"You are just who I've always want…."
Men throughout the ages have heard it so many times that they are “just like someone,” be it their fathers, other members of their community, their race,their gender, even movie actors
Men from the time they are born are being compared to others. You look like your dad, your grandfather, “you behave like all the other men I’ve known”, “You do this or that just like him”
Why is this such an association problem? It is somewhat simple, to figure out if you take the time to understand what is happening. Many young men grow up hardly knowing their fathers, their only point of reference is what they were told by others, be it their mothers or grandmothers and even strangers.
Men have to analyze what all of these comparison really are doing to them mentally. If a man is just like someone, if the speaker admires then it’s a good thing, but if it’s the reverse then it’s a bad thing. Women do it and do not know how damaging this can become, because these triggers are loaded with false narratives. Woman hate being compared to other women, but they do it to men all the time.
A quick personal story: While I was growing up, I was often told that I looked like my grandfather (my mother’s father) he was an outstand man in her mind, with very few faults, she told me, she admired his looks, and loved having him as her father, his gentle manners, how he worked hard to raise her and her siblings (at that time he had 3 daughters and 1 son), so she married a man who had many of these types of qualities except one that she never told me much about. My grandfather was a womanizer ( who had more than a few other women with whom he had more children. I learned later that he had various sets of offsprings ( including marrying a woman 30 years younger than him in his later years (60+) and had 3 children with her). My father was not a womanizer (at least I never found out that he was), so she was able to marry a man that treated her well, and raise a son ( yours truly) who was born 2 days before my fathers birthday. So we were the same astrological sign. She would often compare my talents to my dad’s and I liked hearing that..... because my dad was a builder, he was creative and could make stuff etc.. So once again her comparing me to these two men had a positive effect on my self image. But in my teenage years, I realized and heard about and met my grandfather’s multiple sets of offsprings. Aunts and uncles that were not my grandmother's children. Some I got to know some of them and others I just heard stories about. So after I left home, and went to college in N.Y, these images of these two men swirled around in my head. Who was I really like any of them? or both? I figured I could get away with being a womanizer in a big city, multiple boroughs to move around in. Multiple types of women and even multiple cultures to explore. One common identity that I have was that I was very diverse, both my grandfather and father were multi-lingual as am I. They both had travel to the same places mainly the Dominican Republic in their youth lived in communities that were not where they originated. Well so I was just like them in that sense. If I was like my grandfather then I would use the skills I received from him via DNA, and if I was like my father then I would use the skills I received from him via his DNA. My father was a mr. fixit, mr. build whatever. My grandfather was Mr. smooth gifted in attracting women, in his early years he was a coachman, as young man in the early 1900 so he drove a sports car back then by those day's standards.
My question that I’m now faced with what did I pass on to my two sons? My first son looked a lot like me, so he looks like his great grandfather, too. As a matter of fact I placed my pic and his baby pictures in a frame side by side, people would ask me if I had a twin brother or was my eldest son a twin. One woman would visit me and would walk over to the picture and tell me she wanted a son just like him. I would reply; 'then you would have to ask my ex if she would donate her egg for you to accomplish that.' Whereas my second son looks more like my father, he does not look exactly like me, he has some of his mothers features and some of mine, so he received the best parts from both of us? Now that I’m divorced I often wonder what their mother told them, in the years after I left. I’m still close to both of my sons. So I still have some influence over them. As does their mother. They are grown men now, with their own style of doing things. They are better men than I was (in my view), at their ages.
Final thoughts
By telling your sons that they are just like whoever... are you being honest in your comparisons or are you just saying it to punish them, or build them up..... too much. Look at the results in society.. with many black men having been killed before their children got to really know them. How can we rebuild society with the building blocks of images these young men have little if any memory of who they were.
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