When my father gave me my first driving lesson, he had me sit behind the wheel — the place he had always occupied. It felt strange to be sitting in his seat; I remember getting an erection. I had my Bar Mitzvah at thirteen, but driving felt like the real deal: This is what it means to be a man. Or so it seemed.
Before he let me turn the key, my father insisted we talk. He pointed out the car’s awesome power. Not only could it get me where I wanted to go — it could also maim and kill. “I want you to never forget that.”
I already knew something about the danger of cars. When I was seven, I foolishly crossed a main boulevard instead of doing so at the light. A driver slammed on his brakes; the screech of tires brought everything to a halt. He looked at me; I looked at him. By the time I reached the curb I was shaking like a leaf. I never told a soul — until this moment.
My father’s pause before letting me turn the key created space to teach me to respect the car’s power. But I don’t remember him cautioning me about much else. He certainly should have warned me to cross at the light given my independent streak. At three, I walked out the door with my dog Frisky, toured the neighborhood, and was led home by a stranger’s hand.
I don’t remember my father ever instructing me about how to be male. He may have mentioned in passing the need to stand up for myself, play fair, and not act girly. But he never explained what being male entails — the privileges afforded boys and men, the hostility and aggression in our nature, the responsibility not to bully, tease, or insist on getting our way at others’ expense.
It was a man’s world back then, and we boys were expected to make our way without instruction in how to use the power put in our hands simply by being born male.
Providing Sons a Firm Hand
This post is about the fatherly duty to instruct our sons — and young men in general — about how the world works. Instruction means direct discussion, leading by example, and pushing back firmly when young men abuse their power or treat others in toxic ways.
This is precisely what Pete Hegseth’s mother did in 2018, when she emailed him with what she called “the ugly truth” — that her son habitually abused women. “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years).” She named the deeper problem: “It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out.” Where was that man — the one his mother clearly believed her son needed?
Young men need strong figures willing to call them out for bad behavior. They need fathers and mentors willing to pass along what life has taught them. This usually happens one-on-one. Sometimes a man sits down and writes a book.
Who Do We Turn to for Help?
In Post 1 we reviewed the statistics that scream men are in trouble — graphs many people have yet to find alarming.
A failing man struggles to muster a modicum of self-respect, which must be earned through achievement and contributions that benefit more than himself. Scott Galloway reflects: “There is nothing more dangerous than a lonely, broke young man.” How these conditions can be fixed is debatable. Whether they can be fixed is chilling.
Three writers — Richard Reeves, Jordan Peterson, and Scott Galloway — have stepped into the breach with very different prescriptions. In Of Boys and Men, Reeves advocates systemic change: public policy, after decades focused on girls and women, now needs to attend to boys and men as well. Peterson and Galloway emphasize personal responsibility — checklists of what individual men can do, doubling as definitions of masculinity in the twenty-first century.
Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life was not written exclusively for men, but eighty percent of his readership is male. Both he and Galloway lack patience for victimization mentality, epitomized by “incels” — men who blame their dateless lives on women’s refusal to settle for anyone but top-tier suitors. To such complaints, both are likely to exclaim: “Man up. Get a life.”
Peterson is the more conservative writer. He regards hierarchical order as inevitable, which places him squarely in the present culture wars. Neither his fix nor Galloway’s hinges on social change. Where they part company is on what masculinity is for: Peterson’s model is more traditional; Galloway argues that masculinity should expand to include emotional openness and vulnerability. More progressive thinkers fault both for retaining too many of the original defining features — Galloway’s “provide, protect, procreate,” for instance.
Both writers have academic credentials and careers outside the academy. Peterson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto with a clinical practice; Galloway is Clinical Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School and has founded multiple companies. Their books reflect what hungry, lost men are looking for — clear direction in a moment when the older sources of male meaning have dried up. Both come with the familiar self-help trade-off: accessibility purchased at the price of reductionism.
Peterson’s database is broad. His rules are grounded in philosophy, morality, religious principle, and psychology: keep your promises, tell the truth, choose meaningfulness over happiness, measure yourself against your own ideals and past performance rather than against others. His chief message: life is inherently difficult, often tragic, but individuals can make it meaningful by taking responsibility and striving toward competence. “Put your own life in order before blaming external systems” is his takeaway advice.
Galloway is less abstract. His database is largely his own life — successes and failures alike. His tone is direct, pragmatic; he sounds like a fatherly mentor giving a motivational speech. To his credit, he offers a non-toxic alternative to what manosphere influencers peddle. His chief message: life today is structurally uneven for young men, but success still depends on disciplined choices — invest in marketable skills, build financial independence, form strong male friendships, delay gratification, take responsibility for both your character and your positioning in an unforgiving economy.
Two of Peterson’s rules are addressed less to young men than to their parents. The first targets the epidemic of over-protectiveness: parents feel morally obliged to monitor their children’s every move, robbing them of the reasonable risk-taking that builds independence and self-confidence. They now fear having child protective services called for doing what parents fifty years ago did routinely — letting an eight-year-old bike around town for an entire afternoon. The second emphasizes the need to say “no” — limit-setting that helps children learn to tolerate not getting their way. Constant gratification doesn’t prepare a child for compromise and turn-taking — key ingredients of socialization.
Galloway came to fatherhood late and treats raising sons as his main laboratory for thinking about masculinity. He emphasizes ambition, courage, and self-restraint, balanced with vulnerability, emotional openness, and tenderness. He echoes Peterson: parents today are simultaneously too permissive and too anxious — failing to provide clear rules, failing to hold boys accountable. Galloway specifically faults the “follow your passion” advice drifting through the country’s private schools. He prefers a stricter sequence: marketable skills first, financial independence next, passion last. Passion is something you earn the right to chase.
Galloway’s advice is action-oriented: meet the world as it is, not as you wish it were. Get fit. Work hard. Build marketable skills. Become financially self-sufficient. Build friendships. Show up for others. Do, don’t brood.
How Do We Show Up for Our Sons?
What links these very different writers — Reeves, Peterson, Galloway, and Hegseth’s mother — is a refusal to leave young men alone with their phones and their grievances. Each, in a different register, says the same thing: young men need to be told the truth, by someone with skin in the game. They need older voices willing to name what’s hard, hold them to account, and pass along what life has taught.
We have grown wary of this work. Fathers worry about being preachy. Mentors fear being labeled. The very idea of fatherly instruction is now suspect — patriarchal residue, perhaps even oppressive. So the vacuum widens, and into it pour the manosphere influencers who do speak with confidence to young men, often toxically wrong.
The mistake is to confuse instruction with control. Young men need adults willing to risk being wrong in front of them — willing to say, “Don’t do that, don’t be that, here is what I learned the hard way, here is what being a man actually requires of you.” They will not always like what they hear. That is part of how they will know it is real.
If this post has a single argument, it is this: the absence of fatherly voices in young men’s lives is not neutral. Silence is not modesty; silence is abandonment. We owe our sons more than the keys to the car.