I've Got 6 Years to Raise a Good Man

My 5-Point Battle Plan to Fight Against the Manosphere

I’ve been planning to write a version of this for a while - how I want to create a 6-year plan to make a good man out of my 12-year-old son, so that by the time he’s on his own at 18, he’s someone who respects himself, respects women, and is generally a positive force in the world. I hadn’t really formed any solid ideas, just kinda futzing around with stuff, kinda balloon testing how I wanted to write about it, kinda stalling if I’m being honest— because I’m not an expert and feel silly writing about this stuff if I haven’t fully digested all the resources or formed a solid schematic of how I was going to present it. But then last weekend I watched the documentary “Louis Theroux: Inside The Manosphere” and holy hell. Everything got pushed into hyper-drive. I had no idea how far-reaching the misogynist, racist, toxic influence from that world had become. I saw tweens around my son’s age high-fiving these pieces of trash in the street, telling them, “You’re my idol!” after they’d put out a YouTube or a podcast claiming that women are toys to be dominated and shouldn’t be allowed to vote. It was my wake up call: No more waiting around. Ready or not, it’s time to form a plan. Because my middle-school-aged son will be exposed to these kinds of things soon, if he hasn’t already. So I pushed up this post, more to light a fire under my ass than anything else. To create a battle plan; a multi-pronged defense system to keep my son from disappearing down the dark toxic corners of the manosphere.

This is all pretty off-the-cuff, and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but I figure it’s good to show a work in progress so you can see what is working and what’s not. I’m dying for input and resources so please sound off in the comments if you too have started forming a plan. My goal is to make this an ongoing series, almost like a weekly check-in to both report back and to keep myself accountable. Because lord knows, this kind of change is always easier said than done, and when it comes to big parenting ideas, I have a tendency to start hot and let it burn out. Anyone else have that problem? That’s why I’m going to make this a weekly check-in. This Substack will hold my feet to the fire so I don’t just ‘talk the talk’ but actually practice what I preach. It’s like weekly homework assignments that you and I can grade together. What worked? What didn’t? Do I pivot? Do I lean in more? We’ll find out together.

There will undoubtedly be setbacks and changes to the plan, and that will all be documented honestly. Plus, I know I’m going to learn a helluva lot about myself in the process— all the ways I’m not practicing what I preach. All the deficiencies I need to work on. If I want my son to be a good man, I’m gonna need to step up my own game. So yeah, it’s gonna be quite the undertaking. But the stakes are too high to keep kicking the can down the road. So here we go.

After some serious brainstorming, these are the pillars of my plan thus far. Keep in mind, they’re all things I need to work on, not things I’m currently doing well. So I’ll report back how they’re working: