Why Mentorship For Single Men Matters
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Honestly, there are many days that I feel the temptation to rent the largest billboard possible and print just a few words: “Where are all the good men?” The pessimist in me would sometimes prefer to sarcastically reply to this with, “There are none.” However, as I have allowed my biased defenses to drop against men in the past several years, I have to admit that there are indeed many great men out there. The question I find myself coming back to each week is, well, if there exists such great men, where are they?
I ask this question not for myself, but for the young boys I have the privilege to work with each week. As a coordinator for a mentoring program in several public schools and after school sites in my neighborhood, I often find myself having painful, awkward conversations with young boys about whether they will ever be able to have a male mentor or not. The majority of children referred to me to be paired with a mentor are Black and Latino, performing below level in at least one academic subject, living in a single mother (or grandmother) home, may have an incarcerated parent, and live at or below the poverty level.
Most of the children are young boys who are looking for a good man to look up to. From the countless conversations I have been lucky enough to have with so many of them, I have learned that they want a mentor who looks and talks like them, who will get where they are coming from culturally. I have learned that they just want someone to play sports or video games with, and also to help them do better in school. Many of them have shared with me they want to learn to have better behavior, but are tired of being talked at all the time (mostly by women) when they act out, when really they just need to be listened to.
Unfortunately, some of them approach me after a year or two of waiting and they pretty much understand that their mentor is most likely never going to arrive. There are just not enough males who are willing to be in their lives as positive role models, and I am still trying to figure out how to explain that to them, especially after I have encountered so many dynamic young men as colleagues and friends throughout the years. I do not know how to ask young boys to keep waiting when they have already been let down so many times in their lives.
For a long time, women have stepped up and assumed both the role of mother and father to young boys, as well the ones who have been willing to mentor young boys outside of their own families. I know that boys can and have turned into amazing men with having the positive influence of their mothers, grandmothers and female mentors, but there is still something we cannot provide. There is a reason God created man and woman. A young boy in need of guidance will have a better chance of turning into a strong, positive man one day if a man who has done well with his life is willing to step up and invest his time into him.
Who is willing to sacrifice and commit? Where are the good men who are going to take responsibility to make sure our communities are full of more good men in the future?
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