Men, the Most Endangered of All Species

About a year and a half ago I found myself at a late summer barbecue with some friends. There was about six or seven of us gathered in a group, all men, all talking about the problems we face each day. Money and work were the big issues, but it was alarming to also hear the subtle warning signs of trouble in many of their marriages. Before long, everyone drifted off to get another drink or some food and I found myself left with a twelve or thirteen year old boy who had been sitting nearby listening to all of us talk. I didn’t know him well but I knew his name was Tom. He turned to me and said, “So Mr. R, if I want to know what is right and what is wrong, where do I go to find out? Is there a website or magazine that I can read?”

I was momentarily stunned by his question. But I managed to ask him why he wanted to know such a thing. He looked up at me and simply said, “Well, I was listening to what everyone else was talking about, and I don’t want to mess up my life like they did.” I guess it is true what they say about what comes out of the mouth of babes. Tom managed to encapsulate what has happened to many men. When we lose our sense of what is right and what is wrong, it is like a compass losing its ability to point to magnetic north. At that point, we are much more likely to lose our way in life and make very costly mistakes.

The statistics are not very good. Over the last 35 plus years or so, men have been quietly receding from their positions of  responsibility and effectiveness in our society. Divorce rates still hover around 50%. Currently, only a third of the children in the United States will reach age 18 with both biological parents living at home. Pornography alone, by some estimates, is involving up to 70% of our men (of all ages) and as a result, many are becoming addicted to it. Financially, personal bankruptcy filings have consistently topped well over 1 million filings each year, for at least the last decade. The numbers also tell us that close to 80% of working men find little satisfaction in their jobs and in a related fact, according to 2003 statistics, fewer and fewer males are attending college. On average, less than 43% of the student body at American institutions are male. Beyond these, there are many more indicators that tell us that the American male is in trouble.

What has happened? Since before our country was even founded, men always played a key role in the wars that we fought to survive, in the families that we struggled to raise and in creating laws in the halls of Congress and local governments. Men have always been pillars of strength in our communities and families. To be sure, this still is the case in many places, but at the same time an insidious trend has emerged that is neutralizing the positive contributions that men could be making to society.

I have spent the last 30 plus years working as a CPA in public practice and have counseled many people in business, both workers as well as owners. As we know, many men have gone off to make their mark in the world. But too many of us have had a rough time of it. We have seen the business deals that have not worked out well, jobs that have turned out to be a dead end or worse, and divorces that have cost us everything, including tremendous emotional pain.

You might say that men have, in a sense, been at war with family members, business competitors, with customers that refuse to pay, with co-workers and employers that have hurt them, and to relieve the stress and depression, many have fallen prey to expensive addictions of all kinds. On the other side of the coin, we have many men who have succeeded in making a great deal of money but too many have gone off to spend it in ways that have put them and those closest to them at great risk. Monetary success notwithstanding, I believe that many of these men have had enough and are quietly looking for a better solution.

Where do men go for answers and help when they encounter serious problems? If you think about it, it seems that men are not supposed to have big problems. When they encounter personal challenges, they are expected to do things like “tough it out,” and not complain. If a man needs help with a personal problem, people usually don’t hear about it until he collapses, the business fails, or the affair becomes public knowledge and so on. At that point, the people involved have to piece their lives back together if possible, a very painful way of dealing with the issues.

Going a bit further, how do we answer a boy like Tom who wanted to know, what is right and wrong in a given situation? We think that just because we get older we automatically get wiser, and that perhaps is what we expect would happen to Tom. He will learn as he gets older. I have found that assumption does not necessarily hold true for many people. However, it does seem that as we get older, we become more reluctant to ask for help. I believe that there are many men who are privately suffering with the consequences of their life mistakes and do not know where or how to seek relief. They are embarrassed, hurt and wounded. As a consequence, many feel like failures and do not know what to do to make things right.

When society realizes that a certain species is endangered, it moves to do what it can to protect it and its habitat. It puts the public on notice that we need to do all that we can to help repair and heal any of the affected members so that they can again be healthy, grow and prosper. In a similar manner, our men need help reconnecting with the core values that have made our nation, our families, our businesses and our communities great. They also need to rediscover these core values of right and wrong through interaction with other men in their communities.

But to be successful in this, we will have to go back to the ultimate source of truth, which is God Himself. This is how we learned right from wrong as children and now it is time to revisit the basics. In this manner we can discover truth as we help each other apply it in our daily lives. The application is critical because if we do not do what is right, the “Toms” of our world will only learn about the theory concerning what is right and wrong. He will not learn how to do it because there will be no one to show him how.

In the Fall of 2006, a new group for men will begin in the Waterbury, Connecticut area. We will gather during the week to relearn the core principles that we learned as children from our parents, educators and religious instructors. Concepts such as God, honesty, fairness, loyalty, love, respect and other similar virtues will be discussed as well as how to apply these thoughts in real life situations. If you are interested in more information on the meetings, please contact me at ramunni@comcast.net or at (860) 824-0781.