a reflection for the international day of the boy child

A lot of the conversations we keep having about men are really conversations we should have had much earlier, with boys.

Dearest Gentle Reader,

I’ve been sitting with a thought all morning.

We spend a lot of time; and rightly so; examining the failures of men. We talk about the absence. We form polar opinions about the harm men cause in society. The patterns that repeat themselves across generations like a stubborn inheritance is a constant topic of debate and internet squabbles. These conversations are necessary, really. I’m not here to shut them down.

But I keep coming back to a question nobody seems to be asking loudly enough: where were we when these men were still boys?

Scripture has always understood what we are only beginning to rediscover— that formation is everything. Train up a child in the way he should go. It didn’t say “correct him once he’s gone the wrong way.” We are not to manage him after the damage is done. We are instructed to train before the boy becomes a man.

There is a version of that proverb we’ve applied faithfully to girls, and good. But we have been slower; sometimes far slower; to apply it to boys. And boys notice. They absorb whatever is in the air around them, whether we intend it or not. If what’s in the air is silence, or hardness, or the steady message that their feelings are inconvenient, they learn. They carry that learning into adulthood and act out of it; often without knowing that’s what they’re doing.

This is not an excuse for the man. It is a diagnosis of the boy.

The Day of the Boy Child matters to me because I believe in getting ahead of grief. I’d rather invest in a boy’s emotional vocabulary now than spend the next two decades cleaning up after the man he becomes without one. I’d rather teach a boy that vulnerability is not weakness than spend years trying to convince a grown man to unlearn his armour.

Cultures and communities that take the behind-the-scenes and non-performative lives, questions, fears, and whole person of boys seriously tend to produce men who are easier to love and live with. Just so you know, this is not complicated. It just requires attention.

And attention, really, is the thing.

Not every boy has a father present.

Not every boy has someone who speaks into his formation with care and intention.

Some of them are watching and waiting, making conclusions about what kind of man they’re supposed to be based on what they see, or don’t see. That gap is not incidental. Like every void, it matters what fills it.

Today, I’m hoping we decide; collectively & practically; to fill it better.

This is because a lot of the conversations we keep having about men are really conversations we should have had much earlier, with boys.

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If this landed with you, forward it to someone raising a boy. Sometimes the most useful thing a newsletter can do is find the right desk.

PS: I shared another angle of this thought on my personal website. Click here to read.