A note from the host: The following is a first-person account of masculine initiation, written by my son, Samuel.  I’m proud and honored to welcome him as the author of this site’s first guest post.  Here’s Sam:

The summer before my tenth birthday, my Dad took me on a four-day backpacking trip. This was the start of a series of hikes where over the next four years, we walked the entire Foothills Trail. It wasn’t just about learning self-reliance, getting away from civilization, or communing with nature. It was a lot of those things, to be sure, but it was also more. Something that all cultures all around the world have done in one way or another, but that ours mysteriously stopped doing. It was an initiation.

“My Dad strapped a pack to my back, put me on a trail, and showed me how I did measure up – because he said so.”

When we put in, I was a scrawny nine year old with a big mouth and a serious lack of fortitude. I found this out for myself. And quickly. Within the first mile I was gasping, red-faced, and pitching a complete hissyfit. My list of complaints was endless: my pack was heavy, the load was throwing me off balance, the straps were chafing my shoulders, it was hot and humid which meant you could sweat for hours and never get any cooler, and, on top of everything, I was sure I was going to vomit.

My Dad ignored most of my complaints (good on ya, Dad). At one point, he turned around and said, “Congratulations, we just passed the first mile mark.” I was crushed. This was the hardest thing I’d ever done and I was barely into my first mile. I asked if we could stop for second and spent the next few minutes resigning myself to fate. I had agreed to something I wasn’t prepared for. If we were just now finished with mile one, how much worse would the next one be?

I spent the rest of the day in complete misery. Wrapped up in my self-pity I trudged along behind my Dad, near tears and tripping over roots in my selfish carelessness. We arrived at a small clearing at dusk and made camp. When stopping for the night, it’s a good idea to store any food away from your tent and out of reach of any animals with a taste for people food.

We set out to rig a bear bag, a sack tied to a rope thrown over a sturdy tree branch suspended several feet off the ground. My Dad tied his pocketknife to a length of cord and hurled it over a tree branch. I stood oblivious off to one side; the cord swung around and the pocketknife, thankfully closed, hit me in the mouth. I tasted blood. There I was, miserable, tired, and dirty, and now I was bleeding from the mouth. On top of all that, even if I gave up and refused to go another step forward, I still had five miles to go back the way we came. As I drifted off to sleep that night, I remembered what my Dad had said to me earlier when my whining reached a fever pitch. “The only way off this mountain is over it.”

As the trip progressed, I felt better and better. I enjoyed finding a rhythm, covering terrain, taking in the sights and smells, looking for the trail blazes. Above all, I liked having my Dad’s ear without the interference of conference calls or chores. It was a time to just talk. About fears, hopes, the really weird changes that were beginning to happen as puberty approached. My Dad had a thing or two to tell me as well. He asked me “what does it mean to be a man?” I mumbled some half-hearted reply; it sounded like one of those discussion questions from Sunday school, and when you’re nine years old, staying on topic isn’t typically your forte. He pressed me for answers – I really couldn’t give one.

He produced a survival knife like the kind Bear Grylls would use, in a reinforced nylon sheath with my initials on a small plaque. He gave me the knife. “Pretty cool, right?” I nodded, dumbstruck. “A knife like this has all kinds of uses.” I wouldn’t argue with him there; I had read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and knew if you were ever stranded in the wilderness, a blade of any kind is your best friend. From starting fires to preparing food and shelter, a knife is indispensable. He continued, “But what if you’re careless? You could very easily hurt yourself – or someone else. And plenty of people use knives to commit robberies – or worse. It’s all how you wield it. It’s not a toy; it’s a tool.”

“Your knife represents your strength as a man. You can use this knife responsibly, to build, even to defend yourself and others if need be, but you can misuse it for horrible purposes and do unspeakable things with it, or bury it in the backyard and let it rust where it’s no good to anyone.” My Dad told me being a man was about wielding strength. “Every male has some measure of strength; some don’t know how to control it,” he said. “They use their strength and aggression to intimidate, to take from weaker people. Some run from their strength and hide it away for fear of abusing it.” He said this was a misuse of strength too.

“What both of these misuses have in common is this: they’re afraid they don’t have what it takes.”

It made sense. I had seen angry dudes with hair triggers who went ape over the result of a football game. And I had also heard the “roll over and play dead” advice from well-meaning, but spineless PSAs, counselors, and teachers. It seemed like in either case people thought they didn’t measure up. So they blew up or rolled over.

“The whole purpose of this trip,” I remember my Dad saying “is to tell you that you have what it takes, that I’m proud of you, and that you have your father’s blessing.” At the time I was a little perplexed by what that meant, but as we continued our journey by installment of the Foothills Trail, culminating in an initiation into manhood ceremony at age 13, I began to see why my Dad went to all this trouble.

Years later in an anthropology course I learned how in different cultures all around the world, manhood is bestowed by other men after a trial or test. Boys look to the trial as a formative experience, and to their fathers and other elder males for confirmation of their masculinity. In modern Western culture, these rites of passage have largely vanished. But that day we set foot on the trail, my Dad began a process of initiation into manhood that I plan to continue with my sons. My Dad strapped a pack to my back, put me on a trail, and showed me how I did measure up – because he said so. And I’ve never forgotten.

-SYB

So how about you?  Who initiated you into manhood?  Who encouraged you and told you you have what it takes?  Add your comments below.