Each of us are the sum total of all our experiences, both good, bad, healing and destructive; in an incomplete, endlessly evolving tapestry of life. I know the idea of men being some kind of ‘original sin’ is a tempting one, it feels good to chastise and scorn them; and all too easy to lock them up as forever broken. But those bad men – in fact, especially those men – just like you and I, are the product of their experiences, their environment, and their childhood journey too. No. Nobody is born bad. Research has found that violent fantasies, often stem from experiences of bullying. So too, research finds those who are violent towards their partner, are more likely to have experienced violence as a child themselves. We know those in gangs often come from broken homes, typically without fathers, and fall into organised crime, in search for the family they never knew. “Boys who hurt, hurt us”, as Dr Warren Farrell often teaches. Did you know surveys have found that 98% of those in prison have at least one adverse childhood experience? That is not a coincidence. And so, as young men drop out of school, and fall into gangs, and onto prison, we must read between the lines, and learn to look beyond the mask of the angry man, to see what is so often the broken boy behind it. This is not so we can excuse, justify, or alleviate them of responsibility, for there is no justifying violence. It is so we can understand, and ultimately, stop others following them down the same dark path too. Can we humanize those we so often see as inhuman, so we can understand what shapes violence? What do you think? ~ In the Absence of Fathers https://tinyurl.com/52b7vkb9 Obama and Fatherlessness https://tinyurl.com/4m6y89we Masculinity is not our enemy https://tinyurl.com/2az4fr8j IFS and Youth Clubs https://tinyurl.com/my5u29r3 US Incarceration rates over time https://tinyurl.com/57495ha9 Knife Crime https://tinyurl.com/95atxwj2

2025-11-21