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JAMES RAY: Children in this country are desperate for strong paternal role models. I'm on a mission to help men be the best fathers they can be
Children in this country are desperate for fathers to rise to the occasion. All the research indicates that a key determinant of a child's ability to flourish – to make a success of growing up – is having a father actively involved in his or her life; to have a decent dad in the picture. The affection of a father can prove one of the most authoritative things in a child's life. But we have to help father figures rise to the occasion to create stronger role models. Boys particularly crave male mentors. This has been my experience teaching kids in an elite boarding school and now ministering to less privileged young people in the communities I serve. As a man, more than anything I want to answer this summons. To step up for my own two boys, certainly. But I also want to step up by standing in as an honorary dad. In 2010, following the death of his father, Jean (then 14) and his mother asked me to adopt him. I accepted the honour. A child's need for a paternal presence goes very deep. In his 1949 study, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell identified a common structure to our most beloved stories. A key component of what Campbell called 'the hero's journey' – according to which a protagonist initially resists the adventure they've been summoned to – is the encounter with an older mentor, a wise guide. Think Yoda, the Jedi master in Star Wars, who gives Luke Skywalker all the encouragement and advice he needs to take on the dark side of the Force. But here's the catch: to be a wise sage you must first have been a hero. As a father, and indeed as a father-figure, an awful lot rides on 'whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life', in the words of David Copperfield. What does heroism require from men today? Of all the heroic attributes we could name, in our cultural context I think the most important one is integrity. Integrity, best defined as 'being the same in every room', matters because for many of us our greatest danger lies in compartmentalising our lives. You hear professionals complain about having a poor work–life balance. More problematic is what we might call a 'work-life chasm' – i.e. a yawning gulf between my public and private life. 'Over there is my job, my colleagues, my dreams', I catch myself thinking; 'over here is my marriage, my kids, my responsibilities'. But you run a risk when you so strictly demarcate the various roles you play. The temptation is being a different person with different people: doting father, cutthroat trader, loving husband, predatory colleague ('a real character'). 'I contain multitudes', boasted the American poet, Walt Whitman. I'm not sure that's a good thing. But what do you need if you are to turn out to be the hero of your own life? The answer, of course, is other heroes; being able to turn to other guys who've embarked on the same road. Here the hero's journey needs to incorporate the buddy-buddy trope of the best detective films – the partner who consoles and cajoles. My passion for this kind of peer support is why I founded the charity, XTREME CHARACTER CHALLENGE. Since 2017 we've taken thousands of men on 72-hour adventures in the wild – a kind of MOT for men, or DofE for dads. Stranded in Snowdonia, your phone confiscated, we've found that being physically exposed to the elements can precipitate being emotionally exposed to one another. A rare thing indeed: men opening up about their deepest insecurities, unspoken dreams, strongest temptations and greatest fears. What happens, though, if you systematically avoid your peers? If you try to go it alone? Well, in storytelling there's another intriguing archetype. Instead of becoming a hero, the protagonist who refuses to learn lessons becomes the fool. The fool's fate inverts the hero's journey. Everyone who embarks on the adventure of life brings weapons with them – namely, their skills and strengths. But we also bring our injuries – our weaknesses, our flaws, what Alcoholics Anonymous terms our 'character defects'. Becoming the hero of your own life hinges on your ability to recognise and then fix these flaws. It's the only way to overcome the enemy and win the reward. The coward finds his courage. The hothead finds his peace. The cheat becomes honest. The liar tells the truth. The egoist becomes sacrificial. The fool, by contrast, is someone who continually denies their character defects. Refusing to learn from their mistakes he is doomed to repeat them. Put differently, the fool is someone who refusing to grow up, is condemned to a Nietzschean 'eternal recurrence', but of a distinctly puerile kind. 'I don't want ever to be a man,' he said with passion. 'I want always to be a little boy and to have fun…' J.M. Barrie certainly thought he was writing a hero's story. But is he a dude or a dud, the 43-year-old man who still defines fun in exactly the same terms he did when he was 16 – wasted in a pub every weekend; or racking up snogs at second-rate festivals. I hate to break it to you: Peter Pan is no hero. Neverland is a fools' paradise. The young people of this great nation are too imperiled for men to fall for being fools. It's not just my own happiness that depends on my sticking to the script, on my seeing out the hero's journey. There are other people at stake. So much so, in fact, we can even say that the way to change the world that's most available to us as men, which is the nearest to hand, is to raise the children we have fathered – and perhaps those who live next door too. James Ray helps people realise their potential through his work as a leadership development consultant, a wilderness adventurer and a priest in the Church of England. His book RESPONSIBILITY: BECOMING THE AUTHENTIC MAN is out now.
