The Gap Between Ideal and Reality with Jordan Ritter Conn

you kind of get access to hidden knowledge or experiences that you don't remember you had as your boy experiences those things you kind of get to experience them through him yeah I I think you know to your point there there's just something I mean being able to empathize with another person is just enormously helpful and it is just a fact that uh certain experiences are kind of uh unique to your sex or your gender and and certain experiences like when you can have some guidance from someone

who knows what that is like there's going to be something about that that that is enormously helpful to you welcome back to Raising Men I'm your host Shawn Dawson now we often talk on this show about the missing roadmap from modern manhood the fact that our sons are growing up in a world that sends them loud often contradictory messages about what it means to be a man but today's guest has maybe a slightly different point of view which I'm really eager to get into Jordan Ritter Con

is a senior staff writer at the Ringer and he's an acclaimed author known for his deep immersion journalism for his latest book American men Jordan spent five years almost living alongside four different very different men capturing the searing intimacy of their lives their failures and their triumphs now he kind of argues that these men have gotten the message of what it means to be a man loud and clear but the difficulty arises when they're confronted with the ways that

they don't feel like they're living up to the ideal that they're holding in their own heads and the result this book is I think a result a a result of genuine intimate storytelling and like most stories it gets to the truth in a way that data and statistics can't Jordan thank you so much for joining us and welcome to Raising Men thank you so much for having me I'm I'm so thrilled to be here Sean so now

how did you decide to embark on this journey this was five years ago and I I mean I think five years ago the vision of you know doing something on masculinity was most people if you told that to they would think that you're on a different journey than you actually ended up on so how did you decide to do this and and how do you feel about it yeah um so you know I I have always had going back to you know when I was a kid always had very close relationships with other boys and

and with men in in my adulthood um the kind of friendships that we're often told that boys and men don't have um or or can't can't develop friendships that are based on you know real trust and intimacy really sharing things vulnerably um and uh and you know that that kind of carried over into my journalism once I became a journalist I kind of focused on um like you said kind of like immersive storytelling like really digging deep into into people's lives and

you know a lot of my background is in sports and so if you're in sports journalism you spend a lot of time talking to men and and in the kind of journalism that I've done it's a lot of time talking to men about things that we're so often told that men don't really want to share talking with them about their insecurities talking with them about their failures talking with them about you know traumas and and so you know a few years ago and at this point um it's been

it's now been six years since I really kind of embarked on on beginning this book uh just cause some some time has passed since I finished it now um I was I was just thinking like there's starting to be these conversations around around men about you'd see these headlines about like the first rumblings of headlines about male loneliness and in kind of the the late 20 like 2018 1920 um you'd see the first rumblings of headlines about men kind of sometimes not carrying their emotional weight

I I guess in in relationships you start hearing like terms like emotional labor start start kind of being introduced into the the way that we talk culturally um you start to hear things about men's unwillingness to um you know seek professional help when when they're going through things um and and to uh you know to open open up let people into their lives and I just had the thought of like you know I've spent a lot of my personal life and now a lot of my professional life

talking to men about these very things um I I feel like I've had experiences that have LED me to think that men are willing to open up are willing to kind of let people in do want to um kind of do some of this work that we're so often told that they don't and so I I thought like if I could cast a wide net find a few guys whose stories are so different from one another but who could add up to something kind of a larger picture um outside of just their individual stories that I could

I could have something I I I could have a book that people might be really interested in and and drawn to um certainly when when I started this process the conversation around this stuff was very different than than it is now the conversation has gotten louder and louder and louder over the course of those 5 6 years but I felt even back then like there would be a hunger for something like this yeah I think you're 100% right and I think you I think you've proven um your point there I

one of the things that really struck me in in hearing um you talk about this

is that there is this conception that men are not willing to talk about their feelings and you started this endeavor with just totally rejecting that and when I heard you talking about that it it occurred to me I really I I realized yeah the deal isn't that men don't want to open up and talk about that stuff they're and and nor is it the case that they're not capable of talking about it it's that they do not have safe spaces in which it's possible to talk about it without being judged

