Big Boys Don’t Cry, Part II
Reflections from the Burning House
I’ll try to explain this as simply and forthrightly as I can. Many men and boys are dominated by grief, fear, and shame. Anger is the guardian of not feeling anything else. Get behind its fierceness, and there they are, these three close relatives.
In the best situations, anger only gets activated when rationalization and intellectualization fail. Badger a man with the brittleness of his own excuses, his logical fallacies, his efforts to explain away hurtful mistakes, insensitivities, and ineptness, and he’ll begin by getting angry, even furious, before he crumbles. That is, if he can even let his guardian rest.
Don’t ever crumble. F^$& you if you make me crumble. Because when we crumble, we’re no longer men, right?
My father’s hidden shame leaked all over me as anger. Did yours? In a rare moment of vulnerability, he remembered for me being a little boy getting bullied and coming into the house to retreat. His dad, my Grandpa Verwin, the traumatized WWI regimental runner I’ve mentioned before, didn’t hug or comfort him. No, he turned him around and told him to get right back out there and fight that bully. And don’t come inside the house until you’ve won or lost.
Dad remembered how he cried, “but I went and fought the bully, and I hit him in the nose with everything I had.” He reveled in this victory. It seem to have pleased his father.
In the early 1930s when Dad was a kid, there was a lot of focus on the “diminished role” of the father in the U.S. “As he keeps the pocketbook replenished, he is regarded as having met his obligations,” opined family researcher Ernest Groves in 1928, the year my father was born. It was about then that fledgling social scientists started asserting fathers should be “more involved” in the raising of their children in U.S. society “writ large,” or perhaps, more accurately, writ “white” because people of color or marginalized people were virtually invisible in such “research.”
Consider this development alongside a massive vocational shift prior to the turn of the 20th century during which a majority of white sons no longer took on or apprenticed in the occupation of their fathers, which until then was mostly farming. Increased urbanization meant these fathers no longer walked “out” of the fields to join their families nor could they be visited there by children anymore. Instead, they were separated by their work, and moved back and forth to a factory, store, or office. Inside the sustained white patriarchy of those times, a new problem of “mother domination” emerged, and experts wanted to help these fathers reestablish themselves, especially with their sons. It was all good and well for daughters to have close access to mothers, but sons had lost contact with fatherly guidance.
The general feeling was that too much maternal-only involvement would lead to an “unbalanced” young man. This concern generated a kind of informal New Fatherhood movement with concerns about raising sons capable of competing and fighting with one another to achieve and succeed in a capitalist society. Robert L. Griswold’s 1993 well-researched and dense tome, Fatherhood in America, which I’m relying upon, includes a section on the nationally syndicated newspaper advice column, “Our Children,” helmed by respected junior high school educator and principal, Angelo Patri, who received inquiries from all over the U.S. into the early 1930s.
Among the letters Patri received were those from fathers writing urgently about sons who “would rather play with the girls than the boys” or are “looked upon as a sissy” or who should be able to “stand right up to other kids and be able to ‘sock ‘em in the nose’” because if they turn out “too polite or self-effacing,” they’d be “stepped on” for not being “tough and aggressive.” And so we see how Grandpa Verwin wasn’t so out of sync with the socialization of boys of this time when he made Dad fight the bully.
I believe this experience deeply influenced my father because it was so very rare for Grandpa Verwin to get involved in fathering his two sons anyway. I actually think Dad looked back on his dad forcing him back “into battle” as a kind of rare and precious thing.
A son needs to be groomed into the kind of man who will face his fears and fight for position in a dog-eat-dog world. This was the message to me - always - and he spoke it to be many times - “The world’s a tough place, and I’m going to get you ready for it.”
Which brings to my own 14th year on the planet, a year filled with significance regarding my developing manhood, and it’s a picture that’s not at all pretty. I can’t be certain of the exact chronology, but I’ll do my best.
My 14th birthday was in June, 1970, and at some point thereafter, Dad proposed that I could paint the trim on our brick ranch house for $3 dollars an hour. This was very good teen wages, so I was totally on board. I could sense from him that this was an opportunity to save money while teaching me about doing good work.
The big moment came on a sunny early afternoon when I heard the buzzing in a corner I was supposed to paint and saw those yellow jackets. I went inside and told Dad I couldn’t possibly paint anywhere near there because I was scared of them.
