If we are being honest, we as a society have done a lousy job with teaching healthy roles and models. Young boys are taught from the earliest of ages to shut up, stop crying, grow up, be a man. Little girls have the stuffing loved out of them for minor infractions. Boys are expected to stifle feelings and emotions. When a teenage girl has her heart broken, her friends rally around her, shed tears of support and love with her, and then go get their nails done in a show of sisterhood. If a 13 year old boy has his heart broken and sheds a few many tears, his friends call him a fag and tell him to man up. We tend to learn our lessons well, but that makes it really hard to connect. Men arent from Mars and women arent from Venus. Hell...those two planets are at least in the same solar system.
Somewhere in between teaching young men to stop crying or we'll give them something to cry about and turning them into pansies with asthma, peanut allergies, gluten allergies, dairy intolerance and running around wearing skinny jeans covered in face piercings attending My Little Pony conventions there is a middle ground. Its appropriate to teach young men healthy male roles. Hell...its even appropriate to teach young men that are gay appropriate male models. If either of my sons announced that they were gay I would want them to be just who they are...only gay. Be strong, be confident, be naly, and be gay...whatever. Just dont be...this...