Aaron Voyles shares how boyhood experiences shape the men we become.
In my work, I focus primarily on college students and college men. I am an educator working in collegiate housing, and I have seen the negative trends that men on college campuses face, be it overrepresentation in student conduct cases, lower grades, mental health issues or a desire to just not be involved.
Despite my profession, I wanted to write about boyhood. I focus on boyhood for a couple of reasons, the first of which is personal. The memories of these boys (now men) stick with me. I cannot shake them, and I suspect there are such memories for all of us. By sharing these, we are better able to unpack our identities in ways that many perhaps do not have the opportunity to.
I also want to focus on boyhood because we know from other talented researchers and authors that men’s identities feature socially constructed masculinity that occurs long before people get to college. Boys are developing their competence as men in all kinds of ways that will impact their lives in college and beyond (Harper, Harris, & Mmeje, 2005). Turning the page back to look at boyhood can help us to reflect on what that means for men in college and adulthood.
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In this case, my memory is of camping with a group of boys and a group of adults through the Boy Scouts. When camping, we typically ate dinner by getting in a line and going through the tables where dinner had been setup by the cooks. There were no real rules about “take only one,” but there was an understanding that we needed to save some for everyone. Matt and David each were appropriate and considerate, took only what they needed and there was enough for everyone.
Matt and David had seen that there was one additional burger left and had talked about splitting it. Immediately after getting his food, however, David returned to the line, took the burger and put it out of the way for himself. Matt, on the other hand, enjoyed his food and the company. He complained to David after going back to find out there was no more food, and David made up some excuse about thinking Matt didn’t want it.
Many may read this and think that David is wrong, but both are versions of masculinity and both are reinforced. Every day on the way to work in Austin I see the benefits of David’s masculinity, as drivers prey on weaker, more considerate vehicles that choose not to swerve into the exit lane and cut back in. On the other hand, I have seen people in Matt’s position thought of as reliable, trustworthy and able to build a cohort of friends and success from being considerate. I am not here to say which way people should act, just to notice that even as boys of about eleven, these traits are obvious.
What is more interesting to me is the discipline each boy got, for each boy was spoken to by his father and I was oddly in earshot both times. In David’s case, the conversation was more obvious: being dishonest, manipulating people and not playing fair were all no-no’s. But for Matt, his father spoke highly of David, saying that, “he takes initiative” and “that’s why he gets extra.” Matt’s father felt his son was not assertive enough and did not do enough to progress.
Looking at these two simple stories now, it becomes easier to see how we, as society, give men conflicting views of manhood. When rewarded for ambition, a man is inconsiderate. When deferential, a man is weak. If these prototypes are the only options for boys and their fathers, then it is no wonder so many of our men are conflicted as to how they should act in each scenario. This creates the conflict within what role a man should play, perhaps contributing to the rise in male mental health issues I see in my work.
I’d like to propose a scheme to create what I would refer to as “assertively considerate” men. But, like so many others, I fall short on offering solutions for what we see happening long before men get to college. I have seen my profession attempt to approach the idea of positive masculinity and to foster mentorship, but where to take this in boyhood, I am unsure.
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What I do hope is that by sharing stories and being open with what we see in masculinity, we raise our vigilance at acknowledging what those moments look like. It took me this opportunity to reflect on this circumstance, years and years later, to see what is unraveling. The more we see and the more we share, the more able we are to know the framework that socialized masculinity puts to situations; the more visible that framework, the more able we are to dissect and deconstruct it. I hope to continue hearing the stories of others.
Harper, S., Harris, F., & Mmeje, K. C. (2005). A theoretical model to explain the overrepresentation of college men among campus judicial offenders. NASPA Journal, 42(4), 565-588.
—Photo Doug McCaughan/Flickr
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I am not sure I see a conflict between “assertive” and “considerate” as they are two very different states of being. One can and should be assertive about what he considers morally right. This actually reinforces the notion of being considerate since what is “morally right” (whatever that might be) most often involves and affects others. Perhaps the more apparent conflict of assertiveness is kindness. How does one conveys assertiveness (any situation where that might need to happen is likely to involve conflict) in a kind way? For me the proper dilemma is how to create an assertive and kind… Read more »
Voyles story about Matt and David illustrates a complexity about being a man in this American culture. I have daughters and a son and i often find myself sliding between these two paradigms of fatherhood Voyles eloquently discusses: to my daughters I try to model consideration and kindness; to my son I often try to model assertiveness and strength. Which is right, I often ask myself. Shouldn’t I also model kindness and consideration to my son and assertiveness to my daughters? The answer is yes. Yet it gets confusing sometimes which situations demand assertiveness and which simply kindness. I wish… Read more »
My school was giving away chips and pop. I was passing by the table with another guy on our way to meet a third. I grabbed a can of pop and bag of chips and asked the other guy why he wasn’t taking any. He replied that he didn’t want them. I told him that he could bring them for the person we were going to meet. He was like oh yeah and took one. Same thing happened when a guy I know told me that his job offered him free tickets to a sporting event of a team I… Read more »