I’m very grateful to Richard Reeves and Aaron Renn for responding to my chapter on where men are called to take risks and respond to the weakness of others.
As a parent of three, I am particularly glad to see Reeves pay tribute, on a scientific and social basis, to play and roughhousing. It’s good to have dads in the home, taking advantage of remote or flexwork where they can, so they can sweep a child into the air at the bus stop. I hope, in the great post-COVID reshuffle, there is more room for both parents to take more time with their children. A dad offering his body as a jungle gym or rolling over the bed in a mock wrestling match offers a wonderful example of rambunctious, loving competition. Play is good training in what it means to strive for excellence without contempt for your competitors.
Renn picks up this theme in his praise of male interdependence as embodied by a band of brothers or a warband. At their best, men in these groups not only compete with each other but also egg each other on to greater feats of strength or daring, delighted by their rival’s performance. Today, both boys and girls both have too narrow a field for play. Children have a better chance of growing up to be responsible adults, with deep friendships, if they’re given the freedom to take on big projects without adults and to fail at them. It is hard to develop feelings of deep brotherhood under constant parental supervision, or, worse, in the disembodied world of social media, where you and your friends consume but do not build.
As a parent, I am constantly challenging myself to take a step back, even from my young children, to allow them to take risks and experience some of the consequences. I make a judgement from afar about what kind of falls will be painful, but not dangerous. I ignore the first wail of sibling conflict, take another sip of my coffee, and listen to hear if my older kids work out a solution themselves in the space afforded by my absence. As my children grow, my pauses will grow longer, and, eventually, they’ll climb without me close enough to call out, “ok, that’s as high as you can go today.” I’m aiming to give them room for play so that they can learn prudence. I want them to have room to apply, judge, and refine their own imperfect solutions.
I appreciate Renn’s emphasis that men need freedom for excellence, not just the open-ended freedom of autonomy. Vows and unchosen family ties channel a man’s strength toward particular people and ensure he cannot walk away from them and remain a man of honor. They force him to develop his strengths to keep up with his family’s changing needs. Children are more willing than adults to explore the edge of their mastery and fail forward. Adults can find that their obligations to others give them a reason to overcome their pride and, like a child, be willing to try something they are not yet good at for the sake of future mastery.
Finally, I was delighted that Reeves gave a nod to the Carnegie Hero Fund (and I’m privileged to know a man who was nominated for the medal for his river rescue). The question is: what forms men to be ready for those moments of sudden, urgent need? Part of it is physical readiness and training. But the other part is moral formation—the instinct that Darren Geist showed, when he heard a crash outside his home and assumed it fell to him to run outside to help. In a moment of crisis, there’s seldom time for rational reflection and weighing of duties.
A hero is made by habit—consistently being willing to be interrupted, holding his strength in trust for others.
