The Man You Needed.
We speak often about masculinity in crisis, but rarely do we pause to ask how boys learn to become men in the first place.
This essay reflects on role models: the ones we had, the ones we needed, and the ones we try to become. It began as a memory, a quiet moment with my father, but, like many things, it unfolded into something much deeper.
I wrote this to explore the men we look up to and what happens even when they fall short.
By Alex Holmes
The Man You Needed
When I was sixteen, I was sent home from school for fighting.
Technically, it wasn’t a fight. It was me, losing my temper, walking out of French class already wound tight, and punching a younger boy in the corridor. He was the brother of someone I got on well with, and he was laughing. Was he laughing at me or someone else? I still don’t know. But in that moment, I was certain he was laughing at me.
So I walked over and hit him.
It wasn’t my finest hour. It wasn’t even a moment I felt fully present for. What I remember more than anything was the cold wash of regret afterwards—shame blooming before my fists had even unclenched.
I didn’t want trouble to follow me home or wait for me after school, so I walked straight to the deputy headteacher’s office to get ahead of it. He looked at me with quiet surprise.
“You know, Alex,” he said, “not many of your peers would’ve come to tell me what they did.”
He couldn’t see the panic stitched across my chest. Couldn’t read the self-preservation I’d mistaken for responsibility. He sent me home. Said he’d call my parents, and told me to deal with it tomorrow.
The bus ride home was long. And quiet. And awful.
Later, I found myself sitting across from my father as he tried to find the right words. What I remember is the pause between us. The weight of expectation hangs in the air. I had imagined this would be a moment of clarity, a rite of passage, perhaps. A man-to-man conversation, wisdom passed down like an heirloom.
Instead, he sighed.
“Sometimes, son, you just see red. You lash out. That’s part of being a man. It’s complicated. You just figure it out as you go.”
And just like that, I felt it: the hollowness.
I’d assumed manhood was something conferred. Explained. Clarified. Like a membership. A manual. But in that moment, I realised that whatever version of masculinity I was supposed to grow into, I’d be doing it without a guide. My father was still figuring it out himself. There was no map. Just momentum. And I was expected to keep up.
That night, sitting in my room, the adrenaline long gone, I decided I had to apologise. Whether the boy hit me back or not didn’t matter. I felt something stir in me—a need to take responsibility. Not just for the act, but for who I was becoming.
I planned the apology for the school canteen, public and plain. It went well enough. He never looked at me the same again, but he didn’t hit me either. It was a moment. A line is drawn. A lesson begun.
It was the first time I realised that even the men we look up to don’t always have the answers.
And it wouldn’t be the last.
I’ve thought about that moment often, the silence between me and my father. The words he did and didn’t say. I wanted him to offer more than an excuse. I wanted instruction, accountability, and a structure, something solid to stand on. Instead, I got the shrug of a man who had inherited the same vagueness he was now passing on.
Manhood, I would come to understand, isn’t inherited through blood. It’s absorbed through presence, through proximity, through watching and being watched. Role models matter not because they are flawless, but because they show up. Because they name things. Because they offer language when we don’t have the words ourselves.
Later, I started asking harder questions:
Where were the men who taught boys how to own their actions?
Where were the examples of strength that weren’t reactive?
Where were the guides? Not just the disciplinarian, but the mentors?
And often, the answer was: not here.
Even the men I’d idolised didn’t have the answers. The ones on screen, in books, on stages. They all seemed to be walking through the world with a confidence I envied, a clarity I lacked. One of those men, for me, was Will Smith.
He was the blueprint. Cool, charming, safe. The Fresh Prince. A man who had turned the pain of growing up without a father into rhythm, humour, and global appeal. He wasn’t just admirable: he was aspirational. You could bring Will Smith home to your mum. He could fight aliens and offer life lessons in the same breath. He was the man you wanted to become.
And then came the slap. The Oscars. 2022.
