Each year catalogues, TV and press remind us how great our dads are, and that the one day of the year to really celebrate this is Father’s Day. But what do these messages really tell us about the beauty of men and what it is to be a man?
If we came from another planet and looked at the media around how we celebrate Father’s Day we would assume that men love to:
- fish
- work on cars
- have lots of tools
- spend time and money in hardware stores
- drink beer and brew it at home
- do anything associated with BBQs
- play or watch football
- play or watch sports of any kind
- play with gadgets
- use an X-box
- read and watch thrillers, comedy and action stories
- escape the grind, get away from it all (for some this also includes getting away from the family)
- dress trendy or sporty
- drink
- eat meat.
So what does all this say about what it is to be a man? What if you are a man who loves to:
- be pampered
- buy his own clothes (including socks and jocks)
- drive a car but not be married to it
- go to the ballet
- watch romance movies
- have a bath
- spend time with the family, truly enjoying being with them
- dress up
- go walking?
Would enjoying these things risk torment, rejection or being considered unmanly or just weird?
Is it possible that the narrowness of what we are ‘told’ men are like limits all of us? How much do men bend to fit this mould, and how much do we miss out on when they do?
Imagine if Father’s Day celebrated the true beauty of men?
What if we considered more deeply what it is to be a man – beyond the rough, rugged, outdoors stereotype, or the beer drinking, car loving bloke, the gadget guy or the sophisticated executive roles we’ve all been fed – and appreciated instead the innate delicateness, sensitivity and beauty of men?
It could unfold into the kind of Father’s Day where we acknowledged and treasured the tenderness of men and enjoyed all that came from men being allowed to be and share their beauty.
Inspired by the work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
By Adrienne Ryan & Peta Schaffer, Daughters, Queensland, Australia
333 Comments
Just imagine, instead of doing the big tribal dance at the start of the rugby league match, they all got together held hands, and sang the song Tenderness… 🙂
Thank you for this. I will be more aware of my relationships with men today and open to express more appreciation.
It certainly feels very restricting to have to fit into all the stereotypes that society has for men. The impact of this pressure to conform is hard to fathom, for it creates men who live in the denial of their true nature. What a great loss this is for humanity. A world where men are encouraged to appreciate their true tenderness would be…and is…a great blessing.
And what if you are a man who really honours women? What I have seen is that they get ridiculed and brought down often in less direct ways such as jokes and off the cuff comments as a way to reduce the reflection of decency and love.
What is the purpose of Father’s Day? I don’t remember it existing when I was younger and it is on different days around the world?! It has often felt to me like the card companies etc are simply cashing in and in the process cementing stereotypes about the roles men play rather than celebrating the beautiful, tender essence that all men have and which we are truly blessed with when they share it. If we all honoured this every day then we would not need a particular day to celebrate fathers but rather allow all men whether defined by the label of ‘father’ or not to live true to themselves and reflect that to others.
One day to celebrate the gorgeousness of our men is not enough, every day we should appreciate and cherish the tenderness and lovely care a men brings naturally when all the outer impositions are let go of.
Gorgeous Adrienne and Peta. We live in such a consticted picture of what a man is, like we are trying to win an award for pulling off this performance. Yet the whole time underneath we are feminine, graceful delicateness and everything the universe is. Talk about reducing down God to a minuscule speck. Yet knowing this we can now return to live as a tender and precious gentle man.
Our true nature, delicate, sensitive, able to feel deeply, able to love and be loved… What it truly means to be a man.
so important that we come back to truth — we are so sensitive beings that need to come back toiling the purpose of love here on earth.
Until we truly start to know ourselves, we will be defined from the outside in, instead of knowing and loving from the inside out.
Celebrating every day no mater what the sex sounds like the way to go! So no special days just the nurturing and inner beauty allowed to be lived every day. Then our preciousness and tenderness will flourish.
To limit our celebration and appreciation of men to one day a year is a crime against, more or less, half of humanity which has dire consequences for all of humanity. If we constantly celebrated the beauty of men and allowed them to express freely their innate divine qualities, much of the macho energy in our world today would dissolve.
