“Myths around Youth Mentoring and Why many men buy into the thought that they are not ready to be a mentor.”I asked men from all over the world, what gets in the way of their stepping up to mentor boys on their journey to manhood. Their responses included very high levels of confusion, lots of fear, and denial of any sense of responsibility.
Many men stated they weren’t aware of any boys they might mentor or Elder. Others explained that they were living over-committed lives and just couldn’t find the time. But by far the most common responses reflected a generalized fear of not being up to the task. Many men said, “I don’t have anything to offer” or “I wouldn’t know what to do.” In many different ways, men articulated the fear that because of their perceived deficiencies, they would fail the boy, and that as a result the boy would be injured in some way.
Another common set of fears was that the mentoring relationship would work. In the responses of men who hadn’t experienced a mentoring relationship were fears of intimacy, concerns that the boy may really want to “know me” and “ask me difficult questions that would stir my gut,” or that he’d “ask questions I haven’t found answers for myself.” They also expressed fears of over-involvement, that “once the relationship got started, I won’t be able to get out.” Or a concern that the boy would actually “come to depend on me and need me in his life.” These are expressions of the fear a man would become trapped in a relationship he couldn’t manage, where he’d not measure up and didn’t have enough to offer.
Some men expressed the fear of “what people will think.” It’s a horribly tragic statement of our times. We live in a world where boys are suffering, confused, and being lost to us in a multitude of ways. A time where boys are starving for male attention, and a man who wants to mentor a boy has to overcome the fear that his interest will be labeled predatory, perverted, or unnatural in some way.
Some of these fears are justified, but many simply speak to the degree to which men are out of touch with or don’t understand their own Elder power and their natural place in the order of the male universe. I think it’s important that men realize that having these fears is normal, and that they have lots of company, and that fear is not a reason to avoid mentoring a boy.
The piece that is less obvious is that just like the boys are hardwired for, and require inputs from men, men are hardwired for Eldering boys. In fact, men NEED to step into that Elder role in order to find their place in the natural and ancient male hierarchy. They need to Elder boys in order to heal their old and forgotten adolescent wounds, in order to connect the generations, in order to feel complete as a man, in order to become a fully developed and mature adult male.
As the expression goes, courage is fear that doesn’t control you. Right now, a little courage is all that’s standing in the way of a man making a huge difference in the life of a boy. A boy who, right now, is starving for his influence.Earl Hipp
2005