I watched him walk on stage and hit Chris Rock, and something in me sank. It wasn’t outrage. It wasn’t even shocking. It was something quieter. Sadder. The kind of disappointment that feels personal. Like watching your favourite uncle unravel at a wedding. You don’t stop loving them. But something changes.
In that moment, Will Smith, so often the image of restraint and emotional fluency, showed us something else: pain, pride, pressure. That slap wasn’t just a response to a poorly timed joke. It was about everything that comes before the blow. The long-held tension. The inherited silences. The man who was told, again and again, to just “figure it out.”
And the truth is…I recognised it. I didn’t condone it. But I understood.
Because I’ve been there. Sixteen. Furious. Alone with feelings I had no vocabulary for. And I moved. I reacted. I didn’t pause.
It would be easy to moralise. To assign blame. To paint villains and heroes. But masculinity has never been that simple. Most of us are men trying to carry what we were never taught to hold. And sometimes, it spills.
So when I think of role models now, I don’t think of men who get it right every time. I think of men who can say, “That wasn’t right,” and remain standing. Men who can return to themselves after they’ve veered off course. Men who don’t mistake silence for strength.
That day in school didn’t teach me how to be a man. But it taught me how not to be a boy. And every day since, I’ve been in conversation with that difference.
It didn’t always feel this abstract. Role models used to be close fathers, uncles, teachers, and coaches. They were fallible, yes. But they were there. We learned by watching, mimicking, and absorbing. Their lessons were wordless but formative. The way they walked into a room. The way they responded to conflict. The way they softened or didn’t.
Today, those presences are fading. In some communities, they’re vanishing altogether.
Fewer boys are growing up with emotionally available fathers. Fewer male teachers, fewer consistent mentors. The cultural landscape has shifted. Boys are now turning to influencers, YouTubers, and avatars of masculinity—loud voices that preach dominance without depth, posture without principle. They aren’t looking for a connection. They’re looking for something to hold onto.
I’ve done that too. I’ve reached for the curated men when real ones weren’t around. The ones with square jaws and soundbites. They didn’t teach me how to be a man. They taught me how to perform one. And performance, like any illusion, eventually wears thin.
A strong role model isn’t someone who never stumbles. He’s someone who lives with integrity. Who admits fault? Who teaches not just by what he says, but how he listens. He doesn’t need to be perfect, but he must be present.
I didn’t grow up with a singular mentor. But there were moments. Fragments. Men who offered something real in passing: a sentence, a gesture, a standard. One of those moments came during a year of teaching, when I myself was lost. The man didn’t give me answers. But he gave me his attention. And through that, I realised something I hadn’t been able to name: I mattered. I was seen.
That’s what boys need. Not lectures. Not dominance. Not tough love packaged as silence. They need to be seen.
Manhood is not a matter of how much you know. It’s about how you respond when you don’t.
We don’t need perfect men. We need available ones. Men who understand that someone is always watching. A student. A son. A teammate. A friend. Whether we mean to or not, we are all mirrors. We reflect what we carry.
The question isn’t whether we’re role models. The question is: what kind are we?
If you were raised by good men, carry their lessons forward.
If you weren’t, become the man you needed.
As Marcus Aurelius once wrote:
“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
There is no single path to manhood, and no perfect figure to lead us there. What matters is presence - the willingness to show up, to be seen, to guide even when we’re still learning ourselves.
If this piece resonated with you, I invite you to reflect: Who shaped you? Who are you shaping now? And what kind of man are you becoming in the silence, when no one else is watching?
Join Me
Each essay in this series will go deeper, writing on purpose, about fatherhood, shame, emotional literacy, and the chaos of the internet. It won’t be easy, but it will be honest.
This isn’t about being “better men.”
It’s about becoming whole humans.
And it starts now.
– Alex
You’ve put something into words that I didn’t think was possible. Thank you bro 👊🏽
So important. And incredibly well said.