you kind of get access to hidden knowledge
or experiences that you don't remember you had
as your boy experiences those things
you kind of get to experience them through him
yeah I
I think you know
to your point there there's just something
I mean being able to empathize with another person
is just enormously helpful
and it is just a fact that uh
certain experiences are kind of uh
unique to your sex or your gender and
and certain experiences like
when you can have some guidance from someone
who knows what that is like
there's going to be something about that
that that is enormously helpful to you
welcome back to Raising Men
I'm your host Shawn Dawson
now we often talk on this show
about the missing roadmap from modern manhood
the fact that our sons are growing up in a world
that sends them loud often contradictory
messages about what it means to be a man
but today's guest has maybe
a slightly different point of view
which I'm really eager to get into
Jordan Ritter Con
is a senior staff writer at the Ringer
and he's an acclaimed author
known for his deep immersion journalism
for his latest book American men
Jordan spent five years
almost living alongside four different
very different men
capturing the searing intimacy of their lives
their failures and their triumphs
now he kind of
argues that these men have gotten the message
of what it means to be a man
loud and clear but the difficulty arises
when they're confronted with the ways that
they don't feel like they're living up to the ideal
that they're holding in their own heads
and the result
this book is I think
a result a
a result of genuine intimate storytelling
and like most stories it gets to the truth
in a way that data and statistics can't
Jordan thank you so much for joining us
and welcome to Raising Men
thank you so much for having me
I'm I'm so thrilled to be here Sean
so now
how did you decide to embark on this journey
this was five years ago and I
I mean I think five years ago
the vision of you know
doing something on masculinity was
most people if you told that to
they would think that
you're on a different journey than
you actually ended up on
so how did you decide to do this and
and how do you feel about it
yeah um
so you know I
I have always had going back to
you know when I was a kid
always had very close relationships with other boys and
and with men in in my adulthood um
the kind of friendships that we're often told that
boys and men don't have um
or or can't
can't develop friendships that are based on
you know real trust and intimacy
really sharing things vulnerably
um and uh
and you know
that that kind of carried over into my journalism
once I became a journalist
I kind of focused on um
like you said kind of like immersive storytelling
like really digging deep into
into people's lives and
you know a lot of my background is in sports
and so if you're in sports journalism
you spend a lot of time talking to men
and and in the kind of journalism that I've done
it's a lot of time talking to men
about things that we're so often told
that men don't really want to share
talking with them about their insecurities
talking with them about their failures
talking with them about you know
traumas
and and so
you know a few years ago
and at this point um
it's been
it's now been six years since I really kind of
embarked on on beginning this book uh
just cause some some
time has passed since I finished it now um
I was I was just thinking like
there's starting to be these conversations around
around men about you'd see these headlines about
like
the first rumblings of headlines about male loneliness
and in kind of the the late 20
like 2018 1920 um
you'd see the first rumblings of headlines about men
kind of sometimes not carrying their emotional weight
I I guess in
in relationships you start hearing like
terms like emotional labor start
start kind of being introduced into the
the way that we talk culturally
um
you start to hear things about men's unwillingness to
um you know
seek professional help when
when they're going through things um and
and to uh
you know to open
open up let people into their lives
and I just had the thought of like
you know I've spent a lot of my personal life
and now a lot of my professional life
talking to men about these very things
um I
I feel like I've had experiences
that have LED me to think that men are willing to
open up are willing to kind of let people in
do want to um
kind of do some of this work that we're so often told
that they don't and so I
I thought like
if I could cast a wide net
find a few guys
whose stories are so different from one another
but who could add up to something kind of
a larger picture um
outside of just their individual stories that I could
I could have something I I
I could have a book that people might be really
interested in and
and drawn to um
certainly when when I started this process
the conversation around this stuff was very different
than than it is now
the conversation has gotten louder and louder
and louder over the course of those 5
6 years
but
I felt even back then
like there would be a hunger for something like this
yeah I think you're 100% right
and I think you I think you've proven um
your point there I
one of the things that really struck me in
in hearing
um you talk about this
is that there is this conception that men
are not willing to talk about their feelings
and you started this endeavor with just
totally rejecting that
and when I heard you talking about that it
it occurred to me I really I
I realized yeah
the deal isn't that men
don't want to open up and talk about that stuff they're
