I’m 37. My father died when I was 23.
For those 23 years, I learnt nothing from him about networking, having social graces or etiquette, figuring out my passions/interests, career/job advice, how to cope with life, how to approach a girl, how to drive… Basically any life skill that would help me mature faster or become a more productive, confident, well-adjusted adult. The only vaguely useful thing he said to me was, “Never offer anyone a drink with your left hand.”
He was an absentee parent who spent most of his time gambling and drinking. When he was home, he abused everyone. He was quite violent.
Seeing how other guys in school and at work seemed so confident and self-assured and having so many contacts, it dawned on me that I knew nothing about what being a proper adult male meant.
This sounds strange, but I only learnt more about being a man when I got married and became a public school teacher for 7 years (where I had to pretend to be a functioning, morally upstanding adult role model for teens).
But still, I feel like I lack the really foundational life skill stuff.. the kind that’s second nature and you don’t even have to think about it because you’re using/practising it all the time.
Where do I even begin?
13 comments
Its not one thing, its a million small optimizations. Its more about making the effort to always be growing and improving, than getting the secret recipe to any pursuit
I’m sorry to hear your dad was absentee. Maybe he had some trauma in his past or maybe he was just a guy that was afraid to show affection.
Here’s the thing about Dads… we’re all just doing the best we can. We’re all just going through the day trying to get stuff handled. There is no handbook.
Mine was always there for me and if you’d like, I’ll pass along a few things he passed along to me. He’s in his mid 80s now and I won’t have him around much longer I’m afraid, so if you’ll indulge me… In no particular order.
Start ALL the bolts before tightenimg anything down. And related…righty tighty/lefty loosey.
Handshakes are: eye contact, a smile and two pumps long.
Always be nice to little kids. If they show you something, act like it’s the coolest thing you’ve seen all day.
Half of being smart is knowing what your dumb at. Know when to call a pro.
Always do your best, regardless of what you’re doing. If you try your best and something doesn’t work out, at least you can say you did everything you could. If it crashes and burns and you didn’t try your best, it will eat you up.
Do not attempt any repairs while the auto parts or hardware stores are closed. (Obviously depends on what you’re working on.)
Treat everyone with respect. Everyone, regardless of whether they are picking up trash or a doctor are doing a job. All of them are necessary and while some seem more prestigious than others, we need people doing those jobs.
Those are the main ones. Maybe some other redditors will chime in with pearls of wisdome from their dads.
Hope this helps, OP.
Live your life. Respect others, love your wife and kids, help others if you can, try to be the best you can be always, and never take any crap from anyone. Just look at it like this. You are number 1. Your wife is number 2. Everyone else takes a third.
There is already tons of great advice in here. My Dad died when I was pretty young but I definitely picked up bits and pieces of his positive traits despite numerous negative traits. Everyone is different and there is no perfect answer but I’ve found philosophy to really help me. I lean heavily on stoicism and would recommend the Daily Stoic Podcast and Book. Doesn’t mean you need to take all of it as the truth for you but I’ve found it helps me keep emotional immaturity in check. It’s definitely not about hiding your emotions, I look at it more as acknowledging and recognizing them. No matter what you do, the fact you know to ask the question you did is a great sign.
Look up George Washington’s rule of life he had to memorize @ 14 … Jesuit stuff.
This President of this country still has something to teach you. Learn
First, I’m so sorry that you had such problems with your father. I too had similar issues: violence, emotionally inaccessible, lack of attention.
Second, my concept of being a man is taking care of your family. That goes well beyond just keeping a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs and food in their stomachs. That means being their for them. Kids need attention most, but so do wives, both physical, emotional, intellectual and social.
If you are there for them, they will be there for you.
Third, become comfortable with who you are. You are You. It doesn’t pay to compare yourself with others in the big picture.
Fourth. Remind you’re loved ones every day that you love them. Hug them, kiss them, tell them. They should never have to struggle with the question, “Did/Does he love me?”
“Be a man” is very vague. Have a penis?
Being a good father, a good spouse, a good coworker is something more coherent and will vary greatly.
There is no blueprint. We are all in trial and error mode. Few of us are great at it, most of us are just chugging along. Breaking, fixing, breaking, fixing.
**Some general advice for any human in any part of the world**
Be kind, helpful, caring and curious.
War is never the answer. Don’t attack. Defend yourself, but don’t retaliate. Don’t poison your mind. Waging battles every day with anonymous accounts on the internet does not make you a great person. It makes you a little bit worse every time you do it.
