I had a father-son camp at my laaitie’s school recently.
It was a proper camp on the sports ground, with uncomfortable tents, sandy food and all-night torch excursions.
The boys ran wild until they passed out. It was fascinating to watch dads have some quality time with their sons.
It was also very pleasing to see adult men engage around braai fires, without alcohol, just having good clean fun.
It felt like a rite of passage, where fathers share some secret knowledge with their sons about the way of the world and what it means to be a man.
I know I’m making much more of it than it actually was. But with the ongoing stories of women and girls being harmed by men, I can’t help thinking about how such a small act could change our society.
Since the last time I wrote about gender-based violence two weeks ago, at least two more children have been reported murdered, one of them alongside her young mother in Atlantis.
So obviously these senseless murders are continuing unabated.
It is an almost impossible task to try and solve in our own times. So maybe we should forget about the now and instead be looking at solutions for our children’s generation.
Maybe they don’t have to live in a society where three-year-old girls are abducted, raped and murdered.
I want to ask the good men in our communities – the men who are outraged by what’s happening around us – to rise to the challenge.
Those men who go to work every day and take good care for their families. The men who are not perfect, but try to live good lives and who try to live by the law.
The men who are willing to make a valuable contribution to society, but don’t know where to begin.
It’s you guys who now need to stop quietly vloeking rapists and abusers, and actually do something constructive.
I know confronting these men may not be your cup of tea, because hopefully you are not men of violence.
Besides, I don’t want you to do something that will threaten your family’s safety.
But we can’t do nothing anymore! We all have to do whatever we’re capable of to protect our children’s future safety, or face the possibility of them also becoming victims one day.
I have a suggestion for something where I reckon we can make a meaningful impact.
The biggest threat to our children’s future safety is today’s fatherless boys. The ones who have no role models to look up to.
It is impossible for a single mother to teach a boy how to be a man. That is his father’s job. And in the absence of his father, it is left to society’s few good men to take up the challenge.
I’m not saying you must adopt the first fatherless boy you come across, but I am suggesting you pay attention to him; spend some time with him; talk to him.
Let him hang around you so he can experience what it is to be a responsible man taking care of his family.
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Let him see what normal looks like; become his role model; his mentor. Let him feel the genuine love and care of a groot man.
As the relationship grows, consider taking your charge with you to work, or on holiday. You could change that one boy’s life.
And he may share his experience with other boys, who are also at risk of becoming social misfits.
This is how we set up the next generation to become whole, healthy members of society.
Relatives of mine played host to two young boys from an orphanage over the festive season.
It changed their own kids’ perspective and gave them a new appreciation for their own privilege. But I bet it also changed those orphans forever.
And, who knows, they may just have saved a woman, or a little girl’s life in 20 years.