and and
nor is it the case
that they're not capable of talking about it
it's that they do not have safe spaces
in which it's possible to talk about it
without being judged
without having maybe serious social repercussions
or that sort of thing what do you think about yeah
give me a response to that
yeah um
you know I
I do think I think that the real key is
you a couple things
we um
need to feel like the
the other person is genuinely curious um
need to feel like the other person really wants to know
um and
and so that often means
we need to be asked things pretty directly
I mean we
we need to be given like
kind of a permission structure for
for opening up because we are
we do kind of inherit these messages um
that that's showing um
any any kind of vulnerability or openness is
is showing weakness um
and and
you know to
to be honest with you we
our culture
often associates any sense of weakness with femininity
and our culture as men we
we are
we learn these really lessons that kind of harm us all
that that teach us to kind of
reject femininity from the time we're very
very young
you know but I
I think that we need to to really be invited in to
to to these kind of conversations and
and be given
given that kind of direct permission to open up
but then also I do think we need a sense that and
and this is what I could offer to these guys um
like you said that there's a fear of being judged um
and and what I could offer to
to these guys who I write about in this book is like
I'm I really wanna know
I'm gonna ask you these very direct questions
I wanna know the answers
and they would show me a little bit
and I don't judge them
then they show me a little bit more
and I don't judge them
and then they show me a lot more and um
and I I do think that there is often this fear that
if anyone really sees me uh
they will think less of me
if anyone really sees me that they
they will judge me if it is another
another man they might
you know find me to be weak or lacking in some way um
if it is if it is a woman they
there might be parts of my experience
that they can't fully relate to
or understand that they find to be um
you know either weak or lacking similarly or
or just bad um
you know like that
like some some part of me is
is is not good um and
and I I think that's a fear that
that we all have none of us want to be seen by
especially by people that we care about um
as any of those things
and so we need to be able to feel like um
you know the person just really
really wants to know and
and is going to take what we say
and kind of
integrate it into the way that they view us that
that is already kind of
wanting the best for us and caring for us and
not
kind of change the way they view us in a way that is um
you know that feels harmful and hurtful yeah
you you
you begin the story of of Jordan
with this detailed
breakdown of this obsession that he has
while they're
while he's driving across the country with his wife
of the temperature of the car
as they're driving through Yellow Joseph
and so they're driving across country
so that he can go to law school and
and he's sitting there obsessing over
the fact that the temperature of his car is
like 30 degrees
higher than it has been for the rest of the drive
and he's worried that the car's gonna break down
and then oh my gosh
we don't have enough money to afford a new engine
if that happens
and what do I do when I can't let her drive
because if she drives
then she's gonna notice this stuff
and then she's gonna realize
that I'm not suited to be a protector or a provider and
and all of this stuff
and I think that that that experience meanwhile
his wife is enjoying um
you know the sights and
and wanting to stop at every single possible thing
this is the first time they're gonna
it's the only time
maybe they're gonna drive all the way across country
and she's really enjoying the trip
but he can't be present
because he doesn't feel like he's
a successful protector or provider
and that little story that vignette
which is the the
how we get introduced to Jordan
really resonated with me and I mean
this is my experience in life too
and I think it will resonate
I think it resonates with most men as well
and I think that that really illustrates what
what I think that you're trying to say about
the central theme of the book that
that there's this gap between
this ideal we hold in our heads about what
what true masculinity is whatever
what
whatever we've absorbed from the culture about that and
and and then there's a gap between what I am
and that gap can be
can really grow into something unhealthy
if we're not honest about it
and if we're not willing to let people inspect it
or we're not able to let people see it in a safe way
it can really grow into something unhealthy and
and that's kind of the nature of a lot what
what what I've been calling a masculinity crisis
but I think that's I
I think you're getting to really the root of it there
yeah so
you know that
that opening um
with uh Joseph
um it's Joseph
I'm so sorry yes
no no
no quite alright
quite alright um
but I'm so glad you brought it up cause um
you know that that's
that's a scene that I actually haven't really
had the chance to talk much about yet
um and uh
and it's a
scene that it's one of my favorite scenes in the book
um and like you said
he's should be having the time of his life
he and his wife are on this incredible
cross country road trip they're
they're driving through Yellowstone
they're seeing just
all the amazing beauty that this country has to offer
his wife is having a wonderful time
she's looking out the window
she's she's like
telling him to look at all the beautiful
things that they're seeing
she's um
you know excited to see all the animals
they're gonna see at Yellowstone National Park
and he is spiraling inside
because there's just a light
rattle in the engine of his car
and um
as you know I think
a lot of people have had experiences similar to this
where like
you know there's something going on with your car
or maybe it's some like sound in your house that
you know like it's not supposed to sound like that
and you quickly go to
what is the worst case scenario here
and so he goes from you know
the engine's running a little hot
there's a little bit of a rattle um
to this sense of like
we're going to be stranded and alone
and what's underneath all of this is um
she cannot know what is happening because if she knows
then she will know the truth
and the truth is I am insufficient
I cannot keep her safe she needs someone who can
keep her safe
and I am not the man who is up to that job
and so that fear I think
is something that
so many of us experience at some point in time
um the
this fear that if we are really seen
if we are really understood
then people will know the truth
and the truth is that we are deficient in some way
and so he's he's going through that all the while
um you know
again she's having an amazing time he
and
he is missing out on having an amazing time with her
because he is so fixated on his
like image of his own you know
uh this evidence of his own kind of inadequacy
and um
and then yeah like
like you said to
to the point of kind of this
you know the
the the book does not try to convince you of many ideas
it does not try to kind of um
hit you over the head with kind of a
a grand argument about kind of
the state of masculinity in this country
I'm much more interested in just like
really intimately telling these four stories
and letting the reader come away with
whatever it is that they come away with
but the one kind of
idea that does really link these four
and that I do think we all experience is
is the sense of from the time we are so young
we are inheriting an idea of what
it means to be a man and what kind of
an ideal version of a man is supposed to look like
and at some point along the way
we inevitably fail to live up to that
um you can be the five year old on the playground
who's getting picked on and who immediately knows
I'm not like the other boys
um and
and it has that lesson ingrained in you for
for such a long young age
or you can be someone who typifies every single ideal
who um
you know is the star athlete who is rich
who is successful who um is
is attractive who
who has everything
but inevitably at some point in your life
your circumstances are going to shift
in a way where you are no longer
kind of living up to that
or
you just realize that you've been chasing the standard
and the standard only gets higher and higher
and higher the higher you go
and you can never quite reach it
and so ultimately I think
what kind of defines our relationship to masculinity
is how we kind of navigate that failure
I I think that there's a lot of messaging right now
that tells young men um
just if you just work harder
if you just keep pressing forward
if you just work on your body
if you just work on your career
if you just work on your charisma
then you will bridge that gap
and your deficiencies will
will be gone and you know
I I think working on yourself in those ways is
is wonderful you know
I I try to do that all the time but I
I do think that seeing that as kind of a path to
you know it's a path to like
trying to bridge something that cannot
really ever be bridged
because that standard is always gonna be out of reach
like anorexia exactly yes
100% I haven't heard that comparison but um
that makes so much sense and
and the
both kind of
the ideas that fuel anorexia
and the ideals that fuel
a lot of what we're talking about um
are just so prevalent online and and
and so easy for young people to access
and it can really distort
kind of your sense of yourself um
basically with with this book
what I wanted to do was
kind of explore the ways that these guys
who are who are so different from one another
um try to navigate that because I
I think it is something that we will all
at one point or another have to
have to navigate ourselves all
most of us have
at some point already had to navigate it ourselves even
even if we haven't really been conscious of it
it's just been something that we're
something that we're inevitably doing
you know you
you have a young son yourself
who was born while you were doing this um
how has this experience shaped
how you think about him
and his relationship to masculinity
has it changed the way you think about this stuff
or enhanced it in any way
yeah you know um
so he's almost 3 years old um
and so it's he's still
he's still so young um
and he's still in the very early stages of kind of
learning some of these some of these lessons
learning some of the ways in which he will experience
certain pressures um
as he as he grows older
I will say that you know
when he was born and again
he was born I was about halfway through this book um
we did not know um
the sex until until the moment he was born and um
you know the moment that the
the doctor said uh
like he's here
I think the doctor's first words were
he's so long uh
cause he was very tall um
and uh
but hearing that word he um
I you know
felt this incredible like excitement
pride but also a sense of weight
like an immediate sense of weight um
a weight that I can't really fully even like
wrap my mind around or
