Manhood: Man and Criminally Minded Father Essay Example

The struggle for manhood is riddled with obstacles of social myth, and uncertain blundering. The circumstances surrounding this type of transformation vary significantly between cultures, but in the end, when a boy truly feels that his actions at all times will affect his life forever, he will man up. This realization is not always found easily, and sometimes not at all. Because of incorrect notions about the habits of men, many youths are lead into a false sense of manliness which hinders them in their quest to make the leap to adulthood.

In different cultures, boys become men at different ages, and in different ways. In Germany, many boys take part in an initiation ceremony called a Jugendweihe at the age of fourteen, where they receive their identity papers and are "addressed with the formal pronoun Sie (as opposed to the informal due)" ("Jugendweihe"). In Finland, boys ages fifteen to eighteen go to "root camps" called Juurileiri where they "get familiar with the way of life, world view, beliefs and traditions of ancient Finns for a week through discussions, handicraft, drama, and skills necessary for life in primitive conditions." ("Secular coming of age ceremony"). And in China, a ceremony called Guan Li is practiced where boys at the age of twenty are given a style name, which is a "symbol of adulthood and respect" ("Chinese style name"). The point is, that no matter what part of the world, or how it is done, when boys get and appreciate the respect that gives them the power to govern over their own lives, they become men. But in many cultures that do not have a specific initiation to adulthood, boys do not always obtain and even more rarely appreciate that power.

In many cases, the social stereotypes about men in a culture mislead boys about what they should do to become a man. In the American culture for instance, you have to follow a strict set of erroneous rules to be true man. You have to win fights, be able to drink a lot of alcohol,