Manning Up and Out
Lessons from caring for my 79-year-old Pop
The agony turned my dad’s face into a shape I hadn’t seen in decades.
A nurse practitioner was trying to insert a catheter through my dad’s penis and into his bladder. But Andrew, the nurse, couldn’t get past my pop’s prostate.
As my dad grimaced and yelled, his 30-year-old face emerged. The intense pain somehow erased the jowls and wrinkles of his 79 years.
I stood amazed. At the way he looked. And at the way he was weathering the trauma. Especially within a day of getting a pacemaker — a procedure that had put his urinary system “to sleep” and led to the need to drain his bladder.
I felt awful for my dad. And then I started feeling awful myself. Light-headed and dizzy, as the catheter effort lasted past 10 minutes or so.
“Pop, I need to sit down,” I said.
Sitting down quickly turned into lying down. I thought I might faint. Sweat poured out of my pores and I put my forehead directly on the cool exam room floor for relief.
“You Ok?” Andrew asked me.
At that moment, I think Andrew was as worried about me — if not more worried — than he was about dad.
But a few minutes later, I felt better. And then my dad surprised me again.
Andrew finally gave up the catheter attempt — which had included trying with a second, wire-based catheter.
Here were the first words out of my dad’s mouth: “Thank you, Andrew. You made a great effort.”
Huh?
How did my dad muster up this graceful appreciation? After what he later described as one of the most painful episodes in his life?
Where was his anger? His temper? The overbearingness and sarcasm he’d often displayed during his life?
Apparently he’d outgrown it. Evolved into a different kind of man. Arrived at a more mature place as a human being.
I’ve never been more proud of him.
Manly lessons from caring
This catheter incident — by turns horrific, absurd and transcendent — encapsulated my experience over the past two weeks. I flew to Alabama to care for my dad as he got the pacemaker and help him arrange for more long-term support. The trip turned out to be full of grief, goofiness and gifts.
I plan to share more moments and meanings from this care excursion in the coming weeks and months.
For now I want to highlight what it suggests about how men can thrive today.
There’s been a lot of debate in recent years about the confusion and struggles men are experiencing now. The Washington Post’s Christine Emba described the crisis earlier this month in a powerful essay, “Men are Lost. Here’s a Map Out of the Wilderness.”
I believe one path forward is to remember where we’ve been as men. And who we are at our best, our fullest, our most soulful.
Where have we been? We’ve been very different than we are today. For a few thousand years, we’ve been confined to a cramped manhood defined by competition, domination, achievement, stoicism and self-sufficiency.
But during the 95 percent or so of human existence spent in foraging groups, men were more likely to see themselves as part of an interdependent community and find their self-worth and status from serving the bigger whole. Men also didn’t see themselves lording it over women so much as existing in partnership with them.
We can’t to go back to hunting and gathering on a global scale. But we can learn from that past. And we can move from expressing just part of our humanity to recovering all of it.
Arrow-and-Circle Masculinity
A reminder of that wholeness is right under our noses.
I’m talking about the arrow-and-circle masculinity symbol. The arrow of that emblem speaks to such archetypical masculine roles as providing, protecting and procreating. Those identities, and related energies such as assertiveness, ambition and a sense of adventure, aren’t trouble in and of themselves. In fact, they’re honorable.
But they aren’t all we can be. And they aren’t enough for us to succeed in a 21st century that’s faster, flatter and fairness-focused.
We need the circle as well. We need the archetypical feminine energies of vulnerability, receptivity, connection and compassion. Of caregiving.
“Manning up” is really about “manning out” — encompassing all our capacities as human beings.
Arrow-and-circle masculinity (a concept I co-created with author Jim Young) allows a man to be a proud, responsible care partner.
A man who will change diapers, cook healthy meals and hold vigil over a sick kid or elderly parent.
A man who will hold the hand of a father experiencing excruciating pain. One willing to laugh at himself, rather than lacerate himself, for feeling faint in the face of that suffering. One who recognizes and honors the progress around patience and kindness in a long-gruff father.
At least that’s the kind of man I’m trying to become. And my own father is showing me how to make that shift.
It’s not an easy journey. It’s taken decades for him and me. And neither of us is all the way there yet.
But the rewards are rich. So much soulfulness is possible when we embrace both arrow and circle.
Messy, meaningful times in Alabama
The past two weeks have been some of the best times I’ve ever spent with my dad.
Hard and messy sometimes. But also filled with moments of deep happiness. I didn’t exactly leave my heart in Alabama. But I returned to San Francisco with my heart full.
My dad’s face transformed back into its 79-year version after the catheter torture ended.
But that older, weathered face is, in its way, as handsome as any younger iteration.
As I said goodbye this week, I treasured giving him a kiss on his jowl-y cheek.
