Lessons My Dad Taught Me About Healthy Masculinity

My dad and I didn't have a good relationship and kept things civil. But at least he wasn't an absent father figure despite having less quality time for his kids. I never understood how much weight being a parent and a responsible adult was like until I took part of his responsibility being the man of the house when he had a stroke from a vehicular accident.

On top of the emotional baggage the incident caused, I was thrust into dealing with the financial issues for the family. The family's entire existence seemed like it was dependent on this man and the pillar just collapsed on us. But I wasn't raised to cry like a baby back bitch when things went tough.

That's when I stopped going to medschool and worked more side jobs that sleeping less than 4 hours a day was a norm. It was like this until the storm passed until he got back on his feet, one anyway because the other was paralyzed permanently. But he was on forced retirement due to the injuries. I can't really ask for a better outcome when the chances of him living with intact mental faculties was slim. By defiance of what the medical experts said, he was expected to be a vegetable or dead.

Anyway, back from grasping the hard lessons this father figure told me was learning how to suck it up as a man whenever the going gets tough and measure other men based on how much responsibilities they can fulfill. Quitting is the easiest part when the responsibilities become overwhelming and it becomes easier when there's a safety net to fall back to.

My dad had a family to feed. Being lazy isn't going to put a roof on top of us. He had to abandon some dreams like being a lawyer to be practical. To be fair, it was his consequences for knocking up my mom when they were young and early on their careers but that's none of my business. This was a man who answered to his boss, went to work even when sick, and came in late in the evening tired for that small overtime pay.

Sure, he had less time for us as a kid but he made up for it by being a man and provided for us. To be mature, to be an adult, and to be a person that was worth their salt and respect meant knowing some modicum of sacrifice. I knew he wanted to go out with friends, drink, let loose, probably make out with women but these wants never happened because the guy had a strong sense of responsibility. We often clash with our ideals but we had a mutual understanding that we'll only earn each other's respect and society's respect based off on our merits.

His lesson was willingness to take shit from others by fulfilling a sense of responsibility and do away with whining if possible. He never whined. I never saw him did that. He still had some toxic masculinity sides on the edges but knew how to navigate his social network as part of the sales team.

The world will spit on you and you have to pick which fights are worth committing to. What matters is having some integrity because the types of conflicts you engage will also define how people recognize you.

The other lesson was standing up and be ready to take flak. This world is full of dangers and it only takes an existing threat in the vicinity to make anyone's safe space unsafe. What I observed from the current younger generation is that aversion for conflict when their rights have been trampled or misplacing that energy through screaming foul instead of taking active action or refocusing that energy into productive things.

I went out to buy some stuff while I was in Manila in a drug store and there was this drunk guy behind me falling in line. Give him another bottle or two and he probably be as good as wasted. It was annoying to hear him curse at the cashier for being slow and muttering profanity. The thought of just sucker punching the guy to make him shut up crossed my mind but I had no justification. He spit on the floor and whined.

I checked the security cameras and it was facing on my direction. Now I just need to have him spit on me or start something physical to get the show going. He agitated and started to make the other customers at the back feel uncomfortable. I looked behind and saw the guy was a few more inches taller but not that it mattered.

The thing about getting used to fights with opponents that have more physical advantage that you is how most would be overconfident about their size. It's their home team advantage but this doesn't count jack shit if you're only aiming for vital parts. The neck, solar plexus, eyes, groin, and liver were still soft parts and if you can take some beatings while lunging in forward to access these parts, you'll win. Anyway, nothing violent happened as the guy just needed to drink his bottle of coke and went on his merry way.

I was just damn ready for conflict especially when force is necessary. My dad taught why I need to learn how to fight, but he left me to figure out how to win so I ended up having black eyes and bruises often. I lose more fights than I can count from bullies but these were character building experiences.

Bullies don't like it when their targets fight back, they want an easy sport. Sure, I lose to big guys and big groups and get my body aching for days, get laughed at and etc, but whenever these bullies try to pick a fight I'll answer and I'll be initiating it if they we made eye contact. They know they'll win but they also know I'm going to hurt them if we both commit. There's no winning in fist fights.

You think just by beating the shit out of your opponent will make them change their mind about you? you go into a fight, expect the consequences to be extending more than the actual fight as the altercation can last for a few more days. I say, it doesn't matter if you lose and get beaten up, it's to be expected and this isn't a hero movie that you win by standing up to your bullies, it's sending a message that that Adam over will fight back if you try and he'll come for you again after it's over.

The same shit happened when a group of my female friends had rocks tossed at them by college kids on a higher floor of the building during a group pictorial. My other male friend, tall dude, went up and I knew he was going to start something and I followed up because he's going to be alone in enemy territory.

We found the guy tossing the rocks and he was about the same size as me, not threatening at all. But since my taller friend was only bad mouthing the fucker and he was silently taking it because he didn't expect dudes would come rushing when he did stupid shit. He got braver when a few of his friends came in asking what's up and I just stood there, welp, I could jump in and this could be a 2v5 or pussy out. These people don't look like they want to fight fair and I'm kinda excited to have this turn into a street fight. But it never happened because one of our female friends just diffused the situation and we just left it at that.

I see the same dude that tossed our group some rocks in the hallway but he always avoids eye contact whenever I'm thinking of readying for fights. He answers back and greets me when he's with a group of male friends though.

Standing up for yourself isn't just about trying to win fights. You will lose fights if you commit but the message gets drilled in firmly to your bullies that you won't pussy out when they want a piece of your time. At first they'll be asking you to meet outside of class but after a few days, you'll be the one making the invites until there's a mutual understanding that we just don't think fucking around with each other serves our best interest.

When I had my rotation at a psychiatric department counseling out of school youths that just got involved in a street fight, the common story they all had were parents being too busy or having an absent father figure to discipline them. But this is just my biased experience and not really meant to be backed up by study.

When I asked how much have they reflected on their actions and what responsibilities they thought they failed to do, there were poor insights. It's like these children never learned to be accountable about the prerequisites to be an adult when they are at an age expected to imitate their parents.

The weak men I see are people that abandon their responsibilities when they are needed the most. And these behaviors are traced back to their parental role models too. How modern young males seek out instant gratification and bail out at the slightest inconvenience baffles me. And yet, these people still get laid, ok.

Whenever I see domestic violence and or get involved with counseling, stories like how cheating men, irresponsible fathers, and just bad male role models come as a common theme. These are the paragons of bad male figures being promoted on the media and toxic masculinity.

I can't relate to some of these examples because I was fortunate to have lived with good male role models but I see how the slow collapse of society comes when children raised by absent father figures are on the rise and the women I can potentially date assume the worse things in men.

I'm like, lady, I'm not the one who hurt you and if you think being treated differently like those bad boys you previously dated is uncharted territory, that's not my problem. The fact that some of the potential women I can date thinks gestures of kindness are potential red flags is bizarre.

Sun Tzu's art of war taught me something about faithful relations based off of his discussion with the types of territory. If it's a territory that can easily be conquered by you and the enemy, it's not a territory worth building on. That's why easy territories aren't worth fortifying compared to a territory where the foundations you build strong can easily defended from attackers.

Someone cat called my girl on the street and I immediately got ready for an altercation, now I'm a red flag because I'm violent. Well that's great, hope she dates a policeman she can report the incident to.

Dad's lesson, protect what is yours. I would never expend some of my resources for things I don't own or claim to be my own. That's how my mom and grandmothers knew their husbands would fight for what is theirs.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.