Fred Goodall, a parenting expert living in Houston, TX, spoke to Lon Woodbury on L.A. Talk Radio about the traits that real men have, as opposed to some of the negative stereotypes. Some negative stereotypes, for instance, portray men as macho and aggressive while others portray men as bungling and clueless and need women to save them from themselves. However, the traits of real men are closer to cultural ideals about a benevolent father figure and a loving and supportive husband.
Background
Frederick J. Goodall is the founder of Mocha Dad, which is a parenting website focused on fatherhood. He is an expert on parenting and in assisting men to be fantastic dads, spouses, and role models.
What are Traits of Real Men?
At the start of the interview, Lon discussed with his visitor the high level of confusion most guys in North America have about what it really means to be a man due to contrasting cultural messages.
Goodall outlined 7 traits of real men that served families and societies well. He identified these traits as integrity, compassion, confidence, self-control, perseverance, courage, and humility.
He defined these qualities in the following way:
Integrity is keeping your word with your children. They know that you can be trusted because your word is your bond.
Compassion is satisfying an unmet human need. Regrettably, compassion is typically mistaken for weakness, with the unfortunate outcome that many men often hide their compassion.
Self-confidence is a strong belief in one’s understanding about life, skills, and a capacity to take care of situations. Unfortunately, confidence is typically mixed up with arrogance. Self-confidence is necessary to gain the respect of kids and discipline them to behave well.
Self-control is the capability to channel desires and impulses in a positive way. Absence of this quality can result in physical or emotional abuse by reacting irrationally instead of responding intelligently to kids’ bad habits.
Perseverance is the capacity to face difficult circumstances without giving up. This was particularly important when children had issues. Perseverance was necessary to help support and guide them through difficult times.
Courage is the quality of standing up for oneself or for the family in difficult times even in the face of social disapproval. It meant being true to one’s belief about what was right and fair.
Finally, humility is a necessary trait but it is often lacking due to the fact that boys are often raised to prove themselves to be better than their fellows. However, humility prevented one from becoming a braggart and remaining humble while other men were invested in self-promotion. Humility also allowed someone to apologize when they realized they were wrong about something.
Goodall likewise pointed out that these 7 characteristics of real men also served well in building a relationship with a partner.
Find out more about Struggling Teens. Lon Woodbury has the recorded the entire interview on his L.A. Talk Radio show for people to listen to at any time.