without having maybe serious social repercussions or that sort of thing what do you think about yeah give me a response to that yeah um you know I I do think I think that the real key is you a couple things we um need to feel like the the other person is genuinely curious um need to feel like the other person really wants to know um and and so that often means we need to be asked things pretty directly I mean we we need to be given like kind of a permission structure for

for opening up because we are we do kind of inherit these messages um that that's showing um any any kind of vulnerability or openness is is showing weakness um and and you know to to be honest with you we our culture often associates any sense of weakness with femininity and our culture as men we we are we learn these really lessons that kind of harm us all that that teach us to kind of reject femininity from the time we're very very young you know but I

I think that we need to to really be invited in to to to these kind of conversations and and be given given that kind of direct permission to open up but then also I do think we need a sense that and and this is what I could offer to these guys um like you said that there's a fear of being judged um and and what I could offer to to these guys who I write about in this book is like I'm I really wanna know I'm gonna ask you these very direct questions I wanna know the answers

and they would show me a little bit and I don't judge them then they show me a little bit more and I don't judge them and then they show me a lot more and um and I I do think that there is often this fear that if anyone really sees me uh they will think less of me if anyone really sees me that they they will judge me if it is another another man they might you know find me to be weak or lacking in some way um if it is if it is a woman they there might be parts of my experience

that they can't fully relate to or understand that they find to be um you know either weak or lacking similarly or or just bad um you know like that like some some part of me is is is not good um and and I I think that's a fear that that we all have none of us want to be seen by especially by people that we care about um as any of those things and so we need to be able to feel like um you know the person just really really wants to know and and is going to take what we say and kind of

integrate it into the way that they view us that that is already kind of wanting the best for us and caring for us and not kind of change the way they view us in a way that is um you know that feels harmful and hurtful yeah

you you you begin the story of of Jordan with this detailed breakdown of this obsession that he has while they're while he's driving across the country with his wife of the temperature of the car as they're driving through Yellow Joseph and so they're driving across country so that he can go to law school and and he's sitting there obsessing over the fact that the temperature of his car is like 30 degrees higher than it has been for the rest of the drive

and he's worried that the car's gonna break down and then oh my gosh we don't have enough money to afford a new engine if that happens and what do I do when I can't let her drive because if she drives then she's gonna notice this stuff and then she's gonna realize that I'm not suited to be a protector or a provider and and all of this stuff and I think that that that experience meanwhile his wife is enjoying um you know the sights and and wanting to stop at every single possible thing

this is the first time they're gonna it's the only time maybe they're gonna drive all the way across country and she's really enjoying the trip but he can't be present because he doesn't feel like he's a successful protector or provider and that little story that vignette which is the the how we get introduced to Jordan really resonated with me and I mean this is my experience in life too and I think it will resonate I think it resonates with most men as well

and I think that that really illustrates what what I think that you're trying to say about the central theme of the book that that there's this gap between this ideal we hold in our heads about what what true masculinity is whatever what whatever we've absorbed from the culture about that and and and then there's a gap between what I am and that gap can be can really grow into something unhealthy if we're not honest about it and if we're not willing to let people inspect it

or we're not able to let people see it in a safe way it can really grow into something unhealthy and and that's kind of the nature of a lot what what what I've been calling a masculinity crisis but I think that's I I think you're getting to really the root of it there yeah so you know that that opening um with uh Joseph um it's Joseph I'm so sorry yes no no no quite alright quite alright um but I'm so glad you brought it up cause um you know that that's

that's a scene that I actually haven't really had the chance to talk much about yet um and uh and it's a scene that it's one of my favorite scenes in the book um and like you said he's should be having the time of his life he and his wife are on this incredible cross country road trip they're they're driving through Yellowstone they're seeing just all the amazing beauty that this country has to offer his wife is having a wonderful time she's looking out the window she's she's like

