There’s a version of parenting advice that sounds reasonable until you sit with it: don’t let him be too soft. Don’t let him cry over everything. Don’t raise him to be weak.
All negatives. All pushing away from something. None of it pointing toward anything.
That’s not raising a man. That’s raising an absence.
What We Lost When We Lost the Positive Model
For generations, the masculine ideal — for better and worse — was specific. Provide. Protect. Show up. Keep your word. Don’t complain. There was a direction to it, even if the execution was often flawed or cold.
Then came a necessary and overdue reckoning. A lot of that model deserved to be questioned — the emotional suppression, the dominance framing, the silence around pain. Fair enough.
But somewhere in dismantling the broken parts, we forgot to build something in their place. We got very good at telling boys what masculinity isn’t. We never agreed on what it is.
The result is a generation of young men adrift — not villains, not victims, just unmoored. No map. No destination. Just a long list of wrong turns.
Raising Toward Something
My son is 14. He’s smart, athletic, complicated, and watching everything I do more than he’d ever admit. What I want for him isn’t a list of things he shouldn’t be. It’s a character.
Courage — not the absence of fear, but action in spite of it.
Accountability — owning your outcomes without needing an audience.
Presence — showing up fully for the people who depend on you.
Purpose — knowing what you’re building and why it matters.
These aren’t anti-feminine traits. They’re not in opposition to anything. They’re affirmative. They’re a direction.
The Angle
When we sit with the men who shaped us — grandfathers, coaches, uncles, fathers — the stories that stick aren’t about what they avoided. They’re about what they did. The sacrifice they made. The moment they showed up when it would have been easier not to.
That’s what intergenerational storytelling captures. Not a list of rules. A life lived forward.
If we want boys to become men, we have to show them what men look like. Not in the abstract. In the specific — a grandfather’s voice, a father’s choice, a moment preserved before it disappears.
Give them something to become.
FAQ
Why do boys struggle with identity today?
The cultural script has been dismantled without replacement. Boys are told what not to be, but rarely given a clear, affirmative picture of what to become.
Isn’t this just “toxic masculinity” repackaged?
No. The goal is affirmative character — courage, accountability, presence, purpose — not dominance or emotional suppression.
How does storytelling help raise boys?
Concrete examples of character in action shape identity more than abstract rules. Hearing a grandfather’s story of sacrifice or a father’s moment of accountability gives boys a real model — not a list of dos and don’ts.
Miles Spencer is an author, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Reflekta.ai — the premier platform for intergenerational learning, legacy, and storytelling. He is the author of A Line in the Sand and Havana Famiglia.