyet.blogspot.com/, and his website at: http://www.patcom.com/ - Earl)

DWAYNE - 22: I don't recall a defining moment when I was sure I had become a man. I don't think any one does. My beliefs now are that manhood isn't defined by what we are used to defining it like age, occupation, number of children; amount of money etc. I believe that when a person has obtained a frame of mind of a responsible, self-sufficient, and sensitive man then they are a man. I know I am a man because I look at life and daily situations as a man. I look at my future in a way that is characteristic of a man. On a fundamental level, the physical is the main determining factor but to me it is the mentality.

Brad - 60: When did I realize I was a man? As far back as I remember I was expected to be a man.

I was the oldest, five younger siblings, and it was always my job to make certain everything was "right." If someone messed up, it was my butt that caught the trouble. I had to make sure everyone cleaned their room, cut the grass, etc. I didn't have the opportunity to be a kid.

At the time, obviously there were a lot of bad feelings towards me from my siblings. One of my brothers has not figured out yet that I was only "doing my job." Thankfully, the others "get it."

I couldn't wait to be graduated and leave the house. Married and with a child and very responsible at 19 - only to have everything come apart at age 28 - Divorced, alone, VERY unhappy, hating everybody and everything, drugs, drinking, many women, physically abusive...

Finally, on my 38th birthday I admitted I had a problem and found a program where I was able to enter recovery for my abuse - That first meeting was when I "became a man" - I'll never forget the feeling of being free, the weight lifted off my shoulders - as soon as I realize that things could change - that there was hope for me.

Shortly after that I quit fighting and let the Lord into my life - He had been trying to get in for years, but I had always struggled to keep Him out (even though I had attended the same church pretty regularly through all those years!), and things have been getting better every day ever since!

Now, 22 years later, it's hard to remember how bad things were - my worst days now are 100 times better than my best days were.

I Became a Man when I stopped so hard trying to be one By Myself, and realized I didn't have to do everything alone.

Larry - 68: I haven't a lot of answers to the question about when I became a man. Although I always wanted a mentor other than my father, I never did get one, and not a lot of hero worship either. I was a farm boy with many challenges to my masculinity growing up. I milked my first cow, had a confrontation with a neighbor’s boar, raked hay, did the plowing, took over at 14 when my dad was injured, ran various machines, etc. Did I become a man at one point in all that? Somewhere. There was no declaration about it. I'm 68 now, and there wasn't much mention of anything about becoming a man back in those days. A young man simply learned to cope with more and carry a heavier load.

Today, I am a father to three young men and I have been mindful to mentor them and lovingly praise them as they grew and did things. I've told them I am proud of them as men, but we just don't have a manhood ceremony in North American culture, do we? No whipping off of foreskins or killing a lion. So many guys think their first drunk or lay makes them a man, which is very shallow.

As part of my personal mission I have been visiting and writing to men in prison for the past six years, and I have found it to be a very worthwhile endeavor. I consider it a mentoring thing, but have really become friends with a couple of guys, one in for murdering his wife (she was an abuser) and another for attempted murder on his wife ( a philanderer, screwing every guy around). When I first went in I hoped I'd get paired with a guy who hadn't done a very serious crime, and got two murderer types in a row!

I am planning to mentor boys back at the school where I last worked, probably through Big Brothers. I've done some teacher-counseling, and have read over 50 books on men's issues, and realize how important it is to mentor youngsters to steer them away from the worst of our culture. We recently had a situation where four Mounties were killed (our national policemen) by one man, and to me, there were five tragedies that day. No boy is born bad. He is shaped that way, and, with care, we could shape him into being a good, useful citizen if we start early enough. Larry - 68

Mish - 46 - South Africa: My Dad made me feel like a man when he told me about his garden and how he never got to show it to his father, my grandfather. This happened when my Dad was 87 and I was 42.

He was visiting me and my family in Johannesburg and we were out to dinner. I was asking him about his dad, and he told me how my grandfather had died in the parking lot of the station in East Berlin just after WW2, when he was about to make it out of East Germany and come out to join my Dad in his new home in South Africa.

There was something about the way my Dad shared his feelings with me as an equal, as a man, that made me finally feel acknowledged as an adult. I knew the story already, but at that moment he shared his FEELINGS with me, his disappointment at not being acknowledged as a man by his father.

The exact moment, and I can picture it now, was when he said "and he never got to see my garden in Pinelands. He used to love gardening and when I bought the house, we moved in and started tending the garden, I always imagined my father happy in that garden, just like he used to garden in Berlin before the war. I imagined myself showing him my garden and inviting him to get involved. But he never made it out here. He died on his way out of Germany..."

