Why the way you handle hard moments becomes the blueprint they inherit
I want to ask you something I’ve been sitting with for a while, not a big question but one that keeps surfacing when I think about my two daughters and the men they’ll one day love. I find myself thinking about what those men will believe is possible, whether they’ll know how to be honest when things are hard, whether they’ll be able to say “I’m struggling” without the words catching in their throats.
And then I think: that’s not really about them. That’s about what their fathers modelled. And their fathers’ fathers. And so on, all the way back.
One Story
My dad is a good man, solid, reliable, the kind of man you can call on in a crisis and he will be there without question.
He worked hard, he provided, he kept his word and he loved us in the way he knew how. But I don’t think I ever once saw him cry or heard him say “I’m struggling” or “I’m frightened”, not because he never felt those things, but because the version of manhood he was given didn’t have space for them. His father didn’t model it, the cultural script he was handed said handle it and stay steady, so he did, and without ever intending to, he handed that same script to me.
I spent years running it faithfully, pushing through when I should have asked for help, performing fine because fine required nothing of anyone and kept the whole thing moving. And every time a man does that, every time he white-knuckles it instead of saying “this is hard”, he files something in the people watching him. A data point... evidence about what men are allowed to be.
The script I was handed wasn’t bad. It was just incomplete. And the cost of running an incomplete script long enough is that you eventually run out of road.
Something I keep coming back to is this: side by side is always easier than face to face. The conversations I remember most from the men in my life didn’t happen sitting across a table, they happened walking, driving, at half time, anywhere there was movement and no eye contact to manage, and that’s not an accident.
Children don’t learn what we teach them. They learn what they watch us do when we think it doesn’t matter.
One SHIFT
The work you do on yourself isn’t just for you.
Every time you say “I had a hard week” or “I was wrong about that” or “I’m finding this difficult” in front of your kids, your partner, the men in your life, you’re updating the blueprint. You’re giving the people who watch you something they can use when their own hard moment arrives. That’s not a small thing.
That might be the most important thing.
One Challenge
I want you to invite one man for a walk. A son, a father, a mate, someone you’ve been meaning to spend proper time with.
And before you think of a reason why now isn’t the right time, notice that you’re doing it, because most men are very good at finding reasons.
Don’t make it a formal thing. Don’t announce that you want to have a conversation. Just say you’re going for a walk and ask if he wants to come.
Somewhere in the middle of it, ask him one question you wouldn’t normally ask: “How are you actually doing with everything at the moment?” Not “how’s work”, not “how’s the family”, but how are you doing underneath all of it.
Then stop talking. Let him answer, even if his first answer is the surface one, the “yeah fine, not bad, you know”. Stay with him. A few seconds of quiet is not a problem to solve. It’s the space where the real answer sometimes shows up.
And here’s what I want you to notice: if you do this with your son, or with a younger man in your life, you’re showing him something that nobody may ever have shown you. That a man can ask that question. That it’s not awkward or heavy or weak. That this is exactly what it looks like when a man actually gives a damn. The legacy isn’t in a speech. It’s in a walk on a Tuesday afternoon, because you went first.
“Children are not things to be moulded, but people to be unfolded.”
— Jess Lair
Beyond “I’m Fine”
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Listen on your commute. Or your lunch break. Or that walk you keep meaning to take.
