How’s Your Dad?
a guide to being in men's lives
This morning, I was returning a few items at the grocery store. While waiting, I overheard the cashier ask a restock worker, an older gentleman, how his sick father was doing.
The worker’s response was subtle but heavy. You could see the sorrow in his face, but he didn’t have the immediate words to articulate it. Which is entirely normal. The cashier didn’t push him for a five-paragraph response; she just validated him. She said, “Not good, huh?” and kept her eyes on him, letting him know she was entirely present and engaged.
It was a tiny moment, but it captured something critical.
We cannot expect men to sit down, look you dead in the eye, and share their deepest feelings with complete, neat clarity on demand. We may read that and think, “Of course, I would never expect or want that.” But the general sentiment in our society right now says otherwise.
For many men, emotional processing stays hidden deep inside. It’s a quiet, patient, and nuanced internal movement. It requires us to build a baseline of rapport before we ever get a glimpse of it.
But when you finally break through, you can see it instantly. His eyes shift, his posture relaxes, and even if it’s just for a fleeting second, he’s there. Present to his own pain, and present to you.
I often look at this work as planting seeds. The first time you ask a man about his personal life, make a joke, or try to initiate a real conversation, his default reaction is almost always to deflect or push back. Resistance is part of the territory. But the seed is still planted. With time, consistent attention, and genuine care, that seed creates the psychological safety a guy needs to eventually open up and share whatever is true for him. The desire and innate need for connection is absolutely there, it just needs support and the belief that it’s worth coming to harvest.
Yet, as a society, our collective judgment toward men is incredibly harsh. We stand at a distance and demand they open up, take ownership for every historical and societal wrong, and change on the spot—or else we’ll strip away their value and support, or worse, actively withhold it with no hope of redemption.
We need to stop shouting from the digital rooftops with this entitled, disconnected approach. Nobody wants to be engaged that way. No one ever looks at a screaming social media post and thinks, “You know what? You’re right, I’m ready to transform my life.” If you want to see real change in men, you have to actually be in their lives. Get to know them. Ask them questions. Figure out where you can offer genuine support.
The grocery store interaction is simple, but profound. A female coworker took five seconds out of her shift to be kind and personal. And by the way, she got an honest answer out of him because she had clearly spent time building a relationship where he felt safe enough to drop his guard in the middle of an aisle.
I’m not saying this micro-interaction is the finish line, or that we should settle for men only sharing in fragments. But we have to start here.
Instead of defaulting to the cynical assumption that “all men are broken and a threat” and trying to force change through compliance, try stepping into curiosity and compassion. This doesn’t mean you enable bad behavior, endorse toxic coping mechanisms, or ignore the real wounds a guy might have. It simply means you refuse to let his worst moments or initial presentation have the final say in how you view his humanity.
Male vulnerability shows up differently. It doesn’t look like the way women open up, and if we are too blinded by our own rigid agendas, we will completely miss the quiet windows of connection, just like that cashier could have missed the restock guy.
We all crave connection. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that defaults to chronic mistrust, isolation, and immediate resistance to “the other.” We desperately need to be more open, loving, and engaged with the actual people around us.
Real change doesn’t happen through a viral, ranting post, echo-chamber conversations with those who simply agree with you, or spewing narratives claimed as absolute truth with zero relational connection. It happens when we allow our own views to be challenged, seek out objective truth, and desire connection—even with the person we think we have the least in common with, or dare I say, the person we most see as a threat.
Men have problems. Oh boy, do we have them, and they absolutely need to be addressed. But the people screaming about those problems from the sidelines have a responsibility too: you cannot demand transformation without being willing to step into relationship.
Once the relationship is established, the openness follows. The openness to see things differently, to take radical responsibility, and to dismantle maladaptive behaviors. Relational conversation is the exact way we will see lasting, positive change in men.
As Richard Rohr wrote, “The best critique of the bad is the practice of the better.”
Practice the better. Model the interest, the kindness, the openness to challenge, and the raw courage it takes to connect. It might only be a two-minute conversation in aisle 5 of the grocery store, but you never know—it could be the exact thing that changes a man’s life.
I know from experience, because it completely changed mine. As humans, we are highly sensitive in perceiving when someone actually cares and when they’re just performing. We can say all day long that “we’re not saying men are THE problem,” but when our actions consistently deny, dismiss, or ignore the actual lives of men, our real beliefs are on full display.
It’s not rocket science. No one is asking you to start a lifelong friendship or become pen pals on day one. All it takes is a little initiation, for a little time, in a little way.
I can tell you from being a man, and from working with men, that a little goes a long, long way. We are craving to be heard and seen. And when we are, we become better. We want to be better.
It is our responsibility as men to step up, learn our interior landscape, and share it. But it is your responsibility to build the bridge, ask the question, and be there to listen when we do.