“Nonsense,” he told me, I must learn to face my fears, and he’d help me do so. He brought me back outside, connected the garden hose to a nozzle, turned it on, and handed it to me.
I was terrified as Dad began scolding me to get in close on the yellow jackets and turn the hose on and spray out their nest.
How could such an idea be successful in any way?
It wasn’t. When I finally turned the nozzle on the nest, the yellow jackets immediately began flying out toward me. I dropped the hose and ran for the hills, possibly screaming.
I’d failed. When I finally got the nerve to go back inside, Dad was disgusted.
“What the hell’s wrong with you??” he demanded. I wept with shame as he declared he’d have to finish this painting job himself.
Why? Because I was too much of a coward to face my fears. What an utter disappointment of a son.
As I now entered my last year of junior high school - 9th grade in our district - I ran into yet another test of my fragile masculinity. A boy who lived down the street named Bob was about a head taller than me, and he’d decided to bully me. I never understood why, but he didn’t seem to like me at all.
Bob was muscular and well-liked by other kids. The teacher in our music class was sadly incompetent, and Bob would pick on me severely there.
I despised even going to this class. One day, he hit me in the ear with astounding accuracy with a piece of broken chalk. It really stung and made my ear turn red.
I’d had enough. For once, I had to be a man.
“F@#$ you, Bob,” I muttered as I jumped from my school desk with much gravitas to face him.
“You think you can take me on, Walker? You got the balls, huh?”
He taunted me openly in front of the teacher who did nothing as the entire class jeered.
“Meet me by the water tower,” I challenged.
It was on.
The water tower behind the school was where all the fights between boys happened. I was so terrified, I could hardly breathe or swallow for the rest of the day. The walk there was like going to my own execution. When you’re a teen boy facing a beat-down, it’s like that. I didn’t really know how to fight.
“What the hell’s wrong with me?” I thought to myself.
Well, Bob didn’t show up. What an incredible relief. And how weird. I mean, how could he possibly be scared of skinny-me?
Days passed, and I saw him here and there. I deluded myself into thinking a kind of detente had emerged. I was sorely mistaken.
We were waiting for the bus back to our neighborhood to appear. I didn’t see him coming. He and another boy, his good friend, they snuck up on me. They grabbed me and picked me up and threw me into a bush filled with prickers.
This was so humiliating, right? I had to pull prickers out of my calves and arms. I had scratches on my face.
Finally on the bus, Bob and his buddy were laughing all the way back to our stop.
“What a pussy . . .” Bob chuckled to his friend.
Again, I’d had enough. I mean, I was supposed to stand up for myself if I’m going to be a man, right?
“I’m not as much a pussy as you, Bob,” I proclaimed, “You never showed up at the water tower.”
“I had other things to do that day, Walker. I’ll fight you anytime anywhere.”
And so it was arranged.
Bob - with his buddy as his second - came walking down the street to my house. The battle between us would happen in my own front yard.
As I peered out my parents’ bedroom window on the appointed afternoon, I saw them walking towards me. Again, this dry mouth and the problems breathing. Panic. Terror. Bob was a very big kid and strong. I was neither of those things.
How could I be so stupid? My father and grandfather’s generational script of fearless, war-ready masculinity had taken me into this helpless moment.
Bob had gloves on. Ugh. This must mean he doesn’t want to hurt his knuckles.
“You can have the first punch,” he offered as we stood facing each other.
“No thanks,” I said.
Errol Flynn, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Shane. The Lone Ranger. No thanks, I’m man enough.
He hit me in the face and knocked me down to the ground. I’d never been hit like that.
I got up and ran at him. I was able to exploit his one vulnerability - his height. I got my foot behind his calf and tripped him - into the pricker bush in our front garden!
This was a victory lasting only milliseconds.
He got up and charged me like a raging bull. His weight alone was far too much for me. He had me down on the ground in seconds and mounted over me with his knees pinning down my arms.
I don’t like to remember my sense of powerlessness back then. I couldn’t move at all.
Bob pounded my face - back and forth, hitting me with his gloved fists, protecting his knuckles, beating me in the face. I flexed, stretched, kicked. I couldn’t stop him. I could do nothing.
“Say ‘uncle’!” He shouted.
I wouldn’t. More beating.
“Say ‘uncle’!” Again.
No.
Again and again.
And then, finally, “Uncle.”
