I'm in my early 40's, I guess I grew up in a different world from most younger men. There was no internet when I was a teenager. What we knew about life we garnered from experience, rather than learning other people's horror stories online and witnessing the horrors of female behavior through social media.

Something that i've noticed is a lot of younger men are lacking Father figures as a result of being "raised" by single parent Mothers. This never really impacted me until I thought about my own Father.

He was a distant stoic sort of man. He was never emotional, he never showed any affection, he never said "I love you". However, he always got up at 5:30am every morning to go to work as an Electrician. He never took a day of sick. He always worked hard to provide for his family.

To me, this was his way of saying "I love you".

I also have this same work ethic. I will get up early, work as many hours as I can, never call in sick. The way I see it is if I can physically get out of bed, then I have no excuse for not working. One day it occurred to me that nobody ever taught me this work ethic, I didn't read about it somewhere, or decide this is how i'm going to be.

Then I remembered my Dad. It was simply being around him and observing his behavior and attitude towards work that impacted me, and taught me a lesson without using words. I think this extends to other areas as well, such as how to react emotionally.

When a man has a Father figure in his life, he sees how a man responds to a situation, and it imprints on him. When a man is "raised" by a single parent mother, he only sees her reaction, and that imprints on him instead.

Men, especially Fathers, are not appreciated enough by society, and that makes me sad to think about.