Real Men: The conversation continues

We asked my 18-year-old bochur what he thought of her perspective, and his answer was the equivalent of “nu nu, pass the cholent.” He explained, “Of course she has a point, but a whole article?”

Mrs. Kosman succeeded in turning an interesting observation about modes of behavior that we expect and reinforce among men into a new problem that we have to deal with: How can we make our sons and their fathers more emotionally expressive? In short, how can we make them more like women?

I am sure my sons and his friends will not think too much more into Mrs. Kosman’s article, but their mothers and future wives will, and they will try all sorts of ways to get the men in their lives to express themselves more. Yet the best way to get men to learn to express themselves is to follow the time-tested Jewish formula — get that bochur married to a wonderful, secure bas Yisrael at a young age. He will slowly but surely find his more “feminine side”; it inevitably will develop as he learns to create a deep relationship with his wife and his children.

A word of advice for women to help this process along: The way to get husbands to be the men you dream of is not to make them more like women, but to empower them to be more like men, secure in their value to the family and with the trust that only you can give them that they are your heroes and will figure out a way to make you happy. Criticizing and controlling doesn’t help, it just makes them feel more insecure and vulnerable. Build them up and they will open up.