What a man, what a man

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

—Umberto Eco

They are at again. The neighbors across the street. I can hear the house door fling open and I hear it again as it slams shut. The words are muffled through my noise cancelling headphones, meaning that whatever the fight is about, the whole neighborhood can hear it.

All I can make out is a litany of profanity. Not a coherent thought but more of a stream of every swear word imaginable. I move from my desk in the living and kneel on the couch, peaking through the window fan. I feel like Jimmy Stewart in Rearwindow, spying and trying to not get caught. On the porch stands the family patriarch. He’s holding a drink in one hand and flailing the other around, emphasizing each profane sentence. He turns toward the screen door and beings to deliver a sermon.

“Not in my house! You’ll show me respect! That’s right, get out!”

The screen door opens and a woman I’ve never seen before heads toward her silver SUV. She is carrying a baby. My neighbor turns and continues his ranting but doesn’t leave the porch. There is a slight pause in his screaming. He throws back his drink, probably because his throat is sore from all of the yelling, and then he picks up as if he never had stopped in the first place. The woman puts her baby in the carseat and gets behind the wheel. In another minute she pulls away, flipping the bird as she goes. This sets off my neighbor. He goes into another tirade again turning toward the screen door. As one swear word follows another the door opens and the wife steps out. She says something to my neighbor, something I can’t hear but I’m sure it isn’t “I like your hair” and heads toward their van.

This sets him off into the stratosphere.

In a single, fluid motion he rips off his shirt. He begins to whip it around his head, looking like a flagman at a NASCAR race.

“I’ll kill you,” he screams. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, bitch!”

She doesn’t look back. The mother of his two children just looks forward and gets in the driver’s seat. I hear the van turn over, muting the swearing for a moment. My neighbor inches closer to the car swinging his shirt over his head.

After another minute she is gone down the street and finally disappears out of view.

I would breathe a sigh of relief from my fan-covered perch on the couch, however, I know inside are their two boys. One of them is in high school, and is usually the secondary target of my neighbor’s rage. The other boy, the younger one, is in the same grade as my twins. I can only imagine what they are feeling as they hear and watch their father go off.

After looking down the street for a bit, my neighbor turns and heads inside. The street goes silent for the rest of the day.

I wish I could say that this is a rare occurrence, but for the last few years these outbursts and threats have become more frequent. Like a metrologist watching carefully for strong storm cells, I’ve learned to recognize the warning signs of an impending fight. Usually it starts with my neighbor out on the porch or in the driveway or on the street with friends and a beer in his hand. One drink turns into two, two becomes four, four becomes a 12-pack and then the tempers starts to rise. I don’t know what really kicks off the fights. Maybe it is the wife complaining about all the drinking. Maybe it’s about food or housework. I know when he chases down his oldest boy, who is no stranger to the verbal lashings, it is usually because the son has said something back and is scrambling to get out of the house for the night.

When the tirades happen we bring our children in, pull them out of the storm and into the warm shelter of our home. It doesn’t prevent them from hearing the harsh words and the slamming of doors. However, it gives me a sense of relief that they are with me and my wife and out of reach of a lunatic.

I can’t imagine what brings a man to such low levels. As a husband and father, I can’t see myself ever getting to that plateau of rage. A father, a husband is supposed to be a protector and provider. He is supposed to fight off the Bogeyman not become him. A husband is supposed to wipe away his wife’s tears not cause them.

This is what I was taught as a child.

This is what I teach to my children.

The effects of emotional and verbal abuse are rearing their ugly heads already. I hear them through my children. Our house has become the neighborhood playground where all the kids on the block come to hang out. Sometimes that includes the two boys across the street. One night after a long day of playing, my son came in with a reserved look on his face. This isn’t normal.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. He shook his head. A little time passed. I logged off my work computer for the night and told the kids to start getting ready for bed. I stopped my son. The worrisome look was still on his face.

“You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

After a minute he did. The younger boy across the street had joined the rest of the neighborhood kids, but instead of playing he started to make fun of everyone. That turned into name calling. Name calling turned into verbal fighting, and fighting turned into hurt feelings and people heading home.

“I don’t get why he has to be so mean,” my son says.

I hug him and rub his hair. “You have to remember what kind of home he comes from,” I say. “That doesn’t mean it’s OK to do what he does, but he is just following the example he sees.”

We talk for a little while. The longer we talk the more the worry falls away, replaced with understanding. He’s applying the example he sees.

I’m not trying to pat myself on the back. I can lose my temper, too. But I never go to the extreme of being a tyrant. It isn’t my way or literally the highway. My punishments don’t include running you off down the street or swinging my shirt around my head like I’m at a college kegger. When my wife and I are at odds no one knows it because we resolve the issue inside our house instead of on stage in the street. It may take a day or two sometimes, but we always find a way to work things out.

The history of man’s image is complicated. Hemingway, in his writing and in life, painted a man as an adventurer, a he-man. A man is to go off to war and fight in battles. He should be on the frontlines of history and become part of it. A man is one that challenges nature by hunting the king of the jungle or the exotic.

Hollywood agreed with Hemingway, and still does today. Actors like John Wayne taught that the cowboy was tough, his and only his opinion held any weight. His movies taught young boys that being a gunfighter was better than being a diplomat. That violence was a great way to settle matters. Today actors like Jason Statham carry the torch of the tough guy archetype. Boys are taught to seek revenge when they’ve been wronged. To charge in headfirst toward danger. That being a hero is means that you aren’t afraid. And that a man never, never cries.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Jason Statham and I grew up on John Wayne movies thanks to my mom, but without an adult to set a correct example it can be hard for a young man to truly know what his potential is.

My father was neither the loud nor the “manly” type of man. But his example was great. He loved my mom and showed his affection for her unequivocally. I never heard him say a truly mean word to her, even when they were fighting. My dad taught me that cleaning the house, sewing a shirt or cooking dinner was not “helping my mother out” but was being part of team and being one of the heads of the household. Sure he made his mistakes, like overspending which would blow out the family’s monthly budget or max out their credit cards. But he owned up to his mistakes and worked harder to fix them and then committed to staying out of bad habits. Sometimes he succeeded in the latter, sometimes he didn’t, but he always strived to make my mother happy and provide for his family.

My dad taught me that a father should be engaged in his children’s lives. He was at every orchestra concert I played in during high school. He tried to make it to my weekly wrestling meets, and never missed a home tournament. And he hated wrestling. He hated sitting on the bleachers all day, eating stale popcorn with the odor of a locker room permeating his nostrils. But he was there to support me.

He cried when he was sad. He faced adversity but also taught us that it was OK to be afraid as you did so. He showed his love for me when I left to serve a two-year mission in a far away country. He wrote me nearly every day, talking about his work life and what was going on at home. Sometimes he told me what he was studying in his scriptures and about the church leadership meetings he was attending. And he always ended his letters with “I love you”.

My dad never came out and said, “Son, this is how a man acts. This is how a husband keeps his wife happy.” He showed me how a man acts, how a husband keeps his wife happy. He changed mine and my brother’s diapers when we were babies, and not just the ones full of pee. And while I don’t remember those events, hearing the stories helped me want to be a hands-on dad myself. I try to be a cheerleader, just like him. Thanks to the COVID pandemic I’ve had to become an elementary school teacher. There’s been many times where I’ve had to reach back into the cobwebs of memory to dig out old math solutions and science terms. I’ve spent some long nights working with my son on his History Day project, and then sitting in the auditorium as he’s being presented with an award for best historical paper in the state.

I know I am speaking of my son a lot here, but my daughters receive equal attention. For me, however, I know my example carries extra weight with my boy. He’s looking up to me the same way I looked up to my dad. My actions, even the ones I’m not always aware of, are so important. They are always being watched. They are always teaching.

I know I don’t determine fully what type of man my son will become in the future. But I do know that my example goes a very long way in shaping him into that not-so-distance person he will be.

What is a man? He can be tough and he can be rough, yet a man should also be sensitive, loving, supportive and above all a good example. That’s not always easy, but it is the manly thing to do.