Honest Eyes Full of Tears: Looking Back at How Toxic Masculinity Might Have Shaped My Boys

My dad was a bastard.

A vicious bastard.

A friend to very few people.

A man’s man.

An alcoholic.

A mistreater of people.

Everything I vowed, very young, I would never be.

When my kids were born, I was sure it was going to be different for them.

And it was.

No violent rages.

No smashing the place up because I was pissed.

I never once put a hand on their mother

Love and respect reigned supreme in our house.

So how did I end up realising I wasn’t as different from him as I thought?

Pull up a chair and let’s talk about it.

I was let go from the care of the local council at age sixteen, in 1984.From boarding school in Devon to the streets of London via Paddington Station in one morning.

A few years of chaos and anarchy later, and all of a sudden I was a dad.

My whole world changed that day.

I’d vowed never to bully my kids like my dad had bullied me, and his dad had bullied him.

But decades later I’ve realised that bullying isn’t just physical.

It isn’t just mental.

It’s cultural too.

Making a boy feel small doesn’t begin and end with a slap or an insult.

It lives in the culture we grow up in.

I just wanted the best for my kids.

I wanted them to be like me.

Give a firm handshake.

Look people in the eye.

Don’t let anyone mug you off.

Be nice.

Be sincere.

Be honest.

Be a man.

But somewhere along the way I lost something.

Without knowing it, those good intentions got tangled up with something else.

Be tough.

Be hard.

Give as good as you get.

Stop crying.

Oh, someone said something you didn’t like? Well boo-fucking-hoo.

That’s how I ended up shouting at a little boy for crying at a dead dog in a film.

Me and Ben were watching a movie about something or other when a dog meets its end. Ben cried his eyes out, and I told him off for it. I shouted at him for being a nancy boy, for being a baby. I told him big boys don’t cry, and as a man he had to keep feelings like that to himself. I told him off for showing his emotions.

He hated being called a nancy. Of course he did. He was just a kid who felt sad.

Instead of being comforted, he got a lecture.

It was something I’d had drummed into me over a lifetime of violence and being in council care.

Pull ya socks up. Be quiet. Grin and bear it.

Never let yourself look vulnerable.

Absolutely never, ever weak.

Even when his mum challenged me, I brushed it off. I told her she didn’t understand. I said that wasn’t how we behaved where we came from.

And Ben heard all of it.

I even told him he had no idea what my dad would have done to him if he’d acted that way in front of him.

And so that’s how I rolled on.

Time after time.

Year after year. The same old script playing on repeat.

I honestly thought I was doing the right thing.

I thought I was preparing him for the real world.

It took decades for me to see it clearly.

When I wrote my first book and the emotions finally came gushing out of me, I realised something painful.

I’d been wrong all along.

Not cruel on purpose.

Not violent like my dad.

But still wrong.

Years later Ben told me something that hurt to hear, but needed to be said. He said he was always frightened of telling me his feelings. He said he never felt safe bringing emotions to me because he knew what reaction he’d get.

That hit harder than any insult ever could.

The other night we talked about it properly for the first time. I apologised to him for that day at the film, and for all the days like it. I tried to explain where it had come from, the way I’d been raised, the things I’d grown up believing.

He listened.

Then he told me, honestly, that sometimes it sounded more like an excuse than an apology.

And he was right.

Saying sorry isn’t just about explaining yourself.

It’s about owning what you did.

Looking back now with hindsight, it’s all too easy to point out the things we do wrong as dads, and as all honest dads know there will be thousands of them.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do better.

These days I’m always at it – crying, that is. I cry when I’m upset. When I’m happy.

Sometimes even when I realise it’s not Saturday like I’d dreamed it was just before waking up on a rainy Monday morning.

And I’m not ashamed of that anymore.

I have a couple of things for you to take away with you, if you want.

Firstly, we all learn lessons and pass them on according to the environment we’re in at any given point in time. Most of us are just doing the best we can with the tools we were handed.

Secondly, we are not all built the same. We’re not robots, and we shouldn’t try to be.

I’ll never teach my grandkids any of what I told my own kids.

That cycle stops with me.

Today’s attitude of “better out than in” is spot on. Men talking to each other, or to their partners, or mates, about feelings is starting to save thousands of lives. And that can only be a good thing. I’ll encourage that as much as I can.

I’m not sharing any of this to be moral or to tell anyone how to live. I’m just telling you what I think, what I’ve learned the hard way.

You decide for yourself.

And like a great man once said:

“Perhaps the moral of the story is stop looking for morals in stories. If you want a message go down the fucking post office".