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About this quote

What does it mean?
Boys without father figures may form gangs to prove their manhood through extreme behavior.
In plain terms
Boys without dads might join gangs to show how tough they are.
What can you take from it?
Fathers help boys learn healthy ways to be men.

Where it applies

  • parenting
  • community support
  • social work

Putting it to work

  • mentor youth
  • strengthen families
  • teach emotional health

Questions to consider

  • How does fatherhood shape masculinity?
  • What other factors create gang culture?

Another view

It oversimplifies the causes of gang violence to just father absence.

More from Frank Pittman

  1. But after the intimacy-inducing rituals of puberty, boys who would be men are told we must go it alone, we must achieve our heroism as the Lone Ranger, we must…

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  2. If fathers who fear fathering and run away from it could only see how little fathering is enough. Mostly, the father just needs to be there.

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  3. Each generation's job is to question what parents accept on faith, to explore possibilities, and adapt the last generation's system of values for a new age.

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