or put much in the way of words to just yet
but like
the sense of a particular kind of responsibility that
that I would have um
and maybe I would it would have felt the exact same if
if if he um
you know if she had said she's so long um at
at that moment but um
but I I did kind of feel that and
and you know
along the way it
it has been um
you know I
I think what what I found myself thinking is like
I cannot fully
shield him from
all of these pressures that we are talking about
like the these
these pressures are going to be a part of his life
um what I can do is make
do everything I can to make kind of
our relationship and
and our home a place where he feels safe to be
whoever he is um
and where he feels kind of invited into um
kind of the fullest version of himself
um but uh
you know he will inevitably be shaped by
by all of these kind of
cultural expectations that we have
he will inevitably be shaped in some ways by like
the subconscious ways
in which I've been impacted by all of this
you know I'm
I'm my own person who has tried to kind of
navigate that gap that that we are talking about and
and you know
as much as I try to do it in the healthiest way I can
I know sometimes it's not always healthy and um
you know the
the ways in which I wrestle with my own kind of
insecurities my
my own kind of um
you know failures um
will will inevitably impact him in some way or another
um and so
uh yeah
all of that to say like
these ideas are just kind of
swimming in my mind all the time
um and the only thing I know to do at this point
and again like parenting a
a two and a/2 year old is
is very very different I
I know from parenting a
a 7 year old or a 10 year old or a 15 year old um
but at this point it's just been about like
wanting to make sure that he feels like
he can be fully himself um
with with
with me and with us in in
in our home
yeah for me I
I had that I had a similar experience to you now
we did know the sex of our boy before he came out
and our girl too but it
that that weight that you're talking about
is totally different and it's not
it's different it's not like
it's there for the boy and not for the girl
it is different and for the girl it's
it's it's more about keeping her safe and and and
and those sorts of things for the boy
for me it was this experience that
and actually I mean I
I was able to form it a little bit better
once he got older but it's that
masculinity is so much different now
than it was when I was young
my paradigm my operating system
so to speak is not gonna work for him
and it's my job to make sure that he has the skills
and capabilities to make his way in the world
and be an excellent man and
if even if that's what I am
what got me to where I am
isn't gonna get him where he needs to be
and I need to be more intentional about it
I need to figure it out
and I don't know the answer right now
and the culture isn't gonna help me all
all it it used to be the case that
that we had rights of passage and we had institutions
we would be going to church and
you know that would help in some way
it would also hurt in a lot of ways and
and that means there's a there's an opportunity there
and there's a problem there
the problem is that that those things are gone
the opportunity is we get to remake them
in the form that we want them to be
and that's great
but it means you have to do it
or else you're just getting nothing and
and that was
that is how I vocalized the weight that you described
that I felt when my son was born
that's what I felt and I
I wasn't able to put words to it for years
and years and years
but that's how I put words to it now
yeah that
that's such a great um yeah
I I
I I really appreciate you
you sharing all of that cause like I
I think that um
like you said I
I think you know what
one of the things that comes up a lot in
in this book is how men respond to certain structures
how we respond to like
clear sets of expectations and
and being invited into something that um
you know where
where there's kind of a clear purpose and we
we understand what it is
we understand why we're doing it and um
you know
what you mentioned about kind of rites of passage or
like structures that kind of give uh
you know serve as like
kind of entry points into
into a next phase of life that
that serve as like kind of um
helping you make that transition in
in adolescence from being someone who
who is um
you've seen largely as a boy into
to being someone who who is
who's growing into a man um I
I think that like uh you're
you're right
that our culture is kind of lacking a lot of those
um I
I'm not entirely sure how to
how to kind of reconstitute some
some of them but I
I do think that they I do think that they matter
cause I I think especially that phase of life
I mean um
at adolescence I I try to
you know I think it can be hard
sometimes for grown men
to remember what it is like to be a teenage boy
um and I
I have hard
a hard time kind of remembering what it was like
um and I
I found myself thinking um
trying to really sink back into
into that experience and
and I think like you know
when I was a teenager um
you know I'm
I'm very I'm really tall
I'm I'm 6 5 um
so I'm me too like always OK OK
yeah so like
it's a particular kind of experience when you're
when you are in a body like that
that's kind of looming over everyone else
and I was clumsy as a result yeah
having grown so fast and yeah
yeah my
my boy experiences the same thing
and it's and it's difficult because
and you're gonna experience the same thing
they always think he's older than he is
and so they expect him to act differently
they're like
why is your 9 year old acting like a 6 year old
yeah
6:06 yeah
it's yeah my
my son physically he's so much like me um
he's very very tall uh
but just kind of clumsy like
you know it took him like
I think
babies are supposed to start rolling over when they're
like three months
he was he was like nine months before he rolled over uh
like he never crawled
there's so much body to learn to maneuver like
like you know
it's like driving a semi truck versus a Miata exactly
exactly um
but you know
back back to kind of the
the point of like in adolescence
like what what I remember is like
you are growing into a feeling of like you
you all of a sudden there's like
there's just a power there is a
a power that comes with being in uh
a male body particularly a certain kind of male body
what one that's kind of larger than other people yeah
there's just an intrinsic power that comes with that
and like you are growing into that power very
very quickly when you are uh 13
14 15
16 17 years old
um and it can feel intoxicating
um it can feel really
really thrilling um
to all of a sudden
be bigger than most of the people who are around you
and and everything that kind of comes with that
the expectations that come with that
um but it can also feel terrifying
like terrifying um
you know and I remember like being around
you know just around a lot of I
I knew a lot of boys who did bad stuff
who inflicted real harm on
on other people um
and sometimes they were boys who I was really close to
and who um
you know I
I saw a lot of like goodness and in a lot of other ways
but like um
there's something about that that
that I think really kind of uh
you there
there's just so much swimming in my head
at that period of time where like
you're seeing the destructive
power that kind of um
you know that the people who
who have bodies like yours can
can uh
can have you're
and you're also kind of
intoxicated by the ways in which you suddenly have
like access to so much that um
that
that you didn't have access to when you were younger
and so I I do think that like
whatever we can do to find ways to help teenage boys to
kind of uh
navigate that that time of life
like
understand all that they're going to be going through
I mean there
you know that parallels to um
adolescent girls that there's obviously
like a very clear right of passage that
that happens for them that
that's kind of a distinction between kind of
a girlhood yeah
it's a physical thing yeah yes
yes and I
I I spoke
when working on this book I
I talked to a a woman journalist friend who um
you know talked about that specifically and was like I
I I feel like um
you know girls still kind of like just
that
there's just this physical change of having a period
that is um
uh
gives them kind of a a passageway into
into womanhood that's that boys are
are kind of lacking um
and so I but I
I think that that stuff is important
finding ways to kind of help boys to um
navigate a time in your life that can feel so chaotic
um and
and where you can feel so unmoored I
it's helpful I don't know what the answer is
but I I
I love that
it's something that you're thinking a lot about
I'll tell you something that helps and
and one of the things that
that I've noticed about my boy's experience is
I can watch him go through things
and that will uncover memories for me that I didn't
wouldn't have been able to produce
if I hadn't been prompted by seeing him
struggle with the same stuff
and when I see that I
I remember back when I struggled with the same stuff
and how I thought about it
and how I wished I thought about it
and all of that stuff and so
all of that's to say
that this is one of the reasons that
male role models are so important
in the in
in the life of young boys and
and especially adolescent boys
because that is such a difficult
unbelievably hard time of life it
it is it's
for all the reasons that you talked about
and he really needs someone there
who's been through that maybe
or even more than other people
and who can you know
say yeah
this is normal and it's okay
and just as just as a a
a girl having her first period
needs a woman to help her learn how to deal with that
just in a physical way I don't think anybody
like I I
don't think anybody
would expect a father to come and do that or
or or think that a father could do that adequately
and yet we don't really necessarily culturally put the
put that on us
on men to make sure that they're there for the
for the boys in the same in the same way and
but it really does help like
you kind of get access to hidden knowledge
or experiences that you don't remember
you had um
as your boy experiences those things
you kind of get to experience them through him
yeah trip yeah
I I think
you know to your point there
there's just something I mean
being able to empathize with another person is just
enormously helpful I mean
like having someone who can see and understand
your experience is enormously helpful
and it is just a fact that uh
certain experiences are are kind of uh
unique to your sex or your gender and
and certain experiences like
when you can have some guidance
from someone who knows what that is like
um there's going to be something about that
that that is enormously helpful to you
um and uh
you know that
that's not to say that um
men can't find ways to be
to be there for um
you know their daughters who
who are going through kind of
physical and other changes that um
that those men haven't experienced or
or that women can't do the same with
with their sons or uh
you know other
other children in in their lives um
but it it is just simply like there
there will be things that uh
