Father's Day is hopefully a time when the culture says, 'this is our moment to look at who our men and boys are.'

The quickest way to create a boy or man who lacks compassion is to judge and shame his feelings.

The culture in which you parent, mentor, or educate boys exhorts them to be individualistic and group-oriented at once, but does not give them a tribal structure in which to accomplish both in balance. It used to be that the tribe formed a boy's character while the peer group existed primarily to test and befriend that character. Nowadays, boys' characters are often formed in the peer group. Mentors and intimate role models rarely exist to show the growing boy in any long-term and consistent way how both to serve a group and flourish as an independent self.

Our youth want less adult contact if that co ntacttreats them like boys. They want more adult contact that treats them like young men. Tired as they are of the former, they are hungry for the latter

The human community and individual people are more likely to hurt or undernourish children they think of as 'bodies' to be used. Cultures and people are more likely to raise children to be mere economic interns rather than fully developed humans if they see children as 'bodies' to be forced into certain economic and social molds.

There is no single way to educate.

Father's Day is hopefully a time when the culture says, 'this is our moment to look at who our men and boys are.'