The stereotypes are many and advertising and the media have their fair share of responsibility here – men, and women for that matter, are forever told and indoctrinated from a young age what to be, how to be and what to like and desire. A handy multitude of consumers clamouring for more of the same without ever taking a moment and feel into what is actually happening, world-wide.
… Tenderness is our true nature, and the more of us men who express this, provides the opportunity for others to have a reflection of something totally different in their lives.
I would add much more to this list about being a man:
– I love flowers 🌺.
– I do not swear.
– I don’t watch or like how sport dishonours the harmony within.
– I do not drink beer.
– I am extremely sensitive and tender.
– I do not view women as objects for sex.
– I’m very open to expressing intimately with another man.
I concur fully Rik and to keep the list going will add:
-I can cry easily at something that is either very touching or when I feel really hurt.
-I am super sensitive and can express my feelings openly, even with other men.
-I enjoy playing ‘doll house’ with my 9 yr. old daughter and dressing up her dolls.
-I love the feeling of my hips moving as I walk gently but with a little sassiness in my step.
-I love working on something that takes a gentle and delicate touch, like pruning and wiring bonsai trees.
-I love to cuddle with my wife and daughter and snuggle up on the couch together.
-I am able to admit I don’t know how to do something and ask for help when I need it.
So if mother’s day and father’s were treated as though every day is either, no actually both day/s are simultaneously lived in how we need to appreciate each other. Then we can Truly express in a way where whatever we do our lives will evolve simply by us fully appreciating each other.
Males are stereotyped and told to fit into certain roles, from loving sheds where they can seek refuge to drinking copious amounts of beer. And Father’s Day further enforces these clichés by the advertised choices of apparently suitable gifts for this occasion.
It doesn’t take much… Just to stop the back slapping, hard handshakes, to start to express some feelings, just a few simple things can start a redefining of who we as men think we are.
I did the same for my Dad growing up, I bought him socks and the BBQ stuff. I never really expressed deeply to him what he meant to me and what I loved about him. My Dad was actually very tender, calm and a gorgeous man with a very open heart to people. I love that I got to be raised by a man like this.
We pamper mothers for Mother’s Day, why not dads for Father’s Day? Is that not what true equality is?
I’ve always hated all the cards that celebrate men for being beer-drinking, womanising essentially neanderthals, even though I know they are often jokes they are so far away from describing the amazing beautiful men I know in my life. It must be incredibly confusing for men to be always painted in this light, when they know there is so much more to who they are.
So true! When I read the list I laughed because it felt like a caricature of a man but not truly the essence of a man, it felt like it was belittling what a man brings to us all. There is a grace, a tenderness and caring that a man brings that feels solid and strong in its offering as a parent, husband, worker – well in any expression they choose. Time to throw away the pictures and caricatures and celebrate this fathers day with honouring the man within.
There are so many pictures around of what a man is and what men like. But what if everything out there is wrong and men are not like all the pictures we have come to know as being a man? What if men are indeed super tender, delicate, joyful, playful, love talking about what they feel and what is going on for then and so forth? I know this to be true and it is very beautiful to be able to see how all the pictures of tough, rough, beer-drinking, strong men are actually not true.
To celebrate the true beauty of men is connecting to our own tenderness and delicateness as women as men are equally tender and delicate. This is what it truly means to be a man and not the pictures that are imposed on them.
More and more I am coming to appreciate the beauty of men. A man who allows his tenderness to be seen is totally exquisite and impossible not to fall in love with.
I love the photo accompanying this blog. The tenderness shown in this hug between two men is something rare and beautiful to behold. In the past few years I have been tenderised a lot and am now able to hug with a lot of tenderness. When old friends put out their right hand to shake hands these days I gently pull them in for a hug. The response is generally for them to show me how hard they are with a firm squeeze and sometimes even a slap or two on the back.