you know I
I know that I experience things that like
I wanted to talk to my dad about because I
I knew that like
he was much more likely to have understood
that experience than
than my mom and and and
and I I think that
you know it
the onus has to be on
on us as fathers to make sure that we are there in
in that way
to make sure that we are looking for those moments
where there are
those points of connection
where we have been through that thing that's uh
you know that
that a a
a boy is going through and
and we can kind of
you know find ways to
to really uh
signal that we're we're
we're there and able to talk about it and understand
yeah yeah
what did you learn in in this
in the experience of writing this book
what did you learn about the role
of these men's own parents
in crafting who they became
it like
in making their struggles harder or easier
or successes greater or lesser
or how did how did their parents impact that yeah
um you know
their fathers are are so different from one another um
you know one Joseph
who we talked about earlier um
the the one who's having the bit
of a breakdown on the beautiful cross country road trip
his father is um
really abusive to Joseph's mother
um never
never abusive to Joseph himself
but he grows up in a home where he watches
he watches violence unfolding often and um
you know it
it fills him with a you know
pretty significant kind of loathing for
for his father over time and he
yeah um he
he learns a lot really
he he's a bit adrift at times
because he does not have a real
strong model for who he wants to be himself
um he
and he's kind of seeking that in
in other men in his life as he's in
in early adulthood because um
his father failed his mother in such
such critical ways um
you know another one
um Gideon
who is kind of a a uh
typifies every masculine ideal
like the baseball star West Point graduate tall
smart handsome everything
he um
has a loving relationship to his father
but also had the sense that he was like
kind of like a trophy in his family
that he was
because he was so good at all of these things
because he was so gifted um
he kind of internalized that
like this is how I have worth in the world is by being
excelling at all of these things
um and I think he still
to this day
would say that his parents loved him tremendously
and were great in many ways but um
it was hard for him to kind of trust
kind of his intrinsic I guess worth um
and in part for kind of
the ways that he was kind of reinforced as a kid um
you know another Ryan is
is someone who is
his father is kind of your stereotypical like tough
like fighter like someone who's
he'd been a boxer um
and Ryan gets picked on as a kid and his dad is um
you immediately tries to teach him how to fight
um and I
that scene is incredible and I remember I like
I'm reading this scene and thinking
that's exactly what I would do
hmm if as the dad
if I was that dad I would do that exact same alright
you know that
you know we're not
we're not gonna let that happen again
and then seeing that experience through Ryan's eyes
such a beautiful it's
it's it's really
really a great story well
thank you but what
what's so fascinating about it is like in the moment
so Ryan doesn't want that
Ryan wants his dad to comfort him to
to hold him to care for him
but then what happens is Ryan continues getting bullied
he he doesn't really ever learn to fight back
until he is in college and we meet him as a young man
and on the night when he snaps
and he beats somebody up and he finds oh
I actually really like doing this
and he likes it in a way that is not really
purely out of self defense
he likes it in a way that's uh
you know quite destructive
um but he uh
later like in
in early adulthood
like kind of is like bragging to his dad that his dad
who had kind of put these boxing gloves on
on his fist when he was a little boy
and tried to teach him how to fight and uh
he's trying to brag to his dad like hey
like I you know
I've been getting into some fights lately
like you should see what I'm doing to these guys
and his dad
who is now encountering his son as a grown man is like
what are you doing why are you so stupid
why would you be getting into these fights
and Ryan it like
does not compute in Ryan's brain
because all he remembers is being this little boy
who his dad was uh
was trying to um
to teach how to fight and so um
you know I think it's just a case where like
what one thing about fatherhood is that like
every father brings to the table their own stuff off
their own insecurities their own um
kind of uh
feelings that they're kind of projecting onto their kid
and I don't know exactly what was going through
through Ryan's father's mind at that moment
when he's trying to teach him how to fight
but like it was a moment where he felt like
I need to teach my boy how to fight back
and then later when
learning that his boy has grown into a man
who does fight back uh
he he goes to a place that a lot of parents go
which is like you shouldn't be hitting people
that's bad yeah
and what a mix and I
I thought another little aspect of that story that
I mean it's just this tiny little vignette and
and yet it it was so um
uh it
it it's really
it was really impactful to me
which is you kind of get into the
the mind of the father for a moment
where the father is kind of teaching the son to fight
not so that not just so that he'll be protected yeah
but also because the father feels a little bit of shame
that his son got beat up
yeah at least that's how Ryan kind of took it yeah
at least that's how he felt about it
Ryan doesn't know but that's yeah
yeah um
and I I do
I think that that's like
it's such a natural impulse um
for any parent to internalize like uh
any any struggle that your kid might have
is somehow a reflection on you in
in a negative way and like
the things that we value and the things that feel like
embarrassing to us are often
gonna be different from the things that our kids
value and that feel embarrassing to them um
and so we uh
yeah can have so much of our own identity um
wrapped up in uh
and and
and and those sorts of things and
you know again
the the flip side of that is
is Gideon the
the kind of star athlete whose parents are uh
just so over the moon thrilled with him all the time
because of the fact that he is uh
he's accomplishing so much
while at the same time he's not necessarily uh
learning what he needs to learn to be kind of a fully
um you know
a a man who can have like a full robust
fulfilling kind of life
because he's kind of chasing that
that sense of accomplishment all the time
yeah and the outward trappings of being so successful
are they they sort of belay the internal experience
and so you know
he doesn't
he doesn't necessarily feel that he's that successful
right and
and he doesn't exactly and so but
but everybody treats him like he is and so he's like
and and that
that can really make it hard to
address
that gap that we talked about in the very beginning
right you know
he's got he's got this internal experience of not being
but everybody thinks you're this thing over here
and I feel like this thing over here
and I feel like I like that
everybody thinks that I'm like this and
and if I tell people that no
this is really my experience
then this is a bubble that's gonna pop
and I can't let that happen
because this is my identity I
and what I mean
being able to read about that in such an honest way
and it's you know
these men that agreed to do this thing
are really courageous and
you know and in some cases
like you're even using their real names
uh huh
um not in all of them
and you know you
you've
and but I don't know man
I mean
I really admire them yeah
uh yeah
I I I
I really really do too
um you know I
I I just can't say enough about um
their willingness to to be open
um about their willingness to kind of reveal uh
some pretty difficult uh
pieces of themselves some the
uh so many of these stories that that
that are in this book are not flattering to them um
you know that they're uh
they're full they're nuanced
they're complex um
but often they they don't look great but
but they're
they're these real kind of raw and authentic
um you know
peaks into into their experience
and you know Gideon
um in particular
since we were talking about him
like he and his name has been changed but um
he just let me I mean
he let it's so rare that we get a peek into what
the kind of insecurities that are roiling
beneath the person
who seems like he has everything going for him
um and like he
I mean it even like this the
his chapter part of the book
kind of opens with him
feeling insecure about the size of his penis right
I mean like he
and that was a conversation
we had that conversation
about four years in to this five year process
um he'd made an offhand comment about it once years ago
and I
we were like on a walk near his home and I just said
can we talk about the
can we talk about how you feel about your penis
and he was like yep
let's go what do you wanna know
and and so we did um
but you know the
the other other guys as well like um
it's just really
really astonishing how much they kind of let me
let me into their lives and you
some of them Ryan
um who we'd spent some time talking about
the one who whose father tried to teach him to fight
and who later starts fighting when he's older
um
he did use his real name uh
and he has been like this is my story
um I don't know how everyone's gonna feel about it
but uh
this is who I am and my hope is that sharing it might
have a positive impact on someone
and I I wanna kind of stand behind the fact that um
that this is me um
and so uh
yeah I
I I
I just can't say enough about how open and honest and
and vulnerable each of these guys are willing to be
yeah and
I mean his case is
that's really courageous his story in particular is
he's tough yeah
he does some rough stuff and
and you know
the fact that he's willing to do it
attach his own name to that I
I don't I don't know if
I don't think I'd do it I
I don't know we're
and we're all the richer for it and um
you know but
I mean even just sharing the story under pseudonym is
is really brave absolutely
and absolutely yeah
I mean we're
we're really fortunate yeah
we're really fortunate they decided to let you do it
and we're really fortunate you decided to do it too
well thank you one
one last thing about that that
that I'll share is um
you know one of the men
um
one thing I did was
I let them all see their stories in advance
um I
I just felt like
I wanted to write it with so much intimacy
that I felt like I couldn't publish it without them
like being able to sit with it and
and kind of give me a sense of like
whether I'd kind of captured it or not
um and the first time I did it
what I did is I read it out loud to each of
them I I went in person
I can't imagine what this session was like
it was I can't imagine I mean that takes balls
it takes balls to do that
to decide to do it and to listen to it on all sides
that is
there's some masculinity happening in that room
right there it was it was intense
but you know one of them
there was one scene that's particularly rough
and he was like
the first time I read it out loud to him
he was like I don't know if I can do this
uh like this is after we'd spent years doing work
doing all these interviews
all spending all this time together
me following him through so much of his life
and he just had this visceral reaction to it
he's like
it's all true like everything you just read happened
but like something about it was just really tough
and you know
then he came back to me a couple weeks later
we didn't talk for a couple weeks and he said like
I'm good
like don't change a thing like I'm I'm totally fine
and this was one of the men who is a parent
and what he said was
the thought of my child reading this
when they are 15 years old
and knowing that this is me uh
feels absolutely terrifying like terrifying um
but the thought of my child reading this
when they are forty and I am an old
man and they have now gone through a lot of stuff
in their own lives and they have this like
window into who their father was and is
and all of the things that shaped me um
that actually feels really nice like to
to be to be known by by them in that way and uh
and so he didn't ask me to change a thing and um yeah
I I feel you know just can
cannot say enough about like the
the level of vulnerability and
and courage that each of these guys had in in sharing
sharing this way
we should all have a journalist follow us around
for five years hahaha
I do kind of believe that our story like hahaha
so that our
our sons can read it when when we're eighty
maybe AI I I do think we might be better off where
you know there there's just something powerful
everyone's story is fascinating
like everyone's story if you dig deep enough
like there there's some interesting stuff there
and uh I
I think that it's a really powerful thing
to have your story told and
and to be able to like
more fully understand the stories of
of people you you know and love
I think that's absolutely true
I always love to end these conversations with the
more or less the same question of everybody
and that is if there's one principle
that every parent listening might live by to
to guide them as they raise excellent men
what what principle do you
would you come up with yeah um
I I don't know if this counts as a principle or not
but
the two things that I try to hold on to all the time
are just empathy and curiosity
um just trying to as much and again
it's tough with a two and a half year old to like fully
like empathize with what's going on in
in his little brain um
but uh
trying to you know
I can at times
it can be easy to get pulled into power struggles
and like yeah
uh like I
we're gonna do this
and we're gonna do this because I said so and um
and while you want you know
those firm boundaries
you want those clear like sets of expectations
um I
I I think that also
like allowing yourself to try to understand
as best as you can like to
to the best of like
the limits of your own empathy or curiosity
what's going on and
and that that is making this
making your kid you know
pitch the fit that they're pitching or
or do whatever it is that they're doing um
and if you can just like
just even the attempt to understand
even the attempt to um
try to enter into their experience ever
ever so briefly I think can
can allow you to um
you know engage with them in a way that is
a little bit more uh
just kind of open to um
to kind of the the full reality of of
of their experience and and the fact that
like they are a full complex human being just as we are
um even though they're
they're still in formation
even though so much of
kind of the way their brains work is uh not
not ideal um
like that they are having full
rich experiences
just as we are at every moment of every day
and trying to kind of uh
understand those experiences
the best you can in the moment I
I think serves you well I love that principle
I think it's great um
it definitely qualifies and I think I
I mean it really is uh
your the the
the book also reminds us that
one of the most important gifts
that we can give our boys
is that gift of being seen
and of being known
right and that they always have this place
they always have this place
no matter what they always have this place
it is a safe place to come and
you know show yourself with all your faults
and if you do nothing else as a parent of
of a boy that's what you wanna be doing absolutely
absolutely and
you know you don't have to wait for crises to
to start those conversations right
you you start
it's not even I mean it's
it's about how you even react when they
you know throw a fit like yeah
you can throw a fit if you want
like I get it
it's fine yeah
please don't hit people please don't call me that
you know let's
let's set some boundaries to this
but you know
man sure
you gotta if it's a part of learning how to deal with
strong emotions that's great right absolutely
absolutely um yeah I
I I totally agree with all of that yeah
well Jordan
thank you so much for joining us today
uh it
it has been an absolute privilege to
to talk to you and and thank you for uh
for the book as well thank you so much Sean
I I uh yeah really
really love this conversation and uh
so admire and appreciate the work that you're doing
and I was was grateful to have the chance to talk
thanks a ton
if you found today's deep dive into American men
helpful please pick up a copy of Jordan's book
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the reviews really help other people find the show
my name is Sean Dawson and thank you for joining us
and remember you are a great parent
raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez
this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino