Connor Beaton describes growing up with shame and family conflict that made him feel worthless. He argues many men today feel unnecessary and are withdrawing from society, citing research from Richard Reeves and the American Institute for Boys and Men. His answer: men need places where they're needed, through skills and contribution.
I've been thinking for a long time how I was going to approach this topic. And I think, just so you know, tuning into this, that the title of the video is not clickbait, it is very literal.
And so I'm going to start off by sharing a quick story with you. And the story starts when I was 16. And I was 16, things weren't going so great in my life. My high school relationship was with someone who was incredibly volatile, very angry, and she did not treat me well. And because I was a 16 year old boy, I was a kid, I didn't know any better. And so I let a lot of that happen at home. Things were pretty rough, you know, in my family system. I didn't really feel connected in the way that I wanted to. I bounced back and forth between two families. You know, I experienced some emotional and verbal and physical abuse. And I would hear things like, what the hell is wrong with you? You're such a stupid piece of blank. You know, how the hell could you do that? Why can't you just get your shit together? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I heard those things on a pretty regular basis. And those things were damaging, you know, they were harsh. I felt a lot as a kid and I didn't really know what to do with them. You know, I felt angry, I felt hostile inside. I also felt sad and alone because a lot of the time I was being told, you're not really wanted here and even when you're here you're not really getting anything right. Like I wasn't getting stuff right with my girlfriend, I wasn't doing well with her. You know, I knew that that wasn't going well. When I'd get into conflict at home. It felt like I was responsible for all of that. It felt like I was at the epicenter of all the problems in the household. And so, you know, slowly over time, shame, guilt, self hatred really started to take hold. The heartbreaking thing and the real truth of most men's realities is that a lot of men have had experiences and thoughts like what I just described, what I just went through, not just what I went through in the past, because this was, you know, 14 and, oh God, 20 some odd years ago. But a lot of men have had those experiences. And I've come to learn that there are two things, there are two really important things that you as a man need in order to find some level of fulfillment, satisfaction, satiation, meaning purpose, thriving in life. And I've found them out of.
These very dark experiences. And the stories that I've heard from men and then recently confirmed by a man named Richard Reeves. And Richard Reeves is doing some phenomenal work with the American Institute of Boys and Men. I think for many of the men that I've talked to over the years who have described in some way, shape or form contemplating finding themselves in a dark spot, what they describe is almost always and inevitably some sense of, I don't feel like I belong. I don't feel like I'm needed or necessary at all anywhere in my life or the places where I am needed and necessary. I feel completely useless. I do not feel like I'm able to contribute anything meaningful in the places that I'm needed. And that's devastating. And I think that there's a couple things that are contributing to. To the mass migration of men out of society. Not just the contemplation of taking their own life, but the real mass migration of men checking out from work, checking out from dating, checking out from relationships, checking out from society. There is a huge narrative that is telling men in our current culture, which is so dangerous, that says men, you are not needed. You're not necessary. You're not necessary for society to be successful. You're not necessary for the world to be okay. You're not necessary for women. You're not needed by women. And I think a lot of women are perpetuating this now. If you're watching this, you're probably not one of those women. If you are tuning into this, you're probably not one of those women that's saying, you're not needed. I don't need you. I don't need a man. But when a lot of men go online and they listen to a lot of women being interviewed about dating and relationships, what they hear are women repeatedly, over and over and over and over and over again answering the question, do women need men? Saying, no, no, I don't need a man. No one needs a man. The world would be better without men. Men are the problem with the world. Men are what's wrong with the world. If only men were more like us, there wouldn't be an issue. And secondly, if you are a man that's feeling this way, I get it. I get it. You know, I almost don't have a lot to say to you because I know what it's like to be in a place where I feel and felt completely useless, completely hopeless, and not needed in any way, shape or form. And I think the reality for some men, and the reality for some of you maybe watching and listening to this is that when you look around at your life, you're like, yeah, I do feel pretty useless. And I don't feel very needed. The only thing that I can say is, that's the path. You know, when I found myself at rock bottom, living out of the back of my car because I had cratered my life, what I realized after living there for about 12 days, after having some pretty dark thoughts, was that I had found a path, a path to creating a life where I was needed. And I didn't know what that looked like. I had no idea. I had no clue. I didn't know what it was going to look like. I didn't know I was going to be doing this today. If you told me I was going to be doing this today, I would have laughed in your face. I would have been like, that's impossible. If you would have told me what my life would have looked like today, I would have told you that that was impossible. Because nobody as useless as I thought I was could produce something like my life is today. And so you have a path. That is the mission. You know, I said in my book, you have to make pain at some point in your life. You have to make your pain your purpose. And I think what I really would have loved to have said as a caveat to all that, is that what that means is finding the places that you want to be needed and developing the skill set and the competency and the capabilities to be useful in those places and spaces. And maybe that's just having better conversations with your partner. Maybe that's not being an ass to your kids and learning how to be useful in regulating your emotions instead of flying off the handle all the damn time, right? Maybe it's being able to learn a new skill set so that you can go out and get a second job and support your parents in the way that you want. I don't know what that looks like for you, but that is a mission. Start to see, like, where could I be needed? Where could I be useful? Where could I start to serve and support and contribute and add value and let the noise of culture and society do its thing? Let it blow, right? Because one day the narrative will shift. It always does. It always will. And one day the necessity of men will return, whether people like it or not, whether people think it's too late or not. My hope is that it's not too late. That people wake up to the remembrance that men masculinity is incredibly necessary in our world and that without that, things not only become dangerous