How is it that we so easily succumb to what society is dictating to us? WE know very well the other side of the story and all the amazing things about men we really appreciate but are not featured on these fathers day cards. The gentleness of a man was inherent in the word gentleman but today that usually refers to a man who is polite rather than gentle. I am more and more expressing how I feel about the ways of men to them, appreciating their gentleness and consideration, their handling of heavier things and generally supporting me as a woman. I feel we don’t do this anyway near enough and the men don’t get to realise and appreciate for themselves all the wonderful qualities they innately have and that we love to have them shared with us.
Interesting how the pictures available to us in society reflect what we are already subscribing to, allow and essentially demanding. This for me highlights our responsibility of what we are choosing for ourselves, and how we are choosing to meet another. And so if we met men knowing, appreciating and allowing them to be who they naturally are in essence, our society would then be in demand, receive and share a vastly different and truer reflection.
Yes true Carola, we have all bought into the stereotypes of men and women that society has created for us but which have not one ounce of truth in them. It is time to re-imprint all that and banish these false pictures of what a man or what a woman is to the garbage bin of history.
I’ve seen many men mimic their past ‘role models’ and it often comes with the flavours of hardness.
And yet when I get a glimpse of their tenderness it is so beautiful to see.
I have just returned from a retreat in the UK and I shared the bathroom with other men. I loved walking into the room and watching them tenderly groom themselves and even loved the fact they took longer showering than I……so beautiful to observe – more please.
It is important to clarify what celebration truly is before we say that we are celebrating ‘Fathers Day’. Celebration is far more than what is said or done as so is the focus of this day. Celebration is about confirming and letting everyone appreciate in full the gorgeous essence we all have and what it means to have the blessing of being with such beauty in our lives.
Inside the hard tough exteriors displayed by men, due to stereotyping, lies a very tender sensitive and delicate man and when we as women claim our innate nurturing and sacredness this calls to men to claim their own divine ways.
If we truly celebrate men for who they are, it would not involve any toughness, façade or protection but allows them to be delicate, sensitive and deeply tender.
So often, we explore the stereotypes and diminishment made of women – the true and exquisite nature of what it is to be a woman – in our press and society… But do we really look at what’s going on for men in this regard? It is indeed horrendous, with so much confirming that to be a man one has to be ‘tough’, ‘beyond emotions’, have a buffed physique and the rest.
The conversation most definitely needs to be opened up in all respects, that we reclaim the exquisite nature of BOTH sexes, and learn to honour this far more deeply in the way that we relate to each other. Every one of us has a tender, beating heart, every one of us feels, and every one of us is precious beyond measure. There is simply no more and no less in this, but an equality that can be felt, if we but open up our hearts to it.
We are all the lesser in society due to the stereotypical and oftentimes completely false images portrayed of either sex… As you’ve just touched the tip of here Peta and Adrienne, there is so, so much more to us all than this, and we deserve to live in a celebration of what it is that all of us – men and women alike – innately bring, and have to offer.
That we may foster what’s true in ourselves and between us, and let the walls come a-tumblin’ down…
Thank-you for this blog.
Yes I agree, as we reduce men to this stereotype, we equally reduce ourselves. Let’s bring those walls down and discover and celebrate what is underneath.
Here’s to celebrating the true beauty of men every day – ditching the stereotypes and not limiting it to one day of the year.
Hear, hear Helen, I agree we should celebrate men and women everyday, and not save it for just one day of the year. This would be amazing if we all celebrate each other regularly.
Love all the comments from men on this thread and truly appreciate those who are willing to show their deep tenderness and beauty to inspire all women to reflect this too.
It is rather sad to restrict the celebration of our father to one day in the calendar.
Every day and every connection with anyone is a moment that offers another the true self reflection of love we all have for one another constantly.
When I think about all of the Father’s Day magazines that you describe- as a kid this is also what I used to buy for my Dad- socks or a watch for father’s day and often in a dark brown colour. It is funny because I never took the time enough to notice what he would have actually liked- I expressed in the way I thought we had to- I know he would have much preferred a card sharing how I felt about him or something like that more- I thought buying him socks was showing my love for him- but it always felt empty and a bit dishonouring of him but I never challenged this- each year I would just do the same.