Teaching My Son to Embrace His Masculinity Early: Strength Under Direction

Raising a boy today can feel harder than it should, not because boys have changed, but because expectations have. There are more voices than ever competing for their attention, shaping their instincts, and redefining manhood in real time.

One of the conversations I have started having with my four-year-old son is about masculine strength, what it is, why it exists, and what it is for.

I do not see masculinity as something that is either positive or negative. Masculinity is what it is. The problem is not masculinity; the problem is what we do with it, and what we fail to teach about it. We have become so wary of its abuses that we sometimes forget its original design.

Masculinity is not merely being muscular. It is not just aggression, volume, or dominance. It is a whole package, an orientation. There is a reason God created male, and there is a reason God created female. Distinctiveness is not superiority. Difference is not oppression. It is design.

My son is energetic, always moving, always building, always testing himself. Getting him to sleep is a negotiation, because he insists, “I’m not tired.” But beyond the energy, I notice something else: poise. The way he carries himself. The way he enters a room. His mannerism. His instinct to greet people with warmth, and his sincere confusion when he greets and they do not respond. I have had to explain: “Maybe they didn’t see you, or they didn’t hear you.” Even that is training: teaching him not to internalise unnecessary rejection, and not to lose his courtesy because others lack it.

And then there are the traits that, to me, look like masculinity in training, traits that need naming, shaping, and discipling, not suppressing.

I see courage. I see independence. I see assertiveness. I see emotional restraint developing, what many call stoicism. I remember his first proper haircut at about three. The barber warned me: “If he sits still, this is the price. If we have to hold him down, it doubles.” I put him on the seat and he sat calmly, no drama, no fear of the clippers, like he had been doing it all his life. The barber was stunned.

I saw the same thing again recently during his immunisation shots, two or three injections, and he did not cry. He stayed steady through it.

I also see his insistence on doing things for himself: zipping his clothes, wearing his shirt, putting on his shoes, wearing his socks. He has a special way he wears his socks. He wants to be useful at home. He wants to arrange his room. He wants to carry something, contribute, and be counted.

I see protectiveness. I see an instinct for responsibility. And I believe these impulses require encouragement, guidance, and discipline, so that strength grows into service, not arrogance.

So I have started helping him understand that these traits are not random. They are part of his masculine wiring and the purpose of that wiring is not to suppress, but to serve. Not to dominate, but to protect. Not to intimidate, but to build.

Masculinity is not superiority. Masculinity is responsibility. It is strength with direction.

And I have learned something important over the years: masculinity is better modelled than explained. Strength is best taught as strength under control. Because until a person knows he has strength and chooses to deploy it in service of others, you cannot call that humility, you can only call it lack of capacity. Some people are not humble; they are merely powerless.

True humility is strength restrained. True leadership is strength submitted to purpose.

That is why I want my son to grow up understanding that masculinity is his identity—not an excuse. It is his distinctiveness, not a weapon. It is a tool to advance good: for himself, for his family, for his community, and for the world.

If you are raising a boy and you have been having conversations about masculinity, how you define it, how you teach it, how you model it, share your experience. Let us compare notes.

Because once we start needing adjectives like “positive masculinity” and “negative masculinity,” we may already be losing sight of what masculinity itself is: strength designed for service, expressed with restraint, and directed toward responsibility.

#Parenting #RaisingBoys #Fatherhood #Masculinity #Manhood #Leadership #Character #Mentorship #Family #Faith #Purpose #Responsibility #Stoicism #PositiveRoleModels