A father and son reflection, in time for Father’s Day

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/06/2025 (294 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In today’s tech-saturated world, it’s easy to overlook the wisdom offered by nature.

If a buzzard finds itself in a pen about eight feet square yet entirely open at the top, the large bird, despite its desire and ability to fly, will be a hostage. Without adequate space to take off — roughly 12 feet of clear ground — a buzzard won’t even attempt to fly. It will instead remain a prisoner for life in a cramped jail that is really just a fence.

The nocturnal winged bat — a remarkably nimble creature when airborne — cannot take off from a level surface. If it finds itself on a floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about awkwardly in search of some type of sharp elevation change from which it can throw itself into the air and take flight.

A bumblebee, if it finds itself at the bottom of a tall open drinking glass, will be there until it dies. It cannot sense the exit is at the top and will persist in crashing into the sides near the bottom. Unless liberated by another from above, the bumblebee will violently seek a way out where none exists until it destroys itself in the process.

Humans often succumb to similar fates. Without help to overcome their circumstances and exercise their innate individualism, they resort to self-defeating behaviour.

Some people need space and time to take flight, but when not allowed, do not even try. Others first need a change in their surrounding circumstances to thrive. Still others need help from someone else before they, by hammering their heads against their walls in blinkered frustration, destroy themselves. And some human creatures, because they are more complex than non-human creatures, need all three conditions to be realized before they can fly.

Fathers can provide such support. Unfortunately, such fatherly assistance is too often in short supply these days, the consequences of which are readily apparent in contemporary Western social life.

For the average person, effort and merit alone no longer seem to guarantee financial security, much less upward social mobility. Research published in 2017 by an MIT economist suggests escaping poverty now typically requires some 20 years of hard work combined with no personal setbacks.

Meanwhile, the online world is awash in digitized ideals of affluence, body image and career success. And yet their near-impossible achievement through sheer individual agency is left unspoken.

One need only log into social media to see the profound anger and vitriol stemming from huge chunks of the population struggling to find independence, occupation and purpose as a result. This is especially true for young men. Data show they are increasingly dropping out of school and withdrawing from the labour force in droves.

Some are escaping into video games, while others are drowning in addictions of a different sort. And ever more are being drawn to toxic influencers and misogynist voices within the manosphere, such as Andrew Tate. These apex male fraudsters preach that life is a bloodsport. If other people — especially women — get hurt, exploited or cheated in their pursuit of wealth and self-gratification, so be it, they say.

“The cruelty is the point,” journalist Adam Serwer has written about how disaffected citizens in America — mostly young men who live extremely-online lives — are increasingly bonding with each other by celebrating the suffering of those whom they both fear and hate.

This is a shared problem for everyone.

But the answer, contrary to what so-called “men’s rights activists” say, isn’t a return to the male-dominated societies of the past. The economic evidence and moral basis for gender equality and women’s empowerment is irrefutable. “Nations that fail women fail,” argued The Economist during the pandemic as countries displayed different outcomes in part due to contrasting gender norms.

Instead, positively addressing the angst and anxieties of young men adrift in their own lives today will require both collective solutions and personalized attention to impart the need to prioritize humility, curiosity, tolerance and personal responsibility.

In this twenty-first century, helping young men navigate the increasing roadblocks and pitfalls of life that stem from rapid economic, social and technological change is critical as gender roles evolve and career paths fragment. Father figures are uniquely positioned to impart constructive values to their sons regardless of whether their relationship is biological or chosen. Sometimes a nudge in perspective is all that’s needed.

Just like the buzzard, bat and bumblebee, humans also sometimes need help to flourish in the life into which they were born.

Dennis Hiebert teaches in the department of sociology and criminology at the University of Manitoba. Kyle Hiebert is a Montreal-based political risk analyst and former deputy editor of the Africa Conflict Monitor.