This is something I have struggled with my entire life in our society. My mom and dad split when I was two after he cheated on her with her best friend, the wife of a youth minister. I also had a stepfather for many years who tried when he needed to, that relationship was and is rocky, and I don’t want to make this a counseling session. My grandfather and uncle, who died when I was 15, are the closest things I’ve had to father figures in my life. So the idea of manhood has always eluded me. I don’t blame my father or my stepfather for not being there enough to truly serve as consistent male role models, I actually appreciate the fact that that was the condition life handed to me. I don’t believe I would be in such an amazingly close and supportive relationship with my mother if the situation had been different. I have not really known what makes a man, and I have had to define that truly by myself. I am still working on it, but I am glad that I can do that here in America. I don’t mean to be a flag toting patriot, but I do cherish the social freedoms that I was afforded by being born in this country. And, most prominently, I’m not subject to the male ideal that other children in the world are:
A child suicide bomber, gazed on with pride by the adults around him.
And, Five Year Olds Dude:
