I am tempted to say nothing in this post. I am tempted because once in a while, a writer columns himself or herself in a place of self-interference or what I choose to call self-spamming where he or she decides to say what they really wanted to say or decides to just play around with words and end up giving out “sub-standard” information – something close to the goal of an article but very far from the actual intended point.
So, even if I am tempted to say nothing while writing, I should still say something. And though nothing and something share a “thing”, both don’t add up to the same thing – to any thing. Pause. Long pause. Very long pause... Am I really saying anything… err… something!?
Okay. Let me spare you the writers’ guild’s tantrums…
I have been forced, no, I have forced myself (several times and in different occasions) to say that “there are no role-model-kind-of men to imitate today… and if they DO exist, they are very few…” It is always my assertion that whenever I go overboard to declare that in the open social media, and in such a demeaning way, I (in one way or another) help in killing the ego(s) of any ma(e)n who may hear it. In short, ni uchokozi.
And while at that, I am also pitched to see (maybe rather rightfully so) how I am not even good enough to be imitated as a man, yet I dare raise my arm (or mind and pen or mind and keyboard – whichever works for you) to judge others’ worthiness on the same...
But I want you to follow through what I am going to say in this post. Aim? I want to clear the “bad image” we the male species have gotten from all around our society…
Human beings’ male species is an endangered species. In any way you may think, we are endangered. Some people may even insist that male people are useless and a “waste of time”. You have heard ladies blame us men for the endless discrepancies and sagas we create, for the irresponsibility and passiveness we chorale, for the “lack of manners”, for the “unpolished behavior” we tend to display ALL the time, for the lack of respect towards women, for endless things…We are blamed for things we are not even responsible for just because we are men…but maybe, we should look beyond the surface… The question is: Do boys have enough male mentors and people that are good enough to be their role models while growing up, and do the female species even care that they (the boys who are growing up) are undergoing a crisis?
Photo courtesy of www.dreamstime.comI am a man - a boy child - and I really want to pour out my heart into this post so that [somehow] ladies will start praying for us and guiding us in the right direction instead of blaming us and ranting ceaselessly against us. I am anticipating encouragement instead of the calling of names.
Most of us grow (or have grown) up with our sisters. I loved growing up with my sisters. We are almost treated the same in the first years of our development. Right then, not much is expected from us – maybe just a little sneering at us like the overrated “you should not cry because you are a man” thing. Life is normally cool right then and without hustles. But as time moves by, expectations start emerging from within our families (or society) on whatever they look forward to us becoming or being. No one steps up (and if they do, it is in a rather too formal way) to teach us what a man should look like or behave like. No one comes out to tell us “Morris, a man should have known how to do this and that in this or that way by the time he is at the age of this or that…” No one shows us that. No one cares to show us any of that.
What is this about men anyway? Are we supposed to be supermen or something? Are we supposed to be gods? Really? Supermen? Do supermen even exist in real life? Really?
We are expected to behave maturely without being taught how just because we are men. Our age never matters – we are simply expected to grow up and become men. Quite a lot is expected from us just because our African culture (and even the world at large) depicts that the boy child should be a stand-alone-all-knowing-beast and an omnipotent-fearless-and-courage-spawning-kind-of-a-person. This (I think) makes it obvious when the boy child is held between making his own uninformed decisions (based on the advice given to him by his peers) and making decisions based on what the world around him expects of him. We are imagined to be gods of some kind, yet they (people around us) never consider that we lack REAL MEN to teach us about REAL THINGS IN REAL LIFE.
We lack prototypes that will show us (and not just tell us) how to take responsibility so that we may not end up unreliable and unpredictable. We need men who will love our sisters and mothers and cherish them so much that we will admire them and start desiring to start families… We need men who will practically show us how to pray for our families; men with emotion - who cry and weep because it is normal. Men who share their fears with their daughters and wives. Men who say, “God is in control my boy! Don’t be afraid, He will stand up for us.” We need men who don’t fear failure. We want active men, not passive men who command us around while doing nothing. We need men who are courageous and fearless to face the challenges they meet in life. We want to learn as we watch them. We want to feel their chests beam with expectation and anticipation. This is the kind of men we want. These are the men we need.
Some female species also contribute to our weird behavior. They want to kill our ego(s) by domineering us, or by us seeing them literally rule over our fathers or the male figures in our lives. What do you expect from a boy whose father is being treated like a child in his own home, huh? Why should women expect us to be “men of courage” while all they’ve been doing to us is call us names and treat us as worthless as there can be worthlessness? Sometimes dogs even deserve better…
Quote: We cannot become what we have not known! Side note: I thank God for my biological father. He is the best prototype I’ve ever had; but at the same time I am worried about more and more boys that are growing up without fathers - boys with missing fathers.
Therefore don’t blame us (at least out of respect for our background) when we end up developing a rebellious spirit in us even though that is not an excuse enough. This is the only way through which we manage to escape the reality of being indefinite and out of place. Most of the elder men in our lives are either missing or inappropriate, cowards or passive. Day by day, we fail to find a place in our lives (even the smallest enjoyable chance) where we can point out and say, “I wanna be like that man!” Ladies, do you have such a woman in your lives? That ONE woman you can confidently say, “I wanna be like that woman?” That is our dilemma ladies. That is our dilemma.
Don’t blame us when we want to wash away such a reality through burying ourselves in movies or friends, or through being rugged and “unpolished”, or through video and computer games, or a quest for power and wealth, drugs or football, or leisure, or too much education...
The boy child has grown up knowing that he is not fit to become anything in the face of society today. And tomboys have made it even worse…Let us go out there and change that outlook that he has adapted to…
Enough said, I pray that you treat a boy or male being around you with care, showing him direction when he wrongs, because we are never perfect enough; and because you may just be preparing the best man, a man of a kind, for a lady that will come into his life in the future and for that boy child that will call him dad…
Side note: Watch Hardflip (a movie) to get a lil bit of what I'm talking about.
Bonface Morris
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