He stopped immediately. And I got up and ran into the house.
I looked at my face in the bathroom mirror. I was bleeding, but I felt worse than I looked. When Mom got home from teaching, she took one look at me and burst into tears. She said she was going to call the police. I absolutely forbade her from doing so.
The next day was really hard because I had to go to the bus stop with bruises on my face, an open read to anyone of my defeat.
Plus, I’d see Bob.
Very strangely, Bob and his friend were both nice to me. They nodded in the way boys signal equality and acceptance. I surmised that maybe Bob felt badly about beating me up. In years to come, I suspected his own dad beat up his mom on a regular basis. But I could never be sure.
From there, Bob became my good friend. It was advantageous, too; most of the girls loved him. He was very tall, muscular, and attractive. They’d start with me in order to be his girlfriend. I had countless two-week long relationships making out with great-looking girls on their way to Bob.
Bob and I became good buddies and smoked a lot of cannabis together. He never said he was sorry for giving me the worst beating of my life, and I never asked. I just wanted to fit in with him and his crowd. I wanted to be popular like Bob.
“Identification with the aggressor,” some Freudian somewhere may say. I could find no other way to be viewed “as a man” than try to be friends with this guy who thoroughly kicked my ass.
How true might this be for other guys? What is a male hero-leader to men but the guy who’s big, strong, and kind of an asshole on the way to being your friend? Am I imagining this kind of protocol? Because I’ve seen it in many tough-guy movies.
By this point, I had very little left inside to tell me I was a competent or good young man myself. I was getting more into dope - pills, acid, downers - on top of cannabis.
I really hated gym and pool class. Long-haired freaks like me were the target of the instructors. Mr. Johnstone literally socked me in the stomach and made me double-over during water polo.
But he was a leader, the basketball coach. An asshole on the way to being my friend. All I had to do was cut my hair and become a “jock.” No athletic potential here. Instead, I’d let my freak flag fly. More dope. More sedation, please.
One morning, I stood bleary-eyed as Mr. Johnstone handed out towels outside the locker room as opposed to inside, which was the routine. Eight a.m. pool class was always rough to wake up to for me, and I began drying myself off. Bob was behind me, and we were talking. I pulled my swimsuit down and continued toweling off.
I thought I was inside the locker room. A simple mistake.
Bob, pointing at me, loudly yelling: “What the hell are you doing!??”
Slow motion from there. Trying to pull up wet Speedos, and they’re tangled. Boys still inside the pool are turning around to see, pointing, and laughing. The girls aquabelle team is still setting up their evening show on the other side.
I can’t get these goddamn Speedos pulled all the way up. Some of the girls are turning around and seeing what’s happening.
Full frontal nudity before my entire class, the culmination of my 14th year.
My entire body turned beat red. Mr. Johnstone chuckled and shook his head as I ran into the locker room. Other boys were overwhelmed with amusement and derision.
By the time I made it to Mrs. Rennels’ English class at third hour, my favorite, I could only put my head down and weep. She stroked my hair. She didn’t ask me what was wrong. I think she already knew. God bless Mrs. Rennels wherever she is.
My parents minimized it all. “This too shall pass,” said Mom. Dad said, “Don’t worry about it.” I knew I’d only offered him further evidence of my male incompetence.
They were wrong, of course. Other guys brought my 9th grade blunder up to me as their own amusing memory of my trauma well into my twenties. Interestingly, this happened to me several times while standing at the urinal.
My 14th year on this planet still makes me cringe 54 years later. Strangely, or perhaps not, the adversity of it all makes me braver now, whereas it made me cower and withdraw into drugs and alcohol when I was young.
I’m still trying to be brave but in an entirely different way. I don’t seem to give a shit if anyone out there feels I might be oversharing all this. I’m telling you about my experiences on behalf of the boys and men who still must keep what they go through a secret.
All these things happened to me in one year when I was a teen boy - my father’s rejection, the yellow jackets, getting thoroughly beaten up and then making friends with the bully, and finally, accidentally dropping my drawers in front of my 9th grade class, including a bunch of girls, and having to deal with the humiliation and ridicule for years afterwards.
No wonder I’m shy about going to class reunions. Not much for me there.
The bullying I experienced really started with my dad, then Bob, and then it became part of my own inner conversation. I thought I truly sucked and struggled with wanting to die at 16 years old.
For years since then, I’ve tried to permit my own fear, grief, and shame into my awareness before my anger’s primacy. Anger comes first far too often, unfortunately, and I’ve hurt people I love - including myself - by letting it lead.
But as I’ve said, anger is often the guardian of the fear, grief, and shame for men. And it’s the only emotional expression sanctioned within these ugly ideals of “hegemonic masculinity.”
As I’ve mentioned before, this “hegemonic masculinity” is enjoying a resurgence. According to gender researchers Nicole Rosen and Stacy Nofziger, this deeply-embedded, toxic “way of men” reflects “social and physical power . . . culturally tied to wealth, race and strength . . . namely economically stable, tall and muscular, white men, [who] are better able to achieve this rigid definition of masculinity.”
How does this dominant, garbage view of “being a man” contribute to the kind of bullying I knew as a young teen that still goes on? How is it experienced by the boys who are bullied? Permit me to briefly break it down by summarizing Rosen and Nofziger’s excellent 2019 research study of 275 middle school boys from various backgrounds ethnically and socioeconomically in the United States:
Heteronormativity - Experiencing homophobic slurs, being teased based on one’s real or perceived sexual orientation, sexual behavior or gender presentation, including enduring physical assaults to their genitalia…
Physical dominance - Being choked, punched, kicked, threatened physically, being ridiculed for not reflecting “traits” of strength and aggressiveness, “acting like a victim” or being unwilling to participate in the dominance or bullying of others.
Acceptance of Violence - Feeling the need to normalize bullying violence suffered by oneself and others so as to restore and preserve the sense of being strong and brave, to recapture power after being victimized or seeing their friends victimized by shrugging off the hurt and damage, hanging tough and not acting in any way bothered.
Social Location - Physical attractiveness and strength are key attributes of ideal hegemonic masculinity. Boys who can’t ‘measure up’ are often teased and taunted due to their appearance (short, ugly, acne), religion, race or ethnicity, socioeconomic or disability status.
Rosen and Nofziger say “bullying in childhood results in a wide range of adverse physical and mental health effects. Being victims or offenders of bullying is linked to both suicide and criminal behavior . . .” They didn’t cover every boy bullied in their study, by the way - just to be included in their sample, a boy student had to report experiencing bullying at least 2–3 times over the past month.
Fifty-one percent of these boys reported moderate to severe negative effects on their lives, and an additional 8 percent felt these effects as “very severe.” Ten percent felt alienated and estranged, that is, no longer part of their school community; 23 percent felt no longer valued and respected, and 22 percent felt they could no longer count on adults at school. Many reported feeling anger or attempting to retaliate was the best way to restore a sense of being strong and brave, that is, to some degree of face-saving in hegemonic masculinity.
Anger is the guardian of fear, grief, and shame in men. Let’s leave off here by mentioning the “psychological autopsies” of men who’ve killed themselves and the stories of men who’ve tried.
Sociologists like Scourfield have suggested a “public/private split” wherein suicide becomes a means of honorably expressing masculinity publicly, while in notes left behind, they privately express “shame and rage.” In comprehensive life history interviews with 18 men who’d made serious suicide attempts, sociologists Jo Rivers and Michael Flood found all of these men had childhoods in which expressing fear, distress, sadness, or grief openly threatened their status as men. Furthermore, most (14) of these men had strategies for concealing these kinds of emotions through either anger or not expressing emotions at all because they’d be perceived as “weak.”
Anger is the guardian. . .
I’m no victim of hegemonic masculinity; I’m a survivor. I can never move completely beyond its contamination of my spirit or its shadowy, sometimes shocking effects on my wellbeing and that of others.
Yet every time I do transcend its effects on me - as in the very writing of this post itself - I know I’ve located healing not just for myself but for my father and grandfather, and possibly some other guy.
Pursuing such a quest requires an entirely different kind of bravery and independence from other men who remain stuck or lost in these toxic tropes, one I too must continually try to draw myself out of as I support the same in other men - the courage to become vulnerable to one’s own pain and suffering as a real and complex human being.
When I succeed in this deliberate practice, it helps me feel like a better man, and a better husband and father. When I don’t, I feel a disappointment. Ah, there you are again, Dad. I know you felt the same and never even got this far.
So please try to remember the boys and men who don’t yet know how to live and practice being a real human in this way because we so need them all in the world as it is right now. Thank you.
