I have been searching for mature masculinity since I was five years old when my mid-life father took an overdose of sleeping pills. He had become increasingly depressed because he felt he couldn’t support his family doing the work that he loved. We are living at a time when males feel increasingly disconnected from themselves, their families, and the community of life on planet Earth. Fortunately, my father survived, but our lives were never the same. I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and how I could help other families avoid the pain we suffered. I wrote about his healing journey, and my own, in my book, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound.
I have just finished reading a timely and important book, Boys a Rescue Plan, by New York Times Bestselling author, Michael Gurian and Sean Kullman, President of the Global Initiative for Boys and Men. I recently did an interview with Gurian and Kullman where we explored the ways we can move beyond the politics of masculinity and how we can rescue our boys and heal our men.
You can watch the full interview and the timely discussion here.
The book has received praise from leading experts including Daniel Amen, M.D., Christine Hoff Sommers, PhD, and Dr. Warren Farrell who wrote the book’s Foreword. After reading the book, I said, in part,
“I believe Boys, A Rescue Plan is the book for our times. The research is clear—males are suffering from deaths of despair at rates higher than females. This is not only a tragedy for boys and men, but also for girls and women. Gurian and Kullman bring good science and practical data to help improve the lives of all.”
The book not only tackles some of the most challenging and controversial topics about the boy crisis but offers a specific plan for helping boys and men, girls and women. The book is divided into 24 helpful, easy to read, chapters under the following four parts:
Part 1: The Male Mental Health Crisis
Part 2: Boys, Sexual Dimorphism, and the Culture of Exception
Part 3: Big Three Politics That Keep Us From Helping Boys
Part 4: The Seven Point Plan to Rescue Our Boys
My colleague, Warren Farrell, is one of the world’s leading experts on boys and men. He has been chosen by the Financial Times of London as one of the world’s top 100 thought leaders. His books are published in 19 languages. He is the author of numerous best-selling books including The Boy Crisis co-authored by Dr. John Gray.
In the Foreword to Boys, A Rescue Plan, Dr. Farrell shares his own perspective on the value you will receive in reading the book:
“Scientists are rarely advocates and advocates are rarely scientists, And those who raise children and grandchildren, even as they have a long and deeply loving marriage, rarely have the time to have an international impact and create an infrastructure that will outlast them. Their accomplishments are rarely infused with the balance and wisdom that emanates from raising children and loving the children’s mother. In the thirty-five years that I have known Michael Gurian, I have witnessed him be all that. Through his books, speaking, workshops, and the Gurian Institute.”
Dr. Farrell goes on to say,
“Fortunately, in Boys, A Rescue Plan, we are also blessed with Sean Kullman. Sean is a younger generation’s version of Michael Gurian (except for the grandchildren!) Sean is also a data-driven advocate with whom I have worked for more than a decade on the Coalition for a White House Council on Boys and Men.”
Although the book is packed with valuable tools that will help us all heal ourselves and our families and help us understand issues that often confuse and divide people, the care, compassion, and humanity of the authors shine through every page.
As a man, husband, father, grandfather, and great grandfather, I was moved to tears as Michael shares his personal life of love and loss, birth and death:
“Holding your own child in your arms is a miracle. Holding your grandchild is, too, as I’ve recently learned. In June of 2014 I arrived in Seattle where my daughter, Gabrielle, gave birth to Lev Micah Quen-Murray. The hospital, the C section, the smells and sounds, the anticipation and nervousness, the yearning to protect and support, the deep call from the soul to be a part of the miracle of birth flowed through me as they all had back when Gabrielle, my first child, was born 34 years before and then Davita three years later—another C section, another birth, another miracle-then again in August of 2024 when Davita gave birth to her daughter, Effy Gail Herrington.”
“The miracles of my grandchildren’s births were amplified, I think, because just before my daughters became parents and I became a grandfather a deep loss attached itself to our family. My children and I lost my wife, their mother, Gail, in the summer of 2023. Gail and I had been together 39 years and married 37. Pancreatic cancer took her swiftly and painfully. Just a few weeks after Gail died, Gabrielle got pregnant and then, two months later, Davita followed. Our family believes (without scientific proof but with spiritual happiness) that Gail watched over our daughters and their husbands from her mysterious perch: gave to them the lives that she, ready to retire from her counseling practice to take care of grandchildren, wanted most in her elder years: the miracle of grandchildren.”
Even writing this now, I do so with tears of sadness and tears of joy for a man who has given so much in his life to help boys and men, girls and women. I honor his gifts and blessings and the courage he demonstrates as a healer and an author to share his most private thoughts and feelings with the world. Michael opens his heart and soul because he knows that true love and wisdom only comes with deep sorrow and grief.
We all must die some time and we all hope to pass on some bit of experience and wisdom with the time we are allotted her on Earth. I know that Michael and Sean will resonate with these words from one of my mentors, the philosopher, Paul Tillich who said,
“Every serious thinker must ask and answer three fundamental questions:
- What is wrong with us? With men? Women? Society? What is the nature of our alienation? Our disease?
- What would we be like if we were whole? Healed? Actualized? If our potentiality was fulfilled?
- How do we move from our condition of brokenness to wholeness? What are the means of healing?”
I had met the eminent philosopher Paul Tillich towards the end of his life when he was a guest lecturer at U.C. Santa Barbara where I went to college. I was nineteen years old at the time and I felt his wisdom was a beacon of light that offered me guidance from a wise father-figure at a time when I needed it the most.
I believe that Michael Gurian and Sean Kullman offer us all wisdom that can not only help us raise healthy sons into strong caring men but can help us heal the wounds in our society that produces wounded “boymen” who never really grow up. These kinds of men are a danger to themselves and others. I will continue exploring these ideas in the second part of this series. Stay tuned.
If you would like to get more information about Michael Gurian and his work you can connect with him here: https://gurianinstitute.com/
If you would like to get more information about Sean Kullman and his work, you can do so at the Global Initiative for Boys and Men (GIBM) here: https://www.gibm.us/
If you would like to connect with me and receive our free weekly newsletter and more articles exploring healthy masculinity and ways we can improve our mental, emotional, and relational health, come visit me at https://menalive.com/. You can subscribe to the newsletter at https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/.
