A lot has changed regarding responsibility for raising sons. It’s important to know that men were primarily responsible for raising their sons prior to the 1850′s and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. That’s a fact that’s been mostly forgotten. As a culture we’ve paid a heavy price for diminished fatherhood. The role of fathers has become mostly that of financial support, and this is true of men who remain married as well as men who don’t. Men must make fatherhood a proud and meaningful role again.

Prior to factories and mass production, men took their sons with them each day into the fields. They taught them how to grow food, hunt, and how to behave like men. They taught their sons trust by being trustworthy. They provided role models for their sons to emulate and imitate. These lessons were the rights of passage from boyhood to manhood that fathers had passed down to sons for centuries, and they were lost in a flash.

When fathers left the fields to work in the factories, women assumed the role of raising sons. While their intentions were good, women can’t be expected to know how to teach boys to become men. Women have raised boys to become the men they imagined they should be. What has made this situation even worse is that few fathers today have those skills any more either. Fatherhood has become a murky proposition. Men are portrayed as idiots and fools, particularly on television. Real life and cartoon fathers are typically pathetic losers. Perhaps art is simply imitating life.

The first man a boy learns trust from is his father. A father who makes promises to his son and breaks them has taught his son that he can’t be counted on, he can’t be trusted to keep his word. A father who abuses his son, physically or emotionally teaches his son that men are angry, unpredictable, and absolutely not trustworthy. A father who chastises or berates his son when his son expresses his passions and desires has taught his son that he can’t be trusted to listen to him with an open mind and see who he really is. A divorced father who doesn’t assume at least half the responsibility for raising his son simply continues the disconnection between boyhood and manhood. He shouldn’t be surprised if his son becomes problematic.

There are social repercussions from boys not feeling they can trust men that follow into adult life. There are reasons why few men have close men friends. Fear and trust are the culprits. Fear of looking less successful than other men, less manly, and less intelligent, stem from the lack of trust between sons and their fathers. What man would trust other men to treat him more fairly than his father did? That’s a risk most men prefer to avoid, and the alternative to trusting other men, being a loner, while painful, is preferable to being betrayed like they were when they were boys.

I raised my son from the time he was a year old after my wife moved back to Europe. I was twenty-one, a boy with a boy in many ways, but I felt an overwhelming commitment to my son. I was determined to raise him in a manner I had been denied, and that meant building trust with him. I coached soccer and baseball and drove on school outings because he knew he could depend on me. I still remember the triple batch of chocolate chip cookies I baked for his school that our dog ate and almost died. My son never feared volunteering my services. I’m sure he knew that sometimes it was difficult for me, but that he trusted me enough to know I’d be there for him was reward enough.

When he talked about his musical preferences as a teen, I didn’t tell him I hated his music. I did, but I kept it to myself because I knew it was a part of his believing in himself, part of building his character. When he told me he didn’t want to go to college, but wanted to join the Marines instead, I didn’t tell him that he was foolish just because I’d avoided the draft during Vietnam. He had a passion about patriotism and doing his part for his country that I respected and admired. I feared for his well-being, but I didn’t show him fear. I showed him respect and admiration for doing what he truly believed in. I prayed each night he’d be spared going to war, but I kept that to myself too. He didn’t need to carry my burden.

When he mustered out of the Marines and asked me to pay for college, I told him I would because I wanted to show respect and support for his decision. When he graduated four years later and moved far away from me for his first job, I cried some, and told him how difficult his moving away was for me. He reminded me that this was his life, not mine. I respected his desire to make it on his own without his father looking over his shoulder.

My son is forty-four now, and the father of his seven-year old son. I often tell him that he’s the father I wished I’d had; he’s that good at it. What’s immediately noticeable is that my grandson trusts his father unconditionally, and that’s huge progress in my family. I broke the chain of mistrust with my father, and my son has built trust with his son because of the lesson I taught him by being a trustworthy father.

Some things have changed since my son became a man. I never offer an opinion regarding what he’s talked about unless he asks for one. The quickest way to lose trust with an adult son is to berate him for his life’s decisions, or worse, second guess him. That’s disrespectful and kills trust instantly. Whoever or whatever you are as a man has nothing to do with how your son necessarily conducts himself as a man. I hoped my son would be a better father than I was, and in many ways he is. He is a man who other men look up to and trust. He’s suffered betrayal by a few men, but he’s never betrayed another man.

My son has men friends who are important to him. They ride motorcycles together and treat each other like brothers. He has men in his life he trusts, and that’s big for any man. He has become the incredible man he is at least partially because I allowed for his personal growth path and didn’t interfere unless I felt he would be permanently damaged. I didn’t want or expect him to be like me, I wanted him to be who he wanted to be. We share many character traits, which make me feel good about both of us, but in many ways he’s his own man. I couldn’t be a prouder dad, and I couldn’t have been any more involved.

If you’re the father of a son, don’t walk away from the boy who can grow up and become your most trusted and loved friend. Give him more than you received from your father. Teach him trust by being trustworthy. Teach him respect by respecting him. Teach him love by loving him. Teach him fairness by treating him fairly. My solemn promise to you is that you will know what it feels like to behave like a man. Your son will be living proof you were a father in the oldest sense of the word.