The Fathers Group
In an effort to make these periodic Perspectives more easily available to a wider audience, we will begin recording these as standalone pieces and publishing them as podcasts. With regards to this particular topic, the plan is to periodically record and publish podcasts with others in the Fathers Group on an ongoing basis to gather more perspectives and insights.
In reflecting on a parent’s recent comment on Elie Weisel’s book Night (1960), I was reminded of a line from Terrence des Pres’ book The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps (1976). The line was, “The realm of ideas and symbols will have to be lived closer to the bone.”
Ridgeview has many ideas, words, and symbols. Its chief logo is a Spartan helmet, its mascot is a Hoplite, it is dedicated to truth and virtue, and its most enduring motto is Aeschylus’ “we learn by suffering.” There are many other likeminded words and symbols, but the ideas and symbols are increasingly lived further from the bone.
One plausible explanation for this is the imbalance introduced into our civic, social, and political institutions whereby the feminine attributes have eclipsed the masculine—the so-called “longhouse theory.” In this theory, men are less discernibly men; or, possibly, they remain men but are engaged in endeavors other than education. In order for a person to find this thesis at all persuasive, he or she must believe in feminine and masculine attributes, and that the sexes are intended by nature to be complimentary rather than competitive. To twist Aristotle’s Politics a bit, that society which is best is best adapted to the nature of its members.
The American author Robert Bly wrote what was for a time a famous book about masculinity entitled Iron John (1990), and in it he wrote, “We talk a great deal about “the American man,” as if there were some constant quality that remained stable over decades, or even within a single decade.” I dislike but recommend Bly’s book to all people. I think most men, were they to read it and consider it carefully, would disagree with it. Contrarily, I think many women, were they to read it with equal consideration, would tend to appreciate it.
First, Bly’s point is neither profound nor correct. Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote aphoristically in 1849, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”— “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” There can be constant qualities, but virtually nothing remains stable over decades. Men can remain at their core men but appear and behave differently given their adaptation to changing circumstances over what has been a tumultuous century. To name only a handful: numerous wars and the changing conditions of the battlefields, more urban and less rural livelihoods, changes in what constitutes leisure, a diminished reliance on physical labor, an increased number of men attending college, later marriage or marriages without children, attacks on purported toxic masculinity, the virtual death of fraternal organizations, the sharp diminishment of male friendships and the subsequent rise in depression and suicide, and the erasure of any meaningful male initiation from boyhood to manhood. Bly would have been closer to the mark had he simply said, “whether from a progressive or a conservative standpoint, men have never been less certain of what they were about or what society wanted from them.”
Second, I opened my recent presentation at the Fathers Group last Thursday with a passage from a 2021 Commencement Address in which I was quoting mainly from Thoreau. I had written, “Our lives come to resemble, in their bleaker moments, a mundane treadmill of obligations and requirements, and in our sourest moments, Thoreau’s words chafe. He wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation…A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work.” For most, we become what we act at: a “radical editing of our true selves,” and it “is the price we must pay for conviviality.” But, with parenthood, there is at least one irrefutable redemption: we have a purpose. “In our roles as parents, we will be terrified, exhausted, resentful, enchanted, but forever spared the slightest doubt as to our significance or our role on the earth.” My point in recycling this passage was to emphasize that the problem with men is creating a problem with boys.
Third, it is not as though there is a paucity of evidence about whether there is a “man” problem (or a “boy” problem), but rather an abundance of explanations as to how it came to be and a litany of often contradictory solutions. Even the comically ideological New Yorker published a piece in 2023 entitled “What’s the Matter with Men?” in which they dutifully disparaged “conservatives” within the first sentence, and on the other side of the political spectrum, men are encouraged to pay monthly fees to “regain their masculinity” through exercise programs, podcasts, and supplements.
The good news is everyone is free to address the problem as they see fit: they can ignore it, attempt to refute it, become emotional about it, obsess over it, or simply pick a solution and get to work. They can do it independently or collaboratively. The reason any of this should find a place in a school newsletter is that whatever the cause and whatever the solution, the consequences of this problem for the culture of our school, and in particular, for the development of our boys is real and palpable. With a sincere intent not to offend the boys currently enrolled for whom I have a high regard and an attachment, the boys of twenty years ago were stronger, more competitive, more virile, more disciplined, and intellectually hungrier. Visiting other schools, whether they be district, charter, parochial, or private, stateside or abroad, has persuaded me over the course of twenty years that our problem is cultural and societal rather than something that is unique to Ridgeview. If anything, our openness to discussing it as a problem has mitigated its severity here.
Is there a problem? From my perspective, yes. Does it have a solution? I am agnostic, but I believe that it would be irresponsible not to make efforts, and this is my reason for organizing this group of fathers.
My objective for Ridgeview has always been more than educating the students; instead, it has been transforming and improving the lives of everyone within the community it serves. I have seen this most dramatically with parents in the weekly, monthly, and summer parent reading groups. It has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my job over the last eleven years. I believe that we are best able to do this when the lives of our students at home and within the school can be brought into harmony. I am grateful for the sacrifices Ridgeview mothers have made and their innumerable contributions, and without any desire to see those contributions lessened, at present, there is too much maternal and too little paternal. In boys in particular, this has resulted in children who are less resilient, less physically developed, less determined, less disciplined, and as a school, we need greater involvement from men. Put more plainly, half of our population cannot abdicate without consequence.
Statistically, the matter can be considered by examining what happens without fathers at home or those where the father is disengaged from his children. America is an outlier in this respect with three times the international average for single-parent households. One of out of every four American children presently grows up without a father. The consequences of this are awful as children in fatherless households are four times as likely to be on government assistance programs and be raised in poverty. Sixty-three percent of youth suicides are from fatherless homes, and eighty-five percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders are from fatherless homes. Children from these homes are ten times more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, and seventy-five percent of children in substance abuse centers are from fatherless homes. They are nine times as likely to drop out of school, and seventy-one percent of high-school dropouts are from fatherless homes. In a study of fifty-six school shootings, only eighteen percent of shooters were raised in a home with both biological parents. Seventy percent of youth in juvenile detention programs were from single-parent homes, and they were twenty times more likely to be incarcerated.
Absence is worse, but disengagement is bad. The average school-aged boy only spends around thirty minutes per week in one-on-one conversation with their father; however, the same boys report spending an average of forty hours per week playing video games, watching television, and consuming social media. The average American father spends just 1.83 hours per week engaging in recreation with their children, which includes just 0.05 hours per day reading to/with them. Alternatively, in homes with a father, children are thirty-three percent less likely to repeat a class and forty-three percent more likely to get A’s.
My message to fathers was and is this: What we want for them they have to see in us. We must be seen to be in a constant state of self-improvement. I think this touches on at least four domains: the mind, the body, the spirit, and our conduct.
In terms of the mind, if we are to impress upon them the importance of reading and the advantages it bequeaths, we must be seen reading. Not just for work or passive entertainment, but to become better cultured, more erudite, and better men. More than a quarter of Americans failed to complete a single book in the past year, and the numbers are worse for men than women. Additionally, if we believe that smartphones are pernicious for our children, we must reform ourselves and better consider whether that device is for us a tool or an addiction. We should look carefully at what screentime has replaced (in-person social interactions for instance, adventures, an attentive regard of our families), and ask whether in the final analysis, the exchange will have proven to be a good one.
In terms of the body, sedentary behaviors and work modeled at home carry over to create physically weaker and more emotionally fragile boys. Only twenty-eight percent of Americans are getting the minimum amount of recommended exercise. Obesity in adults is hovering around forty-six percent, and twenty percent in children aged two to nineteen. According to the Department of Defense, seventy-seven percent of military-aged Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, using drugs, or having mental and physical health problems. Books such as John Ratey’s Spark do a good job of showing the relationship between exercise and academic performance, but culturally we are increasingly treating exercise as the preserve of athletes, and adults tend towards substituting spectatorship for participation. Too often, men watch rather than do.
In terms of spirit, this word has at least two etymologically interesting origins. In Greek, we have words for breath (Πνεθμα) and life (Ψυχη), and among the earliest English definitions is, “the animating or vital principle.” I asked the men at the first Fathers Group meeting: “What are you about? What code do you live according to? Do your children know what it is?” This need not be about church, or God, or philosophy, but a man being disciplined enough in himself and holding himself accountable to something noble so that his children grow up in imitation of it. This is indispensable for a free and moral society.
In terms of conduct, I noted that most men want better; in fact, most people want better. But, as the marketing for an up-and-coming company put it, “Everybody wants to eat, but few will hunt.” Will we do the work to have the culture we want for our children, and if we fail to do it for them, what will be their inheritance? We do not need vainglorious strong men, of which influencer culture has given us too many, we need tough men: tough intellectually as much physically. Able to withstand the world and its vagaries and agonies. To quote the fifth-century Athenian general and historian Thucydides, “The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” Resoluteness is called for, but so is courage, and not just in its physical manifestations. We have to know what we are about and have the consistency to behave accordingly and the courage to do so when it’s contested. To quote from Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics, “Our aim is not to know what courage is but to be courageous, not to know what justice is but to be just.” To bring it back to the beginning, our ideas and symbols, our words and deeds, must be lived closer to the bone.
How do we get there? We do the hard work of creating better men. We do this by connecting men with other men who have an interest in becoming better leaders and people. We exchange ideas and share expertise. We create forum groups wherein men can relate experiences, share wisdom, gain support, and give guidance. As a group, they can inspire and challenge one another to live better, make stronger homes, have better adventures, lead better lives, and become stronger men. By this, we can produce better opportunities for our children and for all Ridgeview students instead of “waiting for the right conditions.” To quote one of those influencers, “the right time is now.” To quote Theodore Roosevelt, “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”
The first meeting exceeded all expectations in terms of attendance and interest. We have the beginnings of something that could be truly transformative, for individual fathers, their families, ours sons and daughters, and our school. Our next meeting will be announced shortly, and we look forward to setting our chapter’s calendar and creating our forum groups at that meeting. Stay tuned.
D. Anderson
Headmaster
