For years I’ve wanted to form a men’s group and be in one. I did it at a Quaker Meeting in New Jersey, and it lasted for three good years. We helped save a marriage, ease a conflict with a child, figure out how to support the women in our lives rather than make them unhappy or tear them down.
I formed a men’s group when I was a reporter, sort of, under the guise of a weekly poker game. The men in the group talked openly about the challenges of being male, in between deals and clouds of cigar smoke, and if I had suggested we were a men’s group they would have all fled. There are few men’s groups, they tend not to last long. Men put almost everything ahead of talking to one another – work, family, kids, the lawn. Most men are frightened of opening up to one another, they didn’t see their fathers and their brothers and uncles do it, they don’t know how to do it.
The only mens groups that survive, according to scholars like psychiatrist and author Frank Pitman, (Man Enough: Fathers, Sons And The Search For Masculinity), are those where men truly commit to the group, attend faithfully, talk openly. Pitman has written extensively about the need for men to overcome their obsession with masculinity and start talking to each other about life, love and meaning. Women have it hard, I know, but men have been battered by changes in ideas about fatherhood and family, about the corporate rape of work in America and about what it means to be a good man. There is no consensus about that.
There was a silly faux men’s group in the 80’s, the Robert Bly hocus-pocus a lot of chatter about going naked out into the woods and beating drums, something very few men (including me) are eager or willing to do. Many more women read Bly’s books than men because they wanted to understand men better. But men never did have to get a liberation movement, unlike women. And they need one just as badly. Pitman argues that men desperately need to move beyond traditional ideas of obligation, dominance, rigidity and conflict. The awful legacy of this alleged movement – it was never real or widespread – is that most men still wince at the mention of a men’s group. Will it be touchy-feely, they ask? Are there drums? Will weird people be there?
I am happy to say that for the second time in my life, I believe I am on the verge of gathering together a men’s group in the small community of Cambridge, N.Y. I know four men who are good and loving and open and who are interested, I know two more who might be. I have been floating the idea for weeks now. My idea is that we meet weekly on a rotating basis on one another’s homes and that we commit to meeting regularly unless there is a true emergency. That we put it high on our list of priorities. That we learn how to speak to one another openly and honestly and to help one another become authentic. That we support each other.
Pitman argues that men need to talk to one another about more things than sports or business or politics or money. They need to talk about how to be a loving husband, a good father, a friend who matters, how to talk about fear of aging, death, impotence, illness and failure.
I sometimes feel that men are close to destroying the planet with their wars, violence, anger and combativeness. Without men, there would be few prisons, no arms race, no wars, no rape, no genocide, and perhaps the planet would not be so close to ruin – women were not much involved in the rampaging greed and domination that brought us all so much grief in 2008, women do better at making friends, communicating, opening up. Just look at Washington to see what men can do to a political system. Women do not seem so eager to send their sons off to die in hopeless wars as men do, if old men had to go to war there wouldn’t be any. Men need to talk to one another, just as Pitman suggests, not about politics, but about life.
The men in my group are in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. They are diverse, some went to college, some drove trucks, some are Republicans, some Democrats. I’ve worked to stay away from anyone who describes themselves as on the “left” or “right” a surefire sign of a shriveling mind. I’ve talked to each of them, and they are all becoming good friends. They all care about what it means to live meaningfully in the world, they can all laugh and love. We all struggle with various issues, how to be good father and husband, how to balance our sense of obligations and insecurities in a world rushing by us as warp speed. What does it mean to be a man, to be a good man? I have my ideas, I think they have theirs. This week I will ask each of them to help me pick a date in August where we can all meet and talk about forming a men’s group that I hope will last for years.
I am a father and a husband. I saw a 35 year marriage collapse in pain and sorrow. I work hard every day to support and love my wife rather than burden and undermine her. I have worked hard to retain my daughter’s love and trust through many changes and moves. I think being a real man is not about dominating and fighting, but learning how to love and support. This is a hard thing to do in our world, we have to be our own pioneers, our own role models. We don’t have any on TV or in politics or even in the movies.
I know it’s a long shot, but I probably don’t have another three or four decades to pull it off, I need to get going.
I am committed to being a good man, a better man, I have a lot to do, a lot to learn. I want to talk to other men about it, openly and honestly and in a supportive and loving way. Makes me nervous too, sometimes, I know how they feel. It’s important. I have one thing going for me, I am nothing if not willful and determined. Maybe I am man enough to start a men’s group.
Wish me luck.