I look at my transition to manhood in 3 big ways:

• Getting confirmed as a teen was part of the journey. Being old enough to stand up for Christ was a real sign of maturing. I’m not sure I got it as that because it was not emphasized enough but it was an important step for me.

• Watching my dad close up, traveling on the road with him (he was a traveling salesman) and he would tell me “You are the man of the house when I’m gone.” Dad showed me how to treat others with respect, to admit when I was wrong, to give until it hurts sometimes and to love God and family whole-heartedly. He also taught me some other stuff that took a while to ‘unlearn’ like ‘it’s not wrong if you can get away with it’ and a few other Homer Simpsonisms. On the whole, he really helped me shape up as a man.

• I don’t think ONE DAY or ONE EVENT makes someone a man. It happens over time. One day, when I was in my 30s, a woman friend said, “You are a nice man.” It struck me that she saw me as man. At that time, I still did not regularly think of myself as ‘a man’ because my dad was in his 70s and he was a man. I knew I was legally. I knew I should act like one and how a man acts. I just didn’t think of myself as one.

Now I’m 50. I think ‘men’ in their 20s are just kids. I see boys who are 60 and one time met a man who was just 6. I think my transition to manhood is an ongoing process of redefining who I am and what it means to be a man. I thought I knew what a man was and then I had two children. My perspective changed. I’m learning the meaning of patience, giving, responsibility and a deeper sense of love and devotion than I ever felt before. Maybe after grandchildren I will be able to say, “NOW I get it.” For now, I’m a man... A work in progress.

Herb - 57: I was a pot smoking, F average, high school student. I was, for all of my own reasons, alienated from those seen as 'good' kids. Several years of unacceptable behavior later, along with other cultural vagabonds, my fun lost it's excitement. My original sense of isolation was only deepened. Our partying was burdened by its pointlessness. We had been allied through our alienation. Our direction was down. I was painfully aware that I had to change my life.

A friend I respected had quit high school and joined the army. He joined in 1968. I was 17, a senior, with no chance of graduating because of my grades. I had virtually damaged my mind with a concoction several of my friends and I had brewed (loco weed tea). It was painfully obvious to me that my speech and thought process had suffered. I prayed, on my knees, for another chance at life. I needed my mother's signature cooperation so that I could join the army. My mother who worried so much about my behavior, who tried so hard to reach me, didn't hesitate to sign for me.

I was never so alone and I was afraid. Joining the army would be a fresh start. I would be a stranger among peers. I disciplined myself to practice to give every conscious moment to the serious dues I knew I must pay to pull myself up. At the end of basic training at Fort Ord, Cal. 5/69. I graduated as the outstanding trainee of the cycle, and earned one stripe. This was to me privately, the most profound rite of passage I could have dreamed of. I didn't know anyone who had any idea how this lifted me, except probably my mother. A couple of months later, I graduated from my advanced training with the second highest scores in the company. The high scorer had been acting company commander and he picked up 15 or so points for that, otherwise I had out scored him too. I earned a second stripe. Now I knew I had the stuff to be as any man. I still had my old self with me for many years as I slowly learned to close the gap on my self defeating behavior.

It required my individual effort to make my passage. The passage is always with me in a real sense. Being a man is a constant vigil.

Phil- 59:  Traditionally speaking from traditional definitions, I don't know that I see myself as a man today, I know I am a male.  For me to be able to have a defining moment of when I became a man, a rite of passage so to speak, would mean first that I would have to have a good definition (for me) of what a man is, and I don't.  I don't think coming of age necessarily makes a man, I think our culture would have you believe so.  

Having said that, and after further processing on this question, I can create my own definition of what a man is to me.  It would be a male who knows who is, including his shadows.  A male who has mastered the integration and balance of "all" of his archetypal energies, because each energy carries with it a piece of his definition.  I see myself as continually learning and practicing to accomplish this.  I will be a man by my definition when I master this.

I learned things by myself from watching. But as a late blooming teenager I found that all I wanted was to be thought of as a man and not a boy. It seemed that everyone but me knew how to be a man. I was constantly looking for evidence to affirm my manhood. I was so busy looking that I didn't see what was right under my nose. So even as a young father I was unaware that fatherhood, or the ability to reproduce, was one of the things in my life that defined me as a man.

I think it's about losing the freedom to do what you want to do, and embracing the freedom to do what you just have to do. There's something in that decision. I still struggle with it when I need to clean the house etc. But I know that in the small decisions I'm reflecting what it means to be a man - someone who is no longer self-focused but has focused their life around the benefit of others - my wife and daughter.

