No ill will towards my dad anymore at all, but I was pretty much raised by my mom until I was a teenager. I first lived “on my own” but still supported by my mother when I was 17 living in Hollywood going to school and was pretty much as financially independent as I could be at 21, moving from Virginia to Ohio away from all of my family. My mother suffered severe mental health challenges, some other health challenges, and my father also suffered serious health challenges that affected him overall. They did the best they could and I’m grateful for all they’ve done for me.

My mom taught me to open & hold open doors for women, to allow women to enter first but to first check & make sure all was safe.

She taught me to say “bless you” when someone sneezes and to say “please” and “thank you”, to not talk with my mouth full, to let others go first and not to run to the front of the line.

She taught me to hold my tongue unless it was something kind or helpful to say.

She taught me not to lie or steal or shoot people with BB guns, although I had to do all of those things and learn those lessons the hard ways.

She cursed a little bit but frowned upon cursing when it was excessive in her eyes, and I didn’t really start incorporating many curse words into my vocabulary until I was much older.

She taught me that sexual stuff on TV and film is embarrassing and makes her uncomfortable, so it kind of made me uncomfortable too until I was much older.

She taught me that asking a woman her age or weight is very rude and to be rude is to be very bad. To this day I think I stick to these guidelines.

She taught me not to ask how much money a person makes and to never brag about personal accomplishments or material possessions. I still try not to brag about a lot of things that have to do with my accomplishments in life or to drop names of famous people I’ve met or have had the opportunities to see or be around. I don’t have much in the way of material possessions but I am aware that some people have far less and are grateful for what they do have.

She taught me sharing is caring. I have always been generous to my friends and to my family whenever I can be generous and even when they don’t realize I’m being or have been generous. Sometimes I just do things for people because it feels good to do that.

Mom also kind of taught me how to cook and encouraged me to use my imagination and to be creative. As an adult with cooking skills I’ve been able to pay some bills and put some food on the table and to see some appreciative looks on the faces of people I’ve cooked for, and for all of that I am grateful. Mom taught me how to be a good host and how to help people feel comfortable around me, to attend to their needs.

My imagination has been my most helpful and fulfilling means of escape from troubles, from harsh realities, from loneliness, from boredom, from pain, and from responsibilities too. I’ve spent lifetimes in my own dreams, fantasies, and imaginary worlds, and because being creative is how I define who I am it is highly significant that my imagination has fueled that creativity. Mom encouraged my imagination, gave it fuel for growth, supported me when I was being creative.

Mom taught me that women need to be looked out for and protected. She may have been unconsciously teaching me this perspective but I don’t think so. I believe this was deliberate. She wanted me to be the shoulder that a woman would cry on, including herself. She wanted me to be the empathetic listener, the problem-solver, the great protector, the keeper of all the bad things that children and women shouldn’t need to care or worry about. And on this lesson I do believe that in some ways I’ve succeeded to live up to this standard. But I believe that I have failed in this respect in many cases.

But Mom didn’t really teach me how to speak up for myself, how to stand my ground, how to disagree with someone in a socially acceptable manner, or what to do if someone crosses the line. This I had to learn myself.

Mom did not teach me what to do if someone physically threatened me or hit me, pushed me. She did not teach me what to do when someone teased me verbally or said something designed to insult and injure me. I’ve been bullied and hit and threatened and insulted and “dissed” and pushed around many times in my life. I’ve responded and reacted in many different ways and have always noted the results of my responses and reactions, the consequences, the effects. I’ve had lots of advice. I’ve had lots of “role models” for how to handle these things, but I believe that being a man means you learn how to do these things by experiencing them for yourself as a man.

Mom did not teach me what to do in a lot of situations that call for “being a man”. She did not teach me how to handle “boys in the locker room talk” or what to do if another man called my girlfriend a “slut” or what to do if my girlfriend cheated on me with someone else or what to do if someone else’s lover makes the moves on me. There are so many lessons in life and a parent can only teach you so much or give you the basic tools you need to get on in life.

Mom did not teach me what to do when someone who had been drinking is about to take the wheel of the car I’m getting into or what to do when someone offers me a hit off a bowl of marijuana. I had to learn these things the hard way. I’ve suffered grief and loss over people in my life due to alcohol, drugs, and violence. I’ve lost friends. I’ve lost lovers. I’ve lost family. I’ve been in trouble. I know what it’s like to live after these things happen.

Many of life’s situations I’ve either had to learn what to do or what not to do on my own, from pop culture, from peers, from other adults, and sometimes from what I’ve learned in school or from books. This is how we all grow up, I think. I don’t know. Don’t we all have to navigate the worlds we grow up in on our own, ultimately? Our parents and family, our siblings, our childhood friends, our classmates, our teachers, our churches and clubs and other extracurricular activities teach us and shape us, but so does everything else. And in 2020, because of our current technological and political and economic situation that comes with our global-scale cultures, each of us can potentially learn and experience things that might not have even been imagined in the 1970s. Through the media we experience global-scale culture, and not just one global-scale culture, but an almost infinite amount of global-scale cultures, each with their own sets of values and mores.

And the rules have been changing on so many levels in so many realms of life that it almost seems you have to have a fluid sense of values and morals to get along in life. People who are thought of as fundamentalists and conservatives and traditionalists and extremists are set on a fixed set of values and morals and mores, and everyone on the outside sees this as antiquated and obsolete and irrelevant, maybe even wrong, bad, dangerous, and evil. Cultural and social Relativism and tolerance and acceptance and the avoidance of ethnocentrism is viewed as the modern and current way of looking at the world. We cannot offend. We cannot suppress. We cannot oppress. We cannot repress.

It’s a confusing and puzzling world. It’s exciting, yes. It’s not boring. But it’s challenging for me, a man almost in his fifties, born in the last century, before this millennium. I mean, What Makes A Man these days?