What’s Stopping Boys from Becoming Men? | Fireside Chat

It's very hard for boys to grow up without a male model to show them what it is to be a man. This is why we have such a tragedy in the, what we call in America, the inner city, which is largely blacks and Hispanics, but especially blacks, who in 80% of the cases don't come from a married mother and father and frequently just don't have a father in their life. How are you going to become a man? So often their manliness is expressed in gang warfare, in violence. When being a male is not taught to you and you don't have models of good men, then you will have models of bad men. That's an issue. And even worse, many boys grow up now without a father on earth or a father in heaven. They don't have either model. So I don't believe it's too late for a young man. And if they want to use people like Jordan or myself, and there are many others without question, that's good. To be a man, I'll take the Jewish formula, which I think is terrific. When a boy or a girl, for that matter, is born in Jewish life, this is what is wished. May you grow up, and every traditional, now most Jews are not religious, so a lot of Jews don't know this, but all religious Jews know this. There's a wish for three things when a boy or a girl is born. May you grow up for, in Hebrew it's Torah, chuppah u'ma'asim tovim. For Torah, that is biblical study and observance. Chuppah, the wedding canopy, get married. And ma'asim tovim, good deeds. Frankly, I think that's the greatest trio to make you a good person, man or woman, that I've ever heard. Grow up with biblical wisdom and observing its moral laws, and get married and do good deeds. Then you'll be a man. By the way, in general, marriage makes men men. It's hard to be a man. I mean, you can. There are single men who obviously are certainly good men. There's no question about that. But nothing quite does it like marriage. That is so true, the big part of our problem, the men you describe here, loneliness, depression, pornography, those are three symbols of single men. You could be lonely, you could be depressed, and you could engage in pornography as a married man. I totally acknowledge that. But overwhelmingly, marriage helps in all three categories. The effect on women, we have more depressed young women than any time since recording has begun of women's depression rates. The price paid for this nonsense, which the feminists developed, I got to admit. Then the men went along of not getting married, or getting married so much later in life that you stay a boy.