Redefining manhood beyond societal myths

Saddened by how his life was becoming, gloom sucked all the colour from the surroundings leaving them greyscale. The noise of the crowds was hushed into a funeral chant. The fresh breeze became tainted by an imaginary stench. Fast and slow-moving cars vanished from his sight. Every step he took sapped energy from his fatigued mind.

What other lads had told him about the life of a man was an illusion. Everyone seemed to use the same script but for him, it didn’t seem to work. Each moment he tried to use it; he would be depressed. On each passing day, stereotypes would fly across his brain cells mis-wiring them for a life of mental anguish. He seemed to be the only opposing current among his peers.

Upon rewriting the script of his life according to the divine plan, a web of deception unwound. The dense sheath of misinformation evaporated. He began to see himself as a normal human being. The umbilical cord that held him to a socially constructed script of manhood dropped. The bond he had made with mental anguish was replaced by a wave of indescribable peace. A fresh look on himself released the mental chains that bound him. He now built his life on what mattered to him. He was given “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3).

Such is the life of many young men. As they transition to manhood, they find themselves faced with a lot of expectations of what a man is. Most of them are socially constructed and sometimes divorced from the reality of each young man’s life. Some are myths that destroy the SUN formula of real manhood: Steadiness, Uniqueness, Nobleness. When life does not become like what society expects, steadiness is lost, uniqueness is spoilt, and nobleness is forgotten.

Socially constructed myths have destructive effects on many young men’s lives. Their frequency, intensity, and impact cannot be ignored. Myths disregard important principles of life. They overlook the uniqueness of each person and tend to cause men to forget that they are noble. I will use my childless journey to illustrate these life principles.

Life is unpredictable

While myths assume an unbending intercity highway, life is a winding route connecting villages. In myths, men use bridges, but in life men swim across crocodile-infested rivers. In the former, men sit in first-class vehicles, but in the latter, barefooted men walk past thorn pathways. Life is truly unpredictable.

In my highway as a man, I had a myth that every married man will be a father. My wife and I gave names to our two unborn children. One was going to be a boy and the other a girl. In our dreams, these were going to be raised well. However, life does not speak as myths do. It is unpredictable. I now know from the book of experience that you can be a real man without a child. The story above describes my life before realising the destructive nature of myths and after I was liberated from the deceptiveness of the societal script of manhood.

People are not the same

Sometimes society wants people to be the same and can pressure you into looking like somebody you’re not. Somebody told me that I can’t be a pastor and fail to have children. They could not come to terms with having a minister of the gospel without children. In short, they were saying every pastor must have a child. This is against the principle of diversity.

There are expectations that each man must fulfil. We must admit that we are not the same. Jewish literature correctly put this idea: “A person can mint many coins using one mould, and all of them are similar, one to the other. But the King of Kings, the Holy One Blessed be He, mints each person in the mould of the first man, and none of them are similar to his friend. And for this reason, every person must say, ‘for my sake the world was created.'”

Dignity is not similarity

In my language, greetings are followed by asking about the welfare of children. It is generally expected that every married man must have children hence that question. You can be a dignified man without what other men have. Not having children has not reduced my worth. I must not look like others to be dignified. This is not culturally acceptable in a pronatalist society.

Society sees a childless man as deficient because he becomes the dearth of his generational growth. However, one must find their completeness in creating a unique self. Jody Day emphasised that, “We are massively going against the grain of our culture by daring to give birth to ourselves anew as a way to recover from our childlessness.” In your unique situation, find ways of crafting a new identity. Remind yourself that dignity is not similarity.