Over the past several years, it’s been an honor to hang with a group of very special men in a program called New Adam. It’s a weekend workshop for men in Franklin, Tenn. And occasionally in Chicago. It is grass roots. It will never be called Tostitos New Adam. There are no T-shirts or brand logo. Everybody pays his own way, even the program leaders.
Over the past several years, it’s been an honor to hang with a group of very special men in a program called New Adam. It’s a weekend workshop for men in Franklin, Tenn. And occasionally in Chicago. It is grass roots. It will never be called Tostitos New Adam. There are no T-shirts or brand logo. Everybody pays his own way, even the program leaders.
Now, I’m not allowed to tell you much about it. Yep, one of those “show up and trust us” kinda things. But I can tell you that it’s experiential. And personal. And powerful. It will make you hungry, literally and figuratively. It will teach you how isolated you are, and how that’s a direct consequence of how your behavior isolates. It will take you apart. And then put you back together.
I can tell you that one of the lectures is titled “Training Your Penis.” Laugh if you want, but modern men tend to be tragically disembodied. Meaning, they don’t “live” in their own bodies. They carry their physical forms around like so much luggage, but it’s not really part of them. The lecturer points a finger and thrusts it forward: “Men, it’s your job to penetrate the world.” And then he talks about the responsibility of owning and managing the power this implies. He talks about the damage that is done when men are irresponsible, and penetrate the world with reckless selfishness or violence. Reckless selfishness is violence, come to think of it.
One by one the participants take their turn, standing before the skillful leaders and the support of men. One by one they tell their story. And New Adam chops them down like trees. And the men fall — often literally. To their knees, or crumpled in a ball on the floor. They suck carpet. They weep.
And they are nurtured. Nurtured with truth — often unflattering truth. Now, for most men, the experience of nurture comes at the hands of women. Being nurtured by men is a new experience. The participants often appear dazed and astonished.
The men rise from the carpet. And they are taller.
I notice something about these men. It seems like, with very few exceptions, there is one wound they have in common: The Father Wound.
Absent fathers. Angry, critical fathers. Fathers who regularly held their families hostage with moods. In too many cases, physically threatening, aggressive and/or abusive fathers. Fathers who raged, degraded and hit their sons. Maybe their daughters, too.
When the individual men step forward to do their work at New Adam, it’s unusual for the work not to include a Father Wound. In one way or another, these adult men suddenly manifest frightened, angry, confused boys who rail, “Where was the loving, admiring, encouraging, teaching and advocating father in my life?”
My short answer is, I don’t know. But I know I’m spending my life trying to change that. I know my most passionate work in the world is reminding fathers they are invaluable, powerful and necessary. That in their hands is the power to shape and form their sons and daughters into happy, competent human beings … and the power to crush them. To leave them with an emptiness, a psychic adhesion they might overcome but never entirely heal.
This world needs competent fathers. Always. Every day. So, whatever love and gratitude you receive on this Father’s Day – mazel tov! But let this day also remind you. Sober you. Don’t ever let yourself forget the power you wield.
Admire your children. Let them see it, feel it, hear it.
Don’t ever stop touching your children. Pat their cheeks. Tousle their hair. Wrestle. Hug. Make like a primate on a Jane Goodall documentary.
Don’t hit your children. It’s ridiculous, unnecessary and hurtful. You’re smarter and more powerful than that.
Don’t. Ever. Call your children names.
Account to them. When you’re an impatient, grouchy, irritable jerk – apologize. Real men are accountable for their jerky behavior.
From time to time, it is good for children to hear your thunder. Thunder is not rage. Rage is an out-of-control ego-reaction. That’s unmanly. Beneath you. Thunder is deliberate and strategic. Thunder picks its time and place and issue. I raise my voice to my sons about once a year. It always gets their attention, precisely because it’s so infrequent.
Children are messy and loud. So get over yourself.
Love their mother. Advocate for their mother. Touch their mother. Be a noble, beneficent king. Happy Father’s Day.
Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of “Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing” (Stephens Press). Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.