Newsletter from Jay Wilcox - July 2020
"I threw a shotgun shell at my daughter's date. Told him it moves a lot faster after ten p.m."
- Grizzled Sam-Elliott-Look-A-Like Meme Guy
You've seen those prom pictures where the father looms behind the couple with his rifle cocked. You've seen the "10 Rules for Dating my Daughter" t-shirts and their weirdly performative threats.
I generally feel such clumsy protectiveness weeds out suitors you'd actually want for your daughter. What you risk, with all this bluster, is her winding up with the type of guy who isn't afraid of you, who doesn't respect you or your "rules." Who laughs at your sincere but miscommunicated concern for her.
What relationship grows out of violent ultimatums?
Do you perform all this for her sake, or for yours?
I use the royal you, of course, though I speak to guys who want power for its own sake, an inoculation against their own frailty. The fathers who fan out their feathers call to mind insecure gym-goers--those thick-necks who flex in front of mirrors, too homophobic to admit they're flexing for the men around them. Don't perform your protectiveness. You can impress other dads without trying and then inevitably failing to subvert a teenage girl.
What is strength? It must be more than vulnerability's opposite--shoot, maybe vulnerability is a form of strength. Even your protein blender-bottle is useless if it can't open up. Too many men restrict their feelings to happiness, anger, or some kind of way, that great junk drawer of unmentionable emotion. "Losing my dog had me feeling some kind of way," he declares. "Watching my first child being born also had me feeling some kind of way, as did being overcharged at the Subway."
Are you trying to get heart disease? Because this is how you get heart disease.
A lot of men view their emotions as a threat to their image, their power, their success. Maybe, in the loosest sense, success itself counts as an emotion. I imagine it's thrilling to feel superior--especially in a culture that sells us stories of studs, rock stars™ who live large and take what's theirs. Who hasn't grown up seeing athletes in packed jacuzzis? In too many developing male minds, a straight line comes to connect success with easy acquisition--of cars and clothes and, most importantly, women. Monsters grow from their own wildest dreams.
Still, no amount of might eases a wanting man's insecurity--and therein lies the connection back to violently overprotective fathers, who, even with all of parenthood's awesome power, still manage to feel small. "Seeing my daughter become an autonomous adult capable of making her own decisions had me feeling some kind of way," he sniffles muscularly.
In all seriousness, I write this because I can't exempt myself. I don't have kids but wonder a lot about my own response to forces bigger than me. How do I respond to power? What role does maleness play in that response? In a world tempted toward authoritarianism, these questions matter. Men who criticize masculinity sometimes get labeled by other men as white knights, accused of virtue signaling or trying to sound woke, pandering to women--but in writing this, I perform nothing. After all, if I didn't take this seriously--if I wrote things I didn't really believe--I could wind up feeling some kind way.
Infinite Regards,
Jay