telling him to look at all the beautiful things that they're seeing she's um you know excited to see all the animals they're gonna see at Yellowstone National Park and he is spiraling inside because there's just a light rattle in the engine of his car and um as you know I think a lot of people have had experiences similar to this where like you know there's something going on with your car or maybe it's some like sound in your house that you know like it's not supposed to sound like that

and you quickly go to what is the worst case scenario here and so he goes from you know the engine's running a little hot there's a little bit of a rattle um to this sense of like we're going to be stranded and alone and what's underneath all of this is um she cannot know what is happening because if she knows then she will know the truth and the truth is I am insufficient I cannot keep her safe she needs someone who can keep her safe and I am not the man who is up to that job

and so that fear I think is something that so many of us experience at some point in time um the this fear that if we are really seen if we are really understood then people will know the truth and the truth is that we are deficient in some way and so he's he's going through that all the while um you know again she's having an amazing time he and he is missing out on having an amazing time with her because he is so fixated on his like image of his own you know

uh this evidence of his own kind of inadequacy and um and then yeah like like you said to to the point of kind of this you know the the the book does not try to convince you of many ideas it does not try to kind of um hit you over the head with kind of a a grand argument about kind of the state of masculinity in this country I'm much more interested in just like really intimately telling these four stories and letting the reader come away with whatever it is that they come away with

but the one kind of idea that does really link these four and that I do think we all experience is is the sense of from the time we are so young we are inheriting an idea of what

it means to be a man and what kind of an ideal version of a man is supposed to look like and at some point along the way we inevitably fail to live up to that um you can be the five year old on the playground who's getting picked on and who immediately knows I'm not like the other boys um and and it has that lesson ingrained in you for for such a long young age or you can be someone who typifies every single ideal who um you know is the star athlete who is rich who is successful who um is

is attractive who who has everything but inevitably at some point in your life your circumstances are going to shift in a way where you are no longer kind of living up to that or you just realize that you've been chasing the standard and the standard only gets higher and higher and higher the higher you go and you can never quite reach it and so ultimately I think what kind of defines our relationship to masculinity is how we kind of navigate that failure

I I think that there's a lot of messaging right now that tells young men um just if you just work harder if you just keep pressing forward if you just work on your body if you just work on your career if you just work on your charisma then you will bridge that gap and your deficiencies will will be gone and you know I I think working on yourself in those ways is is wonderful you know I I try to do that all the time but I I do think that seeing that as kind of a path to

you know it's a path to like trying to bridge something that cannot really ever be bridged because that standard is always gonna be out of reach like anorexia exactly yes 100% I haven't heard that comparison but um that makes so much sense and and the both kind of the ideas that fuel anorexia and the ideals that fuel a lot of what we're talking about um are just so prevalent online and and and so easy for young people to access and it can really distort kind of your sense of yourself um

basically with with this book what I wanted to do was kind of explore the ways that these guys who are who are so different from one another um try to navigate that because I I think it is something that we will all at one point or another have to have to navigate ourselves all most of us have at some point already had to navigate it ourselves even even if we haven't really been conscious of it it's just been something that we're something that we're inevitably doing you know you

you have a young son yourself who was born while you were doing this um how has this experience shaped how you think about him and his relationship to masculinity has it changed the way you think about this stuff or enhanced it in any way yeah you know um so he's almost 3 years old um and so it's he's still he's still so young um and he's still in the very early stages of kind of learning some of these some of these lessons learning some of the ways in which he will experience

certain pressures um as he as he grows older I will say that you know when he was born and again he was born I was about halfway through this book um we did not know um the sex until until the moment he was born and um you know the moment that the the doctor said uh like he's here I think the doctor's first words were he's so long uh cause he was very tall um and uh but hearing that word he um I you know felt this incredible like excitement pride but also a sense of weight

like an immediate sense of weight um a weight that I can't really fully even like wrap my mind around or or put much in the way of words to just yet but like the sense of a particular kind of responsibility that that I would have um and maybe I would it would have felt the exact same if if if he um you know if she had said she's so long um at at that moment but um but I I did kind of feel that and and you know along the way it it has been um you know I

I think what what I found myself thinking is like I cannot fully shield him from all of these pressures that we are talking about like the these these pressures are going to be a part of his life um what I can do is make do everything I can to make kind of our relationship and and our home a place where he feels safe to be whoever he is um and where he feels kind of invited into um kind of the fullest version of himself um but uh you know he will inevitably be shaped by by all of these kind of

cultural expectations that we have he will inevitably be shaped in some ways by like the subconscious ways in which I've been impacted by all of this you know I'm I'm my own person who has tried to kind of navigate that gap that that we are talking about and and you know as much as I try to do it in the healthiest way I can I know sometimes it's not always healthy and um you know the the ways in which I wrestle with my own kind of insecurities my my own kind of um you know failures um

will will inevitably impact him in some way or another um and so uh yeah all of that to say like these ideas are just kind of swimming in my mind all the time um and the only thing I know to do at this point and again like parenting a a two and a/2 year old is is very very different I I know from parenting a a 7 year old or a 10 year old or a 15 year old um but at this point it's just been about like wanting to make sure that he feels like he can be fully himself um with with

with me and with us in in in our home yeah for me I I had that I had a similar experience to you now we did know the sex of our boy before he came out and our girl too but it that that weight that you're talking about is totally different and it's not it's different it's not like it's there for the boy and not for the girl it is different and for the girl it's it's it's more about keeping her safe and and and and those sorts of things for the boy for me it was this experience that

and actually I mean I I was able to form it a little bit better once he got older but it's that masculinity is so much different now than it was when I was young my paradigm my operating system

so to speak is not gonna work for him and it's my job to make sure that he has the skills and capabilities to make his way in the world and be an excellent man and if even if that's what I am what got me to where I am isn't gonna get him where he needs to be and I need to be more intentional about it I need to figure it out and I don't know the answer right now and the culture isn't gonna help me all all it it used to be the case that that we had rights of passage and we had institutions

we would be going to church and you know that would help in some way it would also hurt in a lot of ways and and that means there's a there's an opportunity there and there's a problem there the problem is that that those things are gone the opportunity is we get to remake them in the form that we want them to be and that's great but it means you have to do it or else you're just getting nothing and and that was that is how I vocalized the weight that you described

that I felt when my son was born that's what I felt and I I wasn't able to put words to it for years and years and years but that's how I put words to it now yeah that that's such a great um yeah I I I I really appreciate you you sharing all of that cause like I I think that um like you said I I think you know what one of the things that comes up a lot in in this book is how men respond to certain structures how we respond to like clear sets of expectations and

and being invited into something that um you know where where there's kind of a clear purpose and we we understand what it is we understand why we're doing it and um you know what you mentioned about kind of rites of passage or like structures that kind of give uh you know serve as like kind of entry points into into a next phase of life that that serve as like kind of um helping you make that transition in in adolescence from being someone who who is um you've seen largely as a boy into

to being someone who who is who's growing into a man um I I think that like uh you're you're right that our culture is kind of lacking a lot of those um I I'm not entirely sure how to how to kind of reconstitute some some of them but I I do think that they I do think that they matter cause I I think especially that phase of life I mean um at adolescence I I try to you know I think it can be hard sometimes for grown men to remember what it is like to be a teenage boy um and I I have hard

a hard time kind of remembering what it was like um and I I found myself thinking um trying to really sink back into into that experience and and I think like you know when I was a teenager um you know I'm I'm very I'm really tall I'm I'm 6 5 um so I'm me too like always OK OK yeah so like it's a particular kind of experience when you're when you are in a body like that that's kind of looming over everyone else and I was clumsy as a result yeah having grown so fast and yeah yeah my

my boy experiences the same thing and it's and it's difficult because and you're gonna experience the same thing they always think he's older than he is and so they expect him to act differently they're like why is your 9 year old acting like a 6 year old yeah 6:06 yeah it's yeah my my son physically he's so much like me um he's very very tall uh but just kind of clumsy like you know it took him like I think babies are supposed to start rolling over when they're like three months

he was he was like nine months before he rolled over uh like he never crawled there's so much body to learn to maneuver like like you know it's like driving a semi truck versus a Miata exactly exactly um but you know back back to kind of the the point of like in adolescence

like what what I remember is like you are growing into a feeling of like you you all of a sudden there's like there's just a power there is a a power that comes with being in uh a male body particularly a certain kind of male body what one that's kind of larger than other people yeah there's just an intrinsic power that comes with that and like you are growing into that power very very quickly when you are uh 13 14 15 16 17 years old um and it can feel intoxicating um it can feel really

really thrilling um to all of a sudden be bigger than most of the people who are around you and and everything that kind of comes with that the expectations that come with that um but it can also feel terrifying like terrifying um you know and I remember like being around you know just around a lot of I I knew a lot of boys who did bad stuff who inflicted real harm on on other people um and sometimes they were boys who I was really close to and who um you know I

I saw a lot of like goodness and in a lot of other ways but like um there's something about that that that I think really kind of uh you there there's just so much swimming in my head at that period of time where like you're seeing the destructive power that kind of um you know that the people who who have bodies like yours can can uh can have you're and you're also kind of intoxicated by the ways in which you suddenly have like access to so much that um that

that you didn't have access to when you were younger and so I I do think that like whatever we can do to find ways to help teenage boys to kind of uh navigate that that time of life like understand all that they're going to be going through I mean there you know that parallels to um adolescent girls that there's obviously like a very clear right of passage that that happens for them that that's kind of a distinction between kind of a girlhood yeah it's a physical thing yeah yes yes and I

I I spoke when working on this book I I talked to a a woman journalist friend who um you know talked about that specifically and was like I I I feel like um you know girls still kind of like just that there's just this physical change of having a period that is um uh gives them kind of a a passageway into into womanhood that's that boys are are kind of lacking um and so I but I I think that that stuff is important finding ways to kind of help boys to um

navigate a time in your life that can feel so chaotic um and and where you can feel so unmoored I it's helpful I don't know what the answer is but I I I love that it's something that you're thinking a lot about I'll tell you something that helps and and one of the things that that I've noticed about my boy's experience is I can watch him go through things and that will uncover memories for me that I didn't wouldn't have been able to produce if I hadn't been prompted by seeing him

struggle with the same stuff and when I see that I I remember back when I struggled with the same stuff and how I thought about it and how I wished I thought about it and all of that stuff and so all of that's to say that this is one of the reasons that male role models are so important in the in in the in in the life of young boys and and especially adolescent boys because that is such a difficult unbelievably hard time of life it it is it's for all the reasons that you talked about

and he really needs someone there who's been through that maybe or even more than other people and who can you know say yeah this is normal and it's okay and just as just as a a a girl having her first period needs a woman to help her learn how to deal with that just in a physical way I don't think anybody like I I don't think anybody would expect a father to come and do that or or or think that a father could do that adequately and yet we don't really necessarily culturally put the

put that on us on men to make sure that they're there for the for the boys in the same in the same way and but it really does help like you kind of get access to hidden knowledge or experiences that you don't remember you had um as your boy experiences those things you kind of get to experience them through him yeah trip yeah I I think you know to your point there there's just something I mean being able to empathize with another person is just enormously helpful I mean

like having someone who can see and understand your experience is enormously helpful and it is just a fact that uh certain experiences are are kind of uh unique to your sex or your gender and and certain experiences like when you can have some guidance from someone who knows what that is like um there's going to be something about that that that is enormously helpful to you um and uh you know that that's not to say that um men can't find ways to be to be there for um you know their daughters who

who are going through kind of physical and other changes that um that those men haven't experienced or or that women can't do the same with with their sons or uh you know other other children in in their lives um but it it is just simply like there there will be things that uh you know I I know that I experience things that like I wanted to talk to my dad about because I I knew that like he was much more likely to have understood that experience than than my mom and and and and I I think that