In the construction crew I worked on, the "kids" (new guys) always had jokes played on them -- hats nailed where you left them, hammers tied to your apron, etc. As the kids on the site, you expected it and didn't give it back to the older men on the crew.

At about age 14 or 15, I finally decided to get even and just nailed one older guys hat to the wall - It was the guy I suspected as the source of jokes played on me. After he discovered it and everyone knew I did it, all joking stopped and I was somehow "in the crew" and "one of the guys". At that point, I was no longer isolated from stories told and I was expected to lift and carry the same loads as everyone else. It was an amazingly simple ritual. I guess I initiated myself into manhood that day.

I can remember in Viet Nam, with males all around me, that it was NOT about becoming a man. It was about learning to follow orders, being respectful to Men, and about the whole process keeping you a young male. So I think it's when I got married that I felt I was truly a man in this society.

The gist of the story is that my father did something to me, totally without my knowledge, relating to a business that I own. Unbeknownst to me, he tried to sell my business to some of my company's largest competitors, which happen to be some of the largest Corporations in America. He falsely represented himself as part of my company. He actually went so far as to sign a legal document waiving certain rights...yada, yada, yada. Like I said, it's a long story.

The details aren't significant at this point. The bottom-line is that I found out what he did and confronted him with it. It was so serious that we didn't talk for several months. After several attempts to resolve it by phone (and several hang-ups on his end), I finally took the initiative and flew to Florida to have it out.

It was high noon in a busy Jewish deli in Florida when we walked in. Customers were sucking on matzah-ball soup and hot pastrami sandwiches. The place was buzzing with conversation. Not 2 minutes after we sat down and got through the niceties, we got to it. The place got suddenly very quiet. It was a knock-down, drag-out battle of words with swearing, shouting, accusations... the whole nine yards. I said some things to him (and him to me) that would have gotten any other kid smacked, or worse. I stood up to my father that day...going literally nose-to-nose... and held my own.

For the most part, over the years, I've stood up for myself with everyone but my father. Like most fathers, he can be pretty intimidating. That's all changed. Since that event, I haven't been the same, neither has he and neither has the relationship. The rules have changes and we both know it. He treats me differently and I react to him differently. It's obvious to both of us. I feel that I earned his respect with that confrontation. I don't know if that was "the" moment I became a man, but it sure felt good. I can guarantee one thing...he'll never try any shit like that again! If he does, it's back to that Jewish deli again!!

When I checked with the bank I found out the account was closed and that my father had the money. When I asked him about it he said, "you owed me that money," which was true. I knew at that moment the job of providing for my wife and my child was mine, and as bad as that felt, I knew it was a man's job.

Today, as I'm firmly entrenched in manhood, I still feel like a kid in so many ways. I still enjoy many of the activities of my youth -- baseball games, movies, even the music I like to listen to is from my past. My closest friends are the same friends I had in high school, some older than that.

What I think is valuable is the lesson that we can become a man - with all of the strength that comes with identifying oneself as a man - without losing or leaving behind all of the emotions, bonds and personality traits that led up to it.

Now that I think about it, I don't think there is a defining moment when you become a man, because you never stop becoming a man. There is constant growth. Rather, there is probably more of a moment when you realize you're no longer a child, and that you've crossed over into the "adult world."

Later in life my parents dealt with their alcoholism, became grandparents and great grandparents and were literally unrecognizable from their earlier life, a true metamorphosis. But, I think I truly found my own manhood when, as they aged, I took the time out of my career to bring them to their doctors appointments and check ups. Sometimes I resented the time it took, it was boring and always inconvenient. But, as a man, as a man who wants to be a good man, taking care of my parents in their time of need made me feel truly whole, "adult" and I've never felt stronger than I do today.

She brought out in me a seriousness and focus that had been well hidden in college life. Suddenly we were playing grown-up with discussions about the type of family we wanted, the way we would raise our children, what work we might do, where we might live, etc. It was during this period as I look back that separated me from being a boy.

It became muddy when I thought about 'letting go' of my parents and family (relief as well as chagrin), and a bit of a feeling like I perhaps wasn't as welcome at home as I was the day before. So I was thrown into paradox--independence, thrilling anticipation of whatever lies ahead, yet trepidation and remorse about leaving my family behind.

My reflection on it now is interesting to me because my family never 'kept up' with my moving to manhood. I think they all perceive me as being the same person as I was at 17, when I left home. I think, intellectually they know I'm a man, yet there are still times when they act as if I am not.

It was September 21, 1980. Not a difficult date to remember. I was 24 years old and spending the night at my mom's house - I had been visiting for the weekend. At about 6:30 in the morning, my mom woke me up. She was crying. She told me that my father (who, after divorcing my mom years earlier, had moved to Northern California) was dead. He had died just a few minutes before reaching the hospital, after suffering a heart attack. My father was my world to me. But, then, he was also more than that. He was my identity. He was the jokes I told, the food I ate, the answers to the problems I faced. And, he was gone.

When she told me, my first reaction was to comfort her. I was numb - but I also immediately felt a sense of duty. An obligation to be strong. There were people to call, and people to comfort. There was no time for my own sorrow. At the end of the day, when I went out to my car to begin my journey home, I wept. It was a lonely cry, a suffering cry and a cleansing cry.

My father, who brought me into this world, held my hand into childhood and who guided me through my youth, was now leading me into manhood. I felt older, and a little scared, as I realized, for the first time, what it was like to live life as a man.

A little more than three months after my daughter's birth, I was changing her diaper when I noticed something. Gazing into her eyes as I cooed my love to her I realized that something was not right in the reflection on the surface of her eye. In fact, something was in her eye. I called my wife Kay in to the baby's room and tried to point it out to her, but she couldn't see what I was seeing. But later that morning, my "ladies" were on their way to the doctor for a checkup.

At about 11 a.m. the call came and with gasping tears she told me "Katie has a tumor"…and the doctors thought there might be more. She had been diagnosed with "retinablastoma", and with that word our world changed forever. It was bad they said. If you can see it with the naked eye, it was bad. There is hope but she could die.

We called our parents. We called our friends. We finally found the third best place in the world to take our precious Katherine and it was just a state away in Iowa City. We borrowed our brother-in-law's VW bug and at four in the morning as the first snowflakes of the winter swirled around us, we left Lincoln, Nebraska into the unknown.

We arrived early for our 7:30 a.m. appointment and just held each other, tightly wrapped in fear. Moments later a distinguished man in a starched white lab coat, trailing a retinue of sycophants, swept into the waiting room and called loudly for "the baby from Nebraska". As we watched, knees trembling, he grabbed our beloved daughter, held her high above his head as he checked left and right for his audience, pronouncing with a condescending smile; "So, this is the baby from Nebraska. I will remove her eyes this afternoon."

I felt Kay slump against me and heard her gasp… and then…. and then… RAGE! Within me swelled a power I had never known. Tearing my child back from this arrogant asshole's hands I looked him in the eye and said in a loud uncontained voice, "You haven't even examined her and you tell me you are going make her blind?! You're fired!" The waiting room was as silent as a tomb. Even as he began a fumbling explanation we turned from him and retook our seats and began to attend to our now fussing daughter.

With a dramatic sweep the doctor and his boot-lickers left the room. I was just barely aware of a collective sigh from the staff behind the desk and those waiting for appointments. Just as I was trying to work out in my mind how to get us all to Boson or UCLA Medical center, numbers one and two, a nurse approached us with a Christmas grin on her face and a black eye-patch across her right eye saying, "We have all been waiting years to hear someone tell him something like that." And then softer,"There is another doctor here you should see before you leave."

Two days later, after exhausting tests and imaging, three and a half month old Katie had one eye removed, and seven tumors in her right eye frozen or irradiated, and follow-up treatments for radiation were scheduled.

I recall the look in that son-of-a-bitch's eye when I told him; "You're fired!" That is the moment I became a real man. It was not about my dick, or money, or job prestige… it was about protecting the health and life of my beloved daughter. Out of my deep grief and fear I came into a new power. I knew, in the deepest part of me, that anyone who fucked with me or mine was going to lose. I would do whatever it took… no holds barred…to protect mine. It's fierce. It's intense. It's real. In that moment I became so intentional about my babies that anyone foolish enough to show a threat would be road-kill. No second thoughts. Not regrets. Fuck with my child and you are meat. End of story. No question, that is when I became a man.

Postscript: In 2000 Katherine graduated Suma Cum Laude from a Newsweek "Top Twenty-five Small Colleges", Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana. She was awarded a double major and multiple prizes for scholarship. She has just returned from a year in Germany, the first student in her college's history to receive a Fullbright Scholarship.

My family mostly didn't agree with my decision. My Dad had been a Marine Corps medic in World War II and still was a member of the Naval Reserve. My older relatives, many of them veterans, were still seeing the world as they'd fought for it in World War II. They still mostly believed their government.

My friends didn't understand what was doing either, but most of them backed me just because I was the proverbial little guy going up against the Big Green Machine. A few people I thought I knew really well, however, cut me off cold. Others, that I hadn't expected much support from, came through big-time (including the casual pen pal I eventually had the good sense to marry some 29 years ago).

The consequences of being turned down would be distinctly unpleasant. In those days, the Army had a habit of making examples of the CO applicants it refused. A lot of them ended up reassigned to combat. The other option was that I'd have a couple of years serving time in a Mannheim prison.

So why do it? I wasn't in 'Nam, nor was I ever likely to go -- I was simply a Russian linguist with a top-secret security clearance. The odds of succeeding were about 9 to 1 against me to start with, and I was applying on moral and ethical grounds, not for religious reasons -- only 3% of all the COs the military acknowledged were let out that way. I did it because I couldn't pretend to support and participate in something I really didn't believe in.

Because the stuff I saw due to my top-secret clearance pulled off the last flimsy camouflage that I was doing something important. I wasn't providing security against a serious threat. The Russian army was inept. They knew it. We knew. They knew we knew it.

Because I was slowly imploding. That July I drank a paycheck in three days (and even at lowly E4 pay, that took some significant effort). If I didn't get anything else out of the Army, I finally realized I had to get me out of the Army.

I had taken the usual minor risks in childhood and adolescence, but they clearly classified as kid stuff. I had made some basic semi-adult decisions -- including the one to enlist to avoid the draft two years before -- but they mostly amounted to doing what I thought I was supposed to do.

By contrast, this was "you bet your life." Literally. The weight of society said keep your head down, cover your ass, do your time and get out in a couple of years. The weight of family said you gave your word now keep it. The weight of inertia said why risk something really bad when what you're stuck in is only relatively bad.

But I couldn't do it. I couldn't take the easy way. I couldn't play the game anymore. I knew what the odds were. I suspected what the costs of "success" would be from friends and family. This decision, if I made it, would set me apart from all of that. I'd stand alone or I'd fall alone.

I don't recall agonizing over the decision at the end. When the filing date arrived, I didn't really have to think much about it. I knew what I believed. I did what I thought I should do. I dropped off my notice.

That was my rite of passage. No matter how things turned out, I had taken a stand and I was firmly planted on my own two feet. Had I waffled or wilted, taken the easy way out, I think I'd have felt like a kid for a long time to come. I know I'd have been acting like one.

In January '72, I was discharged honorably as a CO. But the discharge was an anticlimax. The real moment of truth was taking a stand, putting my own beliefs, my own conscience, before family, friends, country and the Army's command structure. And being willing to take the consequences of that decision, whatever they turned out to be. It was the right thing to do. I was two months past my 22nd birthday.

I had graduated from High School on June 12th with Honors and celebrated with friends who had also graduated in my class. I had applied and been accepted for my freshman year at two good local colleges. But I had spent my last dime playing golf and realized if I was going to College, I had to figure out a plan to finance the 4 years. As I think about it now, what I had learned was not to show my ignorance or fears, but "Just keep trying to figure things out by myself". I did that and went alone to see the Army Recruiter to ask Him how I could qualify for 4 years of school on the GI Bill.

I went home told my mom and dad and got their signature on the enlistment form, because I was only 17 years old. On the 11th of September they swore me in. I went home to sleep in my own bed that night and in the morning reported to Fort Snelling to begin my tour of duty. The first decision I made as a Man in the Army was to choose a top Bunk on the train headed for Ft Sheraton in Illinois.

It has been good to recall this part of my life. Now, as a 73-year-old grandpa, I can finally give myself credit navigating my way through the beginning of the difficult process of becoming a Man.

Having passed this initial testing, he endured a final rite of passage that left me breathless. He was led into a huge, dimly lit and smoky tepee by several of the elders of the tribe. Other elders sat in a circle around the perimeter of this lodge. His shirt was stripped off his back and his torso was bare. Two elders tied a eagle talons to the end of each of two ropes. These were then tossed over a lodge pole probably 15-18 feet in the air. Then, one of the elders approached him and hooked the eagle talons under each of his pectoral muscles. His arms were limp at his side as two warriors pulled the ropes and hoisted him about 3-4 feet off the ground.

The theater was deathly quiet because of the drama of the situation. The man called horse couldn't jerk around, cry out in pain or even give the facial impression that he was in any kind of discomfort. He hung there in the dim light of the lodge until he passed out. Then they slowly lowered him to the ground. This was the price of acceptance into the tribe.

I wondered where was my tribe and what would I be ask to do to prove myself worthy to gain acceptance?

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