The Men We Were Told to Be: On Strength, Silence, and the Souls We’ve Buried

We were told to be strong.

But no one told us what that meant.

Not the kind of strength that bends steel or cracks backs in gyms, but the kind of strength that swallows grief whole. The kind that smiles through betrayal, endures abandonment, raises siblings, buries fathers, protects mothers, and stitches up the wounds of a generation with no blueprint but a clenched jaw and silent prayers.

I’ve watched boys harden into men before they ever had a chance to soften. I’ve seen laughter replaced with edge, innocence with armor, tears with tension. And for what? To prove a masculinity that no one defined, only enforced.

This world makes liars of men.

It praises the silent, stoic figure and mocks the one who confesses pain. It rewards the playboy and punishes the poet. It gives medals to those who dominate and exile those who feel.

It’s in taking accountability. It’s in sitting in therapy instead of a bottle. It’s in being fatherless and choosing not to repeat the cycle. It’s in building something beautiful from rubble, not just for yourself, but for others who need proof that it’s possible.

We live in a world that doesn’t mourn the men it destroys. That sees the overdose, the rage, the absenteeism, the aggression, but never traces it back to the pain it told them to hide.

So today, I challenge the narrative. Not just for me, but for every boy who needed to be held instead of “toughened up.” For every man who needs to hear this: You are not weak because you feel. You are not soft because you break down. You are human.

Let us redefine power. Let us choose healing over hiding. Let us teach our sons to cry and our fathers to apologize. Let us love men out loud, without suspicion or shame. Let us not only break the cycle, but burn the script.

Because the future of our communities, our relationships, and our survival, depends on men who no longer fear their reflection.