How do men become fathers? How do boys become men? It’s an interesting question to answer as someone who considers himself on a constant journey towards discovering what manhood actually means. Even more so because the transition from boyhood to manhood has growing pains similar to the transition from manhood to fatherhood. Growing up in a society where gender roles are socially constructed; it’s much easier for most men and most boys to tell you everything that isn’t masculine as opposed to what is. It’s a code. There are certain things you just don’t do.

In 1947 a media critic and mystery writer by the name of Jon Katz wrote an article on Boys to Men for Glamour magazine ironically. Even scarier, the list is pretty accurate: Never ask for help, that’s for sissies. Don’t be too nice. Sympathy and empathy is for nerds. Never discuss anything of substance, that’s just weird (and the last thing a boy wants to be is weird), and never show fear. That’s a very succinct list. It’s to the point. How do you combat that with what boys are? Boys are rough and tough. We get dirty. We play sports. We play video games and ride bikes. Simply put boys aren’t girls. How can you ever hope to become a holistic individual if your entire maturation revolves around trying to avoid becoming something? It’s a constant state of apprehension, and a nonsensical one at that. So women can be deep thinkers, they can be empathetic and sympathetic; they can ask for help and show emotion and not be teased or thought any less of…and men can’t? These are qualities we avoid in trying to show our masculinity as boys but are necessities we must capture as men.

Sound familiar? As a father, there are tasks assigned by gender and we hear so often what a father is not as opposed to what a father is. Marginally we get that a father is a provider and a protector. We get assigned the physical tasks in that we do “manly things”. We fix what’s broken , we cut the grass and shovel snow, we take out the trash, we open the closet door and scare away the boogey man, or at least we used to. But these are all actions. Just like boys, it’s things men and father’s specifically do…but not what makes a successful father. A father isn’t defined by actions as opposed to emotions anymore than a man is, but somehow we’ve allowed this and it’s impeded our connection with the community, our passions and our own children. Why? Because those same issues that we picked up on as boys follow us into manhood.

How many times has your girlfriend or wife asked you to be more communicative and expressive? It’s a difficult task to re-program yourself to do that after years of shrugging whenever you’re asked a question as a boy. I can remember countless times my mother asking me “how was school?”…and the most acceptable response being…”it was cool.” We don’t talk! If we do it’s about things that are typically unimportant. I can find men with more to say about the Colts disappointing loss in the Superbowl than the situations in Haiti or New Orleans; or about the state of public schools or politics. When there’s something to physically speak up about, the deepest voices in the room are often the most silent.

Your woman begs you to be sensitive to her needs sometimes and not be so selfish. That’s difficult! Boyhood code teaches you to be self-sufficient. You dust yourself off and handle your business. We’re not taught to be sensitive to others unless it involves teasing a girl, everything else is “get over it” or “stop crying”. We’re programmed to avoid being sensitive. So articulations of love and affection and support are often artificial and stereotypical representations of what we think people want. We go through the motions because we just weren’t reared that way. It’s just one of the many issues that make women look at us, both boys and men, as problems to be fixed. We can shift the paradigm and fix ourselves right now. I’m going to talk about three things we can do right now to change this dynamic and ease the transition from juvenile boy to superior man. We can start with how we front.

You know what fronting is. It’s false ego inflation. It’s so often the same mentality that shuns education amongst our youth. We don’t communicate, we don’t articulate, all because we’re too busy being cool. We have way too much bravado and machismo to be excited or anxious or expressive. To be suave is to be unaffected. We have swag. I’m so sick of hearing that word. It’s like “Bling”, when I heard an 80 year old woman on wheel of fortune use the word “Bling” it was officially dead. So when you could “swag surf” while wearing “Swagger Body Wash” by Old Spice watching WWE as a wrestler named “Jack Swagger” walks down the ramp…it becomes overkill. Kinda like a Lil’ Wayne song on 96.3, you hear it so much it loses meaning and becomes annoying. BUT since a member of the AARP generation hasn’t used it in my presence yet, I guess it’s still relevant. I do wonder sometimes if people know what swagger is. Because if “swagger” is used in its proper context I think that we who claim to exude it would do so much better men and fathers.

When I was growing up I was always encouraged to be confident, that’s all swagger is.
Swagger equals Confidence. Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays has a quote I like to think about when it comes to confidence. “Whatever you do, strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead, and no man yet to be born can do it any better.” That’s confidence. It borders on being cocky and some might even trip into conceit. But to do either is that same chest thumping bravado that masculinity is famous for. But if you listen closely you’ll see that it says that no matter what you do, you strive to be the best at it; the best that ever did it. Everything you attempt, you want to do so well that no one in history has or could do it better. That implies hard work. That implies dedication. That implies drive. Now ask yourself does that apply to you?

In school, did you really do your best, or did you do what was necessary to get by. There are requirements, and we met those. Check. Though how often do we shy away from going above and beyond because it will take too much work or we simply “don’t have the time”. Sometimes we just avoid striving for more because we fear failure or simply lack understanding. Yet we don’t seek that understanding to strive for more. Nobody feels me but I’m not done yet.

As fathers, men are often criticized. Men who say they’re good fathers will shout from the rooftops things like “I take care of my kids!”, but are you referencing money? If so the most precious commodity in raising a child contrary to popular belief is not measured in monetary value but in time spent. Quality time I might add. Papers and projects are graded harshly, but as men we get off easy when it comes to participation. It’s a pass/fail course when it shouldn’t be. So when our son or daughter brings home a C or heaven forbid a D paper and says “I passed!” we wonder where the idea that mediocrity would be celebrated even came from.

We only dare to be great in sports it seems. That’s the only place that the Event+Response=Outcome equation makes sense but in reality it’s everywhere. Take Michael Jordan, and everyone knows the story but it’s relevant. He got cut from his high school team. As unfathomable as it is, widely regarded as one of the best to ever play the game, if not the best and he didn’t make the squad. He could’ve quit, but he prepared himself for greatness. He shot free-throws after school; hundreds a day. He came to shoot around early and had to be shooed away by the gym teacher to go to class. He knew that since he wasn’t as tall as the kids who made it he had to improve his skill, strength and conditioning. He wanted to be the best that ever did it. People were quoted as saying even as a boy Michael played every minute on the court like he was down 1 point with 20 seconds on the clock, even when they were down 20 points with 1 minute to go. As a result, MJ retired as the only player with six NBA championships and six finals MVP titles. As Magic Johnson stated “there’s Michael Jordan, then there’s the rest of us”

That’s swagger. We see that as the exception, when it should be the rule. Swagger has nothing to do with being the best dressed or having the most money. That’s all window dressing. Michael Jordan once took a free throw with his eyes closed to prove a point to a friend in the crowd. He said he could see the result before it happened. He envisioned his success and he achieved it. But he prepared for that success in sweat before he ever achieved greatness. Imagine if we applied that same work ethic to every facet of our lives, how much richer it would be?

What’s stopping the confidence to approach situations that seem difficult or daunting with a desire to overcome as oppose to shy away? Many would call that fear. Jon Katz illustrated a story about fear when he recalled watching two boys walking home from school playing. He said:

“Two nine-year-old boys, neighbors and friends, were walking home from school. The one in the
bright blue windbreaker was laughing and swinging a heavy-looking book bag toward the head of his friend, who kept ducking and stepping back. "What's the matter?" asked the kid with the bag, whooshing it over his head. "You chicken?"

His friend stopped, stood still and braced himself. The bag slammed into the side of his face, the thump audible all the way across the street where he stood watching. The impact knocked him to the ground, where he lay mildly stunned for a second. Then he struggled up, rubbing the side of his head. "See?" he said proudly. "I'm no chicken."

No. A chicken would probably have had the sense to get out of the way. This boy was already well on the road to becoming a man, having learned one of the central ethics of his gender: Experience pain rather than show fear.

That’s fake fearlessness. His true fear was in being called a chicken, not in being hit by the bag. If he was truly fearless he’d have no problem telling his friend, “no, it has nothing to do with being a chicken. It has everything to do with me not letting you hit me with a book bag. Swing it at your own head”. That child by my definition is fearless.

Know your edge and don’t fake it. David Deida has a book entitled “The Way to the Superior Man”, this phrase is also the title to one of the chapters in his book. Fear is a funny four letter word that men acknowledge as negative but seldom confront. So we put on a front to avoid the sting of a four letter word. Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it. As ridiculous as it sounds we can correct this action simply by knowing our edge. But what is this edge? It’s a brink to which we push ourselves beyond what makes us comfortable. It’s the line between taking risks and a paralyzing fear of failure. A fear that makes men take jobs they know well they can do easily instead of the unknown and potentially difficult. The side effect is hanging back on what’s safe and avoiding stepping out of our comfort zone keeps us complacent. Essentially we lie to ourselves. We say we’re working hard but in reality we’re not even coming close to achieving our true potential or exercising the breadth of our individual gifts. Ever hear the phrase “scared money don’t make money?” It’s mostly applied to investing, but school and work and living a fulfilling life that makes you feel alive and inspired is the most rewarding return you can receive. But what’s your investment? “I know I could be more involved …but if I show more of myself and my interests I could fall flat on my face and end up achieving nothing.” That’s no different than a child saying
“I know I could get better grades …but if I raise my hand more or study harder I’ll get called a nerd and get made fun of.” Or, “I could do better but I’m too lazy to put in the hours to improve.”

The latter statement can be applied to anything and everything. I’ve heard them all. I’ve said them. But being a man means making those dare to be great decisions and knowing your edge and honestly pushing yourself as close to it as possible. When you look over that edge you may feel the dizziness accompanied with the fear of falling…but the longer you stay there, the less dangerous it becomes. We become empowered by confronting what makes us fearful, not by pulling away from that which makes us uncomfortable. What’s the quote from Akeelah and the Bee?

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Nelson Mandela. My man. Want to talk about your swag, your confidence? Then talk about your fears. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re inexplicably intertwined. Those whom we revere as having the utmost confidence are typically those same individuals who recognize their limitations as areas of discomfort they address and subdue. The most confident and courageous of individuals live with their fear, acknowledge it and press up against it until they can kiss it goodbye en route to achieving their dreams.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

A universal quality that both men and women aspire to is to be trustworthy. What’s more trust worthy than being honest. If we can’t be honest with anyone we must be honest with ourselves. That starts with being honest about your fears. Stephen King said: "If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered." That’s real talk. Acknowledge your fears, share them. Help you by helping others keep you accountable. Believe it or not, that will gain you more respect than riding a roller coaster or letting someone swing a book bag at your head. And imagine the lesson it will teach your children. It’s okay to acknowledge your limitations. Say what you’re afraid of, acknowledge it, and then tell others so that you can receive help in conquering it. Right? Riiiiiiiiiight.

So what have we learned? Confidence and fear go hand in hand. One can’t exist without the other. To experience one isn’t to be in absence of the other, it’s what you do with it that’s important. As boys and as men we’ve been limited far too long. As men we’ll address those limitations and in the process embody excellence. This means as Fathers we can no longer adhere to what society says we are not and what the media says we are.

Fatherhood is not the pinnacle of masculinity, any more than being a man is represented by muscles or facial hair. It has nothing to do with how many women you have, or who you can beat up. I think masculinity or even femininity are constructs, boxes that we place ourselves and other people in, social norms that draw deeper distinctions of difference beyond anatomical symbolism. At the core of any human being, the goal should be freedom. Freedom to discover our purpose and freedom to discover ourselves.

Now, freedom as a concept for stellar fatherhood may seem over the top, especially when you don’t consider living by definitions others have created as being oppression. However, to a child or a teenager…parents are the first taste of real oppression faced. For parent’s I know it’s hard, and for fathers I know it’s especially difficult. If you are a father like mine, you have a desire to want for your child to have everything you didn’t. And while admirable, what often accompanies that, is a desire to live vicariously through them. This isn’t typical of every paternal figure, but if people in the room are catching hurt feelings it’s probably because there’s a ring of truth in your father/son or father/daughter relationship. So we raise our kids to be star athletes or to follow in dad’s footsteps. “You could be better than I ever was”, and to you, that’s a monumental accomplishment, but to them? Who says that’s what I want?

One of my favorite poets is a Lebanese American writer and artist by the name of Khalil Gibran. He had this to say of children...

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

So what’s Khalil saying? The same thing that I’m saying. When I was growing up, I subconsciously viewed my father as the archetype for manhood. I idolized him as a paragon of virtue. His accomplishments were goals that I sought not only to attain, but surpass. His legacy was mine as his namesake and the last Dorsey male. Sounds like the cold opening to highlander or something, but that’s how it was. Needless to say this made my personal journey to self-discovery more than arduous. Not only did we have the same name but even when I tried to shirk the shadow of his local celebrity, I unwittingly stumbled upon a path he’d already carved. Every sport I excelled in was one he played or he groomed me for. Football, basketball, track and field, baseball, you name it; he’d played it. He attended Broad Ripple High School, so I went out of my way to attend Arsenal Tech, but playing all those sports, people who remembered him couldn’t help but draw comparisons. The magnet I chose for myself was telecommunications, that was his major in college and ironically the best T-Comm. College in the area is Ball State, where I got accepted and started college, which unfortunately for me was his alma mater. I was constantly hampered by feeling like I wasn’t me, I was him 2.0. I was miserable. He was proud. I valued our relationship, but I value my life’s purpose even more. I knew I did those things which came easy, it’s in my blood. Cool. But it wasn’t me. I broke his heart I’m sure, but I left Ball State, just like I quit Football, Basketball, Track and Baseball in high school. I dissolved any and everything that tied me to the legacy my father left, and for once, I felt like me and not a mini him. I was serene and relieved and able to think clearer and more critically than I ever did when I was young and tugging at the sleeve of his coat. Much of that is to be expected, but I shudder to think who I would be if I had not consciously made the decision to remove the shackles of living his life by proxy.

My father is still proud of me. But not because he can puff out his chest and look across the field at his son driving a defensive lineman 10 yards downfield before planting him firmly on the turf. It’s because his son was president of Student Council from middle school to high school. Because I’ve spoken in front of crowds ranging from 50 to 500 everywhere from San Diego to the congressional halls in Washington D. C. He can respect the fact that while I was good at communications, my passion was African American studies. I became a man when I found the freedom to make my decisions without fearing his disappointment or disapproval. I live my life everyday as if I’m the only Dominic Dorsey that matters. I stand alone as a man; flaws and all. Sensitive, expressive and intelligent, but free. My swagger comes from within and I readily acknowledge my fears every day and make it known that I will not let that fear stop me from being who God has intended me to become.

I always hearken back to Jack Canfield’s Success Principles when I use his Event+Response=Outcome equation. Particularly when I preach about 100% self-responsibility and accountability as he does. But that’s a different speech perhaps for a different event. I will however steal his math analogy to perhaps purpose that in the formula for stellar fatherhood, maybe it’s Swagger+Fear=Freedom? I don’t know. What I do know is that we are not bound to a code of dos and don’ts that rule whom is or is not a man. Nor are there defined roles for fathers as opposed to mothers of children. There is no woman’s work when it comes to being a participative parent. If the greatest accomplishment for any human being is to love yourself and others, how can masculinity live in contradiction with being emotionally vulnerable enough to show love? If that were the case, no father would ever be fulfilled. We need the same outspoken fathers in the PTA that are in the stands when a referee makes a bonehead call. The totality of a man is not measured in physical capabilities, and if that’s how we see ourselves, you’ve been sold short. Just as much as these lessons can relate to how to engage our children, they should educate us as well.

Encourage children to discover who they are, challenge them to press against the edge of their discomfort, allow them to voice their fears without persecution. Allow them to cry when it’s all they know how to do. Micheal Jordan cried when he won the NBA title on Father’s day. Let them acknowledge and accept that discretion is the better part of valor, Martin Luther King Jr. did. Push beyond the roles society assigns to fathers, Dad can be a coach or a brownie troop leader, Dad is the head of the booster club and the classroom helper. Dad teaches me how to ride a bike and helps me color and research my science project, even if that means Dad doesn’t know about science but he learns with me. We are honest in creating a bond and growing together. That’s the type of father we should strive to be. We may never gain a true definition of what a father is, but in changing our response to events and relinquishing the constraints of gender construction…we can become fulfilled human beings for ourselves and our children. And that’s something parents of any gender should strive for.