Enlightened Masculinity’s Role in Fatherhood?

by Yitz Miller

Enlightened Masculinity’s role in Fatherhood?

Something shifted a year ago.  After nearly 20 years of “men’s work” shepherded me through divorce, a career change and the dissolution of it, personal and financial tragedy, relocation to Boston, 3 years of dating for the first time in my life, and single-fathering my son through all of it…a critical neuropathway in my “Enlightened Masculinity” clicked into place.

Upon his death in 2021, the New York Times described “Iron John”[2] author Robert Bly as the “Poet who Gave Rise to ‘the expressive men’s movement’[3], making the case that American men had grown soft and feminized.”[4]  That book, together with—among other things—author David Deida,[5] plus 3 years of training to become certified as a Tantra Educator, had long-since inspired me to “come out of the closet as a straight, white, male” as my Northern-California-raised psyche declared independence from the labyrinth of male shame Robert Bly describes…induced by well-intentioned commitments to feminism and gender equality.

But rewiring this particular neuropathway would take another 10 years, including 3 devastating relationships with women who I would later come to understand as gaslighting narcissists who mimicked my parents in ways I didn’t even comprehend was problematic.

After a few-month, late-2023 relationship with a delightful (though ultimately incompatible) woman proved to me that—“Yes, my 23-year 1^st marriage wasn’t a delusion and I do know how to love spectacularly,”—I read Bryan Reeves “Choose her Every Day (or Leave her).”[6]  Though (self-admittedly) far less traveled on the personal development journey than icons like David Deida, Reeve’s highly personal book was “the right book at the right moment” for me, as my deeper brain grasped the concept of the Enlightened masculine providing a rational and safe (=embracing and truly non-judgmental) container within which the emotional feminine can dance freely and non-rationally (my words and understanding of some things in Reeves’ book).

My dating life changed almost immediately.  I rewrote my online dating profile and got some new headshots.  Although I’ve never placed a lot of priority on the age of the women I date, it stood starkly that the age range of the women who were responding dropped by close to 10 years, while the emotional maturity (in many cases) rose.

Although I look forward to exploring the above further with all of you as I begin to shepherd MenLiving’s support programs around Intimate Relationships, dating and relationships are not actually the subject of this blog post.

As many of you know, I was called to shepherd MenLiving’s support programs around Fatherhood.  I find myself fascinated by the role of Enlightened Masculinity in Fatherhood—and that much more fascinated by the seeming lack of literature therein.[7]

I don’t know why I had the confidence early in my life that I’d be a good dad.  In retrospect, it certainly didn’t come from having a good role model.  To this day I remember a professional mentor of mine telling me his philosophy of fatherhood—“Let them break their wrists, make sure they don’t break their necks.”  It was during my years as a congregational rabbi that Wendy Mogel’s “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee”[8] was published and became a best-seller in and out of the Jewish community.

Doesn’t “Let them break their wrists…” sound an awful lot like “provide a rational and safe container in which the [child] can dance freely and non-rationally”?  Is it so different a concept than when young men protected the village so that fathers and sons could dance around the fire?

Many—like Reeves—justifiably tout (and market) the effect embracing one’s Enlightened Masculine has on intimate relationships.  “The Inspiring Story of How I Met my Life Partner (CSI Miami star) Silvy Khoucasian” is an effective (and genuine) sales pitch to most heterosexual guys.  I feel similarly about being with my partner, Monica.

It may not be as “sexy” a pitch, but don’t those same qualities that create better lovers make us better fathers?  This Thursday and next…as I lead two ML Fatherhood Full Houses (noon CDT, https://menliving.org/events-calendar/category/Fathers/list/), I will invite us to explore the role of Enlightened Masculinity in our own Fatherhood.

I look forward to the conversation.  I hope you’ll join me.

-Yitz

https://wickedawesomeman.com/

https://menliving.org/deep-divers/

 

 

[1] The standard and critical caveat that “masculinity” is in no way synonymous with male, with each of us embodying masculine and feminine.  See, e.g., David Deida “The Play of Masculine and Feminine” https://deida.info/product/the-play-of-masculine-and-feminine/

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/122600.Iron_John

[3] https://www.robertbly.com/index.html

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/books/robert-bly-dead.html

[5] See, e.g., “Intimate Communion” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32884.Intimate_Communion), “Blue Truth” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182693.Blue_Truth), and “The Enlightened Sex Manual” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1620651.The_Enlightened_Sex_Manual).

[6] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56889844-choose-her-every-day-or-leave-her

[7] E.g., in preparation for this blog post and these upcoming weeks’ ML Fatherhood sessions I Googled “Enlightened Masculinity and Fatherhood” and “Sacred Masculine and Fatherhood.”  Nearly all the results were on “Fathers and Sons,” “Raising sons to be Enlightened Men,” and “How Enlightened Husbands support their children’s mothers.”  Other than the “Fathers and Sons” results, nearly all were written by women.

[8] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/537661.The_Blessing_of_a_Skinned_Knee