Keep your stuff in order, your workbench clean. Life gets so much better.
Don’t be afraid to take things apart, break them, and put it back together again. It’s the only way to truly understand.
Try to learn from you mistakes without taking it personally. You did a mistake. You learned. Your being is not faulty. You are not unfixable.
It’s hard, damn near impossible to be better than than the water you swim in. Don’t swim upstream in vain. Find positive currents and float.
You mind is always playing tricks on you. Unless something is on fire, things are always 80% less bad than your brain imagine them to be. But your instinct is right some times. Be careful around groups of young men. They are statistically the most dangerous thing in our world.
Do not carry the burden of a perceived failure alone. Tell someone. Otherwise the shame will be toxic and non productive.
Keep in mind that that when people are doing something new/difficult we tend to give up when we have six times more effort to put in.
Discipline is automation. By putting things in automatic habit, there’s no room for insecurity/hesitation/fear, all there is is action.
Just start, you will figure out there rest. Don’t hesitate. Just start.
The ‘Manhood’ books by Steve Biddulph are highly regarded. I think they are framed in a Western (Australian) context. EDIT – He’s British not Australian
This is going to sound kind of horrible. We all are faking it.
I mean that from the stand point that to become that man you want to be you have to make some hard decisions on who the man you want to be and then start acting that way.
When you start it is something you are faking as it is a choice to act a way that does not match your likely instincts/impulses. Over time, you do become your actions and it is something you are no longer faking along the way. But it takes time and consistency.
You are a man, don’t you see? A child would never ask that question, only assume. The only way to become a real man is by living your life. Men figure out how to do everything on their own. There is nobody there to walk us through life. You found a wife, a good job, and you are living, breathing, and have a roof over you.
A man is nothing and everything. He is a man because he created himself. He strives through life to achieve goals. He copes how he can, he looks to others if he really needs a friend. Being a man is in
all of us. There is no way to teach how to be a man.
Be you, create you, love you. Achieve the man in you
You are overthinking it. The advice, such as it was, from your dad was stupid. You are also over-critical of yourself, you **were/are a functioning morally upstanding adult role model for teens.**
You are married and you have a job molding young minds, maybe give yourself a break for a minute. Your dad was a jackass, if you just did the opposite of everything he did you would be better off than most of us. You are 37, not 17, in as much as you have needed to ‘prove’ your manliness, you already have. That bit of maturity that some of us get to and far too many do not is the maturity to know that these silly constructs like ‘manliness’ are self defeating. Look, you have had a bunch of success in your life and you are still looking for ways to pick yourself down! Why bother? Everyone else will do a good job of that for you. One of the precious few things I have learned about being a man is that true masculinity is not worrying about what ‘being a man’ means.
So you have confidence issues, maybe…you are far from alone in that. That is true of both sexes, if it bothers you seek professional help. Or, do what people have done since the dawn of man, set yourself against an odyssey. Do you think we do things like (in my case) ironman triathlons because they are fun? Hell no, we do them because it is a long-ish term goal that we can conceivably achieve through grit and hard work where there are no shortcuts. Putting yourself through that has a confidence building component. That is why people hike the PCT, backpack across Asia, whatever.
>This sounds strange, but I only learnt more about being a man when I got married and became a public school teacher for 7 years
That’s pretty manly.
That’s more manly then a lot of guys out there right now. Are you asking how you be more confident? It’s nothing to do with not having a father after the age of 23 (sorry for your lost). A lot of my friends, never had dad’s in their lives, but yet they are the most confident people I know.
It’s all about practice, go out to public places and make friends. As I got older, it’s a lot harder to keep in contact with people, especially if they are taking care of their own families or events in their lives. So make the effort to make and keep friends.
You getting a career job and marrying a woman that you’re courting is pretty baller, congratulations man
We all learn from one another what to do as well as what not to do. You are already “way up there”. Thank God you have a great wife who supports you. So many do not. My Dad was a Minister who had grown up by himself when his Dad died at age 38 and he was 15. He was on his own from then on and he had to learn everything by himself without parents. His Mother had passed away before him. He was a loving man to all of his six children. We didn’t have much money and that bothered me. I have worked hard all my life (still working) so that I will have good resources to leave my children when I’m gone. I have saved money and made wise investments as well as trying to make good decisions. Like my Dad, I love, hug, kiss my kids, grandchildren and great grandchildren. That’s how I want to be remembered. I have helped them all financially from time to time but not made them dependent on me. You will be a loving teacher, husband and Father. Hang in there and trust God for the future. From an old guy.