you know it the onus has to be on on us as fathers to make sure that we are there in in that way to make sure that we are looking for those moments where there are those points of connection where we have been through that thing that's uh you know that that a a a boy is going through and and we can kind of you know find ways to to really uh signal that we're we're we're there and able to talk about it and understand yeah yeah what did you learn in in this

in the experience of writing this book what did you learn about the role of these men's own parents in crafting who they became it like in making their struggles harder or easier or successes greater or lesser or how did how did their parents impact that yeah um you know their fathers are are so different from one another um you know one Joseph who we talked about earlier um the the one who's having the bit of a breakdown on the beautiful cross country road trip his father is um

really abusive to Joseph's mother um never never abusive to Joseph himself but he grows up in a home where he watches he watches violence unfolding often and um you know it it fills him with a you know pretty significant kind of loathing for for his father over time and he yeah um he he learns a lot really he he's a bit adrift at times because he does not have a real strong model for who he wants to be himself um he and he's kind of seeking that in in other men in his life as he's in

in early adulthood because um his father failed his mother in such such critical ways um you know another one um Gideon who is kind of a a uh typifies every masculine ideal like the baseball star West Point graduate tall smart handsome everything he um has a loving relationship to his father but also had the sense that he was like kind of like a trophy in his family that he was because he was so good at all of these things because he was so gifted um he kind of internalized that

like this is how I have worth in the world is by being excelling at all of these things um and I think he still to this day would say that his parents loved him tremendously and were great in many ways but um it was hard for him to kind of trust kind of his intrinsic I guess worth um and in part for kind of the ways that he was kind of reinforced as a kid um you know another Ryan is is someone who is his father is kind of your stereotypical like tough like fighter like someone who's

he'd been a boxer um and Ryan gets picked on as a kid and his dad is um you immediately tries to teach him how to fight um and I that scene is incredible and I remember I like I'm reading this scene and thinking that's exactly what I would do hmm if as the dad if I was that dad I would do that exact same alright you know that you know we're not we're not gonna let that happen again and then seeing that experience through Ryan's eyes such a beautiful it's it's it's really

really a great story well thank you but what what's so fascinating about it is like in the moment so Ryan doesn't want that Ryan wants his dad to comfort him to to hold him to care for him but then what happens is Ryan continues getting bullied he he doesn't really ever learn to fight back until he is in college and we meet him as a young man and on the night when he snaps and he beats somebody up and he finds oh I actually really like doing this and he likes it in a way that is not really

purely out of self defense he likes it in a way that's uh you know quite destructive um but he uh later like in in early adulthood like kind of is like bragging to his dad that his dad who had kind of put these boxing gloves on on his fist when he was a little boy and tried to teach him how to fight and uh he's trying to brag to his dad like hey like I you know I've been getting into some fights lately like you should see what I'm doing to these guys and his dad

who is now encountering his son as a grown man is like what are you doing why are you so stupid why would you be getting into these fights and Ryan it like does not compute in Ryan's brain because all he remembers is being this little boy who his dad was uh was trying to um to teach how to fight and so um you know I think it's just a case where like what one thing about fatherhood is that like every father brings to the table their own stuff off their own insecurities their own um kind of uh

feelings that they're kind of projecting onto their kid and I don't know exactly what was going through through Ryan's father's mind at that moment when he's trying to teach him how to fight but like it was a moment where he felt like I need to teach my boy how to fight back and then later when learning that his boy has grown into a man who does fight back uh he he goes to a place that a lot of parents go which is like you shouldn't be hitting people that's bad yeah and what a mix and I

I thought another little aspect of that story that I mean it's just this tiny little vignette and and yet it it was so um uh it it it's really it was really impactful to me which is you kind of get into the the mind of the father for a moment where the father is kind of teaching the son to fight not so that not just so that he'll be protected yeah but also because the father feels a little bit of shame that his son got beat up yeah at least that's how Ryan kind of took it yeah

at least that's how he felt about it Ryan doesn't know but that's yeah yeah um and I I do I think that that's like it's such a natural impulse um for any parent to internalize like uh any any struggle that your kid might have is somehow a reflection on you in in a negative way and like the things that we value and the things that feel like embarrassing to us are often gonna be different from the things that our kids value and that feel embarrassing to them um and so we uh

yeah can have so much of our own identity um wrapped up in uh and and and and those sorts of things and you know again the the flip side of that is is Gideon the the kind of star athlete whose parents are uh just so over the moon thrilled with him all the time because of the fact that he is uh he's accomplishing so much while at the same time he's not necessarily uh learning what he needs to learn to be kind of a fully um you know a a man who can have like a full robust fulfilling kind of life

because he's kind of chasing that that sense of accomplishment all the time yeah and the outward trappings of being so successful are they they sort of belay the internal experience and so you know he doesn't he doesn't necessarily feel that he's that successful right and and he doesn't exactly and so but but everybody treats him like he is and so he's like and and that that can really make it hard to address that gap that we talked about in the very beginning right you know

he's got he's got this internal experience of not being but everybody thinks you're this thing over here and I feel like this thing over here and I feel like I like that everybody thinks that I'm like this and and if I tell people that no this is really my experience then this is a bubble that's gonna pop and I can't let that happen because this is my identity I and what I mean being able to read about that in such an honest way and it's you know these men that agreed to do this thing

are really courageous and you know and in some cases like you're even using their real names uh huh um not in all of them and you know you you've and but I don't know man I mean I really admire them yeah uh yeah I I I I really really do too um you know I I I just can't say enough about um their willingness to to be open um about their willingness to kind of reveal uh some pretty difficult uh pieces of themselves some the uh so many of these stories that that

that are in this book are not flattering to them um you know that they're uh they're full they're nuanced they're complex um but often they they don't look great but but they're they're these real kind of raw and authentic um you know peaks into into their experience and you know Gideon um in particular since we were talking about him like he and his name has been changed but um he just let me I mean he let it's so rare that we get a peek into what the kind of insecurities that are roiling

beneath the person who seems like he has everything going for him um and like he I mean it even like this the his chapter part of the book kind of opens with him feeling insecure about the size of his penis right I mean like he and that was a conversation we had that conversation about four years in to this five year process um he'd made an offhand comment about it once years ago and I we were like on a walk near his home and I just said can we talk about the

can we talk about how you feel about your penis and he was like yep let's go what do you wanna know and and so we did um but you know the the other other guys as well like um it's just really really astonishing how much they kind of let me let me into their lives and you some of them Ryan um who we'd spent some time talking about the one who whose father tried to teach him to fight and who later starts fighting when he's older um he did use his real name uh and he has been like this is my story

um I don't know how everyone's gonna feel about it but uh this is who I am and my hope is that sharing it might have a positive impact on someone and I I wanna kind of stand behind the fact that um that this is me um and so uh yeah I I I I just can't say enough about how open and honest and and vulnerable each of these guys are willing to be yeah and I mean his case is that's really courageous his story in particular is he's tough yeah he does some rough stuff and and you know

the fact that he's willing to do it attach his own name to that I I don't I don't know if I don't think I'd do it I I don't know we're and we're all the richer for it and um you know but I mean even just sharing the story under pseudonym is is really brave absolutely and absolutely yeah I mean we're we're really fortunate yeah we're really fortunate they decided to let you do it and we're really fortunate you decided to do it too

well thank you one one last thing about that that that I'll share is um you know one of the men um one thing I did was I let them all see their stories in advance um I I just felt like I wanted to write it with so much intimacy that I felt like I couldn't publish it without them like being able to sit with it and and kind of give me a sense of like whether I'd kind of captured it or not um and the first time I did it what I did is I read it out loud to each of them I I went in person

I can't imagine what this session was like it was I can't imagine I mean that takes balls it takes balls to do that to decide to do it and to listen to it on all sides that is there's some masculinity happening in that room right there it was it was intense but you know one of them there was one scene that's particularly rough and he was like the first time I read it out loud to him he was like I don't know if I can do this uh like this is after we'd spent years doing work

doing all these interviews all spending all this time together me following him through so much of his life and he just had this visceral reaction to it he's like it's all true like everything you just read happened but like something about it was just really tough and you know then he came back to me a couple weeks later we didn't talk for a couple weeks and he said like I'm good like don't change a thing like I'm I'm totally fine and this was one of the men who is a parent and what he said was

the thought of my child reading this when they are 15 years old and knowing that this is me uh feels absolutely terrifying like terrifying um but the thought of my child reading this when they are forty and I am an old man and they have now gone through a lot of stuff in their own lives and they have this like window into who their father was and is and all of the things that shaped me um that actually feels really nice like to to be to be known by by them in that way and uh

and so he didn't ask me to change a thing and um yeah I I feel you know just can cannot say enough about like the the level of vulnerability and and courage that each of these guys had in in sharing sharing this way we should all have a journalist follow us around for five years hahaha I do kind of believe that our story like hahaha so that our our sons can read it when when we're eighty maybe AI I I do think we might be better off where you know there there's just something powerful

everyone's story is fascinating like everyone's story if you dig deep enough like there there's some interesting stuff there and uh I I think that it's a really powerful thing to have your story told and and to be able to like more fully understand the stories of of people you you know and love I think that's absolutely true

I always love to end these conversations with the more or less the same question of everybody and that is if there's one principle that every parent listening might live by to to guide them as they raise excellent men what what principle do you would you come up with yeah um I I don't know if this counts as a principle or not but the two things that I try to hold on to all the time are just empathy and curiosity um just trying to as much and again

it's tough with a two and a half year old to like fully like empathize with what's going on in in his little brain um but uh trying to you know I can at times it can be easy to get pulled into power struggles and like yeah uh like I we're gonna do this and we're gonna do this because I said so and um and while you want you know those firm boundaries you want those clear like sets of expectations um I I I think that also like allowing yourself to try to understand as best as you can like to

to the best of like the limits of your own empathy or curiosity what's going on and and that that is making this making your kid you know pitch the fit that they're pitching or or do whatever it is that they're doing um and if you can just like just even the attempt to understand even the attempt to um try to enter into their experience ever ever so briefly I think can can allow you to um you know engage with them in a way that is a little bit more uh just kind of open to um

to kind of the the full reality of of of their experience and and the fact that like they are a full complex human being just as we are um even though they're they're still in formation even though so much of kind of the way their brains work is uh not not ideal um like that they are having full rich experiences just as we are at every moment of every day and trying to kind of uh understand those experiences the best you can in the moment I I think serves you well I love that principle

I think it's great um it definitely qualifies and I think I I mean it really is uh your the the the book also reminds us that one of the most important gifts that we can give our boys is that gift of being seen and of being known right and that they always have this place they always have this place no matter what they always have this place it is a safe place to come and you know show yourself with all your faults and if you do nothing else as a parent of

of a boy that's what you wanna be doing absolutely absolutely and you know you don't have to wait for crises to to start those conversations right you you start it's not even I mean it's it's about how you even react when they you know throw a fit like yeah you can throw a fit if you want like I get it it's fine yeah please don't hit people please don't call me that you know let's let's set some boundaries to this but you know man sure you gotta if it's a part of learning how to deal with

strong emotions that's great right absolutely absolutely um yeah I I I totally agree with all of that yeah well Jordan thank you so much for joining us today uh it it has been an absolute privilege to to talk to you and and thank you for uh for the book as well thank you so much Sean I I uh yeah really really love this conversation and uh so admire and appreciate the work that you're doing and I was was grateful to have the chance to talk thanks a ton

if you found today's deep dive into American men helpful please pick up a copy of Jordan's book and don't forget to like and subscribe to us and leave a review more than just about anything the reviews really help other people find the show my name is Sean Dawson and thank you for joining us and remember you are a great parent raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino