This blog like many important changes in my life has arisen from a conversation with one of my children - in this case my oldest daughter who has recently made me into a grandfather. In particular, producing two wonderful grandsons.
The conversation related to my grandsons, to myself as a father, as a common-father-in-law, and as a grandfather. It was not just about the roles I play but about what also ties them together, the cultural shaping and grappling with being a male and with what being a man entails.
What does fear have to do with this? It's true, fear is a primal common denominator with all humans. But I think each sex and all genders have, and are in some aspects, unique 'flavours' and dimensions of fear that shape our other primal emotions. I think fear is a good candidate as an exploratory lens because we so willingly flee and deny its influence in constructing our personal narratives and the social-cultural constructions with which we also shape our identity.
The fear of other men and the fear related to becoming and being a man - what that entails - the expectations from myself, my social-cultural others, will be the theme, the strange attractor, for the explorations, musings, reflections and re-accounting of this strange journey through maleness, boyhood and manhood (all wrapped with dimensions of individual personhood).
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