A Heart-Wrenching Plea for Men to Escape

When I was just a boy, my father would cruelly make fun of me. He called me names. He would call me weak, and in his drunken stupors he would never shy away from letting me know how much manhood I lacked.

Though scrawny, I grew up tough. My father would have beaten me black and blue if I walked away from a fight.

At very young ages, he forced me to watch horror movies to drive the fear out of me. Ha actually failed in that attempt. In fact, it wasn’t until half way through college that I even began watching anything remotely scary again.

He had created a man mold in his mind, and in his aggressive, abusive ways, he worked hard to drill it into me. When I couldn’t meet his expectations, he let me know in very uncomfortable ways sometimes resulting in my visiting the emergency room.

He destroyed my childhood…or at least the first half of it.

At age 13, I was adopted.

New Beginnings. Residual Fear.

Parts of that mindset that was viciously drilled into me always stayed with me. In high school, I would run 5+ miles each morning before school. I would ride my bike the 11 miles to school several days a week just for the personal satisfaction.

I read extra in my spare time. I studied hard and ran harder. I’ve never felt like I was achieving enough. I’m plagued with the sensation that I have to find ways to keep improving myself, to keep getting better, stronger and faster.

It sounds like a good quality and sometimes it is. Sometimes I feel motivated, empowered and filled with excitement to take on new things. At other times, I feel like I just can’t be what I need to be, what I should be, what I owe to the world.

I feel like I’m not man enough to step up to the plate and really stand out, and after watching the video below, I’ve discovered that I’m not the only who was bought up with this mentality.

I almost never ask people to watch lengthy videos on here, but whether you are a male or a female, I am absolutely convinced that this will change the way you view the world. Please watch it. I promise you’ll be glad you did.

My Personal Fear for my Future Sons

When my wife was pregnant with our first child, I hoped and prayed that it would be a girl. I never fully understood where the feelings came from that made me hesitant, or rather afraid, to have a boy, but after watching this video I’ve come to understand more about myself.

“When I have kids, I will never act the way that my parents acted. I will never treat them the way that my parents treated me.” Or so we all say.

I find myself terrified that I’ll be the father to my children that my father was to me, that I’ll be imposing on them such a stringent, hardcore standard of living that they’ll live in constant agony that they’re just not good enough, not manly enough.

I don’t want to be that man…but I can’t help but fear.

Live, Learn, Love and Let’s Grow Together

Some of the principles that my raging father instilled in my mind are good to live by but the way he went about it was wrong. And, of course, much like the experiences of the gentlemen in the video, some of the principles he taught me were completely wrong.

I feel that I’m a stronger person for the experiences I lived through as a child, but I don’t wish those same experiences on anyone else.

As you care for your family, as you interact with friends, as you work with others in the work place, and as you write and communicate online, let’s put the unjustified concepts of manhood out of our minds.

Let’s Talk About This Together

This is probably the hardest blog post that I’ve ever written, but I feel liberated. It feels good. If you’ve never left a comment here before, let today be the day that you do.

I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman. I want your feedback. I want to know how you’ve seen this subject at work in your life. I want to know how you’ve been impacted by the man box.