Boyhood ((full)) Today

He didn’t feel sad, exactly. He felt like the dam. He had been a small, determined thing, trying to hold back the inevitable. And now the water had found a new way. It had gone around him, under him, and was moving on, toward a river, and eventually, toward a sea he couldn’t yet imagine. He closed the closet door, sat on his bed, and for the first time, he didn’t reach for a compass or a secret or a cure for the ache.

In the absence of a father, a grandfather, a coach, or a mentor, boys build their maps of masculinity from media, video games, or peer groups. Historically, boys learned how to be men by watching men. They saw how a man treats a waitress, how a man fixes a faucet, how a man apologizes after losing his temper. Boyhood