Today is International Men’s Day!
A day to celebrate boys’ and men’s achievements and contributions to society, community, family, marriage, and childcare.
Not sure about you but I feel like so much of our society these days is about raising women up thanks to movements like #metoo.
As great as this is, it can also feel like these movements have cast a shadow on the struggles todays men face, as if they don’t deserve the right to complain compared to the hardships women face (i.e being paid 10 – 20% less, continually sexually harassed at work, etc)
Call me naive, but I believe the majority of men i. e our brothers, husbands, sons, aren’t the pigs we see plaguing newspaper headlines. They are kind, decent men working as hard as they can to help pay the mortgage, put food on the table, raise good kids, have healthy marriages etc.
Unfortunately that kind of daily pressure comes with mental health issues – with men four times more likely to commit suicide than women (40 – 60 most common age).
Problem is, who do you turn to for help?
For us women, opening up is easy. I can be sitting next to a stranger on a bus and within ten minutes we’re talking about everything from PAP smears, sex lives, mother-in-laws….no topic is off limit!
When men get together over beers, the most intimate topic they get into is what length of shaver they use, and then it’s “so….how ’bout those Canucks”? (I’m generalizing obviously but still, they aren’t comparing prostate sizes)
And so, in light of today being International Men’s Day, when you go home tonight pour you and your hunny a big glass of wine, sit down, and truly ask him “How are you doing”? Let him get it all out and truly listen, telling him how much you appreciate everything he does.
THEN you can yell at him to load the dishwasher!
– Vanessa