A strong man - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

Of course, raising a child of any stripe is a challenge, but I remember when we had Tallulah (Jess and I did not find out the gender of either kid ahead of time) thinking I had my work cut out for me as the father of a girl I had no shot at understanding.

 

I would casually say that Jess would have to take the lead on certain parenting milestones, as she stood to understand our young daughter better than I ever could. But, in the years since Cooper was born, I realized that my greatest challenge may be raising a boy in the 2020s.

 

Masculine self-help, or whatever you want to call it, isn’t new. It existed before I was born when women dared to stand up for themselves and feminism was born. Men, of course, had a strong response to that - not always positive. 

 

Then, when I was young and coming of age, there were books like The Game and films like Fight Club that introduced to a younger generation the concept that, in a “softening” world, men were being stripped, bit by bit, of their masculinity and they needed to reclaim it.

 

Much has been written about the shift in thinking that took place as I was in my teens. In the mid-1990s, things were relatively harmonious. The biggest bands in the world like Nirvana and Pearl Jam were bucking the idea of jocks and bullies and taking political stances in defence of women’s rights, respect for the gay community and other liberal-leaning initiatives. This aspect of life in the 1990s is often lost in a sea of crunchy guitar riffs and heavy flannel shirts, but my friends and I would listen to Alanis Morissette just as we would Foo Fighters or Oasis - and we didn’t risk being called “gay” because of it.

 

Things shifted in the late 1990s. We had Woodstock 99 and that felt like it took place on a different planet than Woodstock 94, just five years earlier. The WWE Attitude Era was in full swing and artists like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock were espousing rage and violence, mostly aimed at young, white men.

 

Now, young men are being fed material that comes from the manosphere. On social media and the internet, influencers are encouraging things like online harassment of women, violence against women and more, all in the name of making men great again. Under the guise of this kind of thinking, more and more young men are being radicalized into mostly extreme right-wing ideals with plans on a patriarchal culture. It’s no longer about hoping young men don’t find the wrong corner of the internet; they’re being actively recruited.

 

Weighing heavily upon my head is my goal of raising a compassionate, sensitive, caring young man in an increasingly barbaric world. How do I teach him that a strong man lifts others up and doesn’t tear them down? That true strength lies in punching up, not down? All this at a time when, as Somebody Somewhere’s Jeff Hiller said in his Emmy speech, “compassion is seen as a weakness.”

 

Watching Adolescence win a number of Emmy Awards on Sunday, it just hit home that our young men are in danger; they’re being preyed upon and they need help, and, because of this, our young women are in danger too. How do I raise a daughter in a world of men who, in many cases, do not have her best interests at heart? How do I remain steadfast in my support of her, telling her that she can be anything she wants to be in this world (current goal: doctor), knowing that forces out there are moving against her, trying to limit what she can accomplish and keep her under the thumb?

 

A parent can only do so much before releasing their child out into the world. And, in 2025 and beyond, that’s a scary proposition.