LeRon Barton thought that boys needed to be toughened up, until he started mentoring one.
My mother had always told me when I was younger, “If you’re not helping out, then you are not doing anything,” and that had stuck with me for a long time. From volunteering in soup kitchens, tutoring people in computer classes, and various HIV/AIDS awareness charities, I have always tried to be involved. Helping out and giving back has always been ingrained in me and my family. I would see times were my mother would cook food and give to relatives and friends that were without and even lend money to folks. We just helped. While that was great, deep down I always wanted to be a mentor.
Growing up, I did not meet my father until I was 13, and that had a profound effect on me. It caused me to gravitate towards older males that would eventually become my mentors. There would be times that I would call my former high school writing teacher Stan Banks for advice on writing, which then led to advice on women, traveling and life. People like Mr. Banks (after 18 years, I still call him that) as well as my grandfather helped mold me into the person that I am today, and I wanted to do as much for another young guy.
When I first told my girlfriend that I wanted to be a big brother, she had suggested M, a friends son. Like me, he had grew up mostly without his father in his life and was being raised by single mother. I was immediately interested because I knew firsthand how important an older male figure would be in his life. When we first met, I was a little nervous. I did not know what to expect. Would he like me? Am I cool enough (Ha!)? Would we click? So before I met him, I brought over Thai food to kind of smooth things over (Hey, who doesn’t like Thai?) and make things a bit easier.
Our first “play date” was over burgers and fries. We talked about what he was into (video games, sports, girls), how is school (kinda sucked), and how he got along with his mother. It was kind of a feeling-out session and it went well. On later visits, we would work out in the gym and I would be a sounding board for anything that was troubling him. What I thought I needed to do was be a strong role model in his life. I needed to toughen him up because in this world, you could not be soft.
The theories about him needing to be tough were complete crap. … How come he couldn’t be himself and be accepted?
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Where I come from you had to darn near be an animal to survive. Many of the weak became addicts, the abused, victims of the street, or worse: some decided there are two types of people in that environment – those who carry the stick and those that do not, and so they became even more aggressive, even bullying others. It was a sick cycle that goes on to this day. I said to myself that I could keep M from falling prey to that cycle.
Recently, a friend and I were having a heated argument about why kids needed to stop crying, stand up for themselves, and stop taking crap. My friend had mentioned a little boy that she works with and described him as “tender.” She said that he was sweet, but lacking the toughness needed. I mocked the little boy and said that he needed to be hard to make it in this world and would not survive, parroting all the stuff I’d been fed growing up.
Later, I had an emotional breakthrough: I thought about that little boy and I darn near cried. The theories about him needing to be tough were complete crap. Why couldn’t he be tender and soft? Lighthearted? How come he couldn’t be himself and be accepted? Even worse, that’s when I realized that not only was I projecting my fears onto M, but I wasn’t acknowledging why I was doing it. Fear can be a powerful motivator to do many ignorant things.
A couple weeks ago I watched a movie called Jamesy Boy, about a young man caught in a downward spiral of crime, and I recognized a lot of myself in the character of James. We both came up under a single mother, felt the temptations of the street and fast money, tried to find our own identity and purpose. In a critical scene in the movie, a bunch of convicts had been telling James that the rivals had been talking disrespectful about him, and asked what would he do about it? James scoffed it off and replied, “So what?” I thought about when I made the decision to live my life the way I wanted to, and realized that was the lesson I would pass onto M. “Forget about what other people thought and said about you. Be yourself.” That’s a stronger, deeper lesson than just trying to be a tough guy.
Today my visits with M are a bit lighter. We joke more and I have realized that he is just as goofy as me. I am not trying to mold him into someone he is not. He is not from Southside Kansas City, M lives in San Francisco. He doesn’t have to “survive.” My number one role in his life is not to be another father or guardian, but someone that encourages M to be who he wants to be. I am just being a friend that listens, and that’s what he needs.
Photo—Leon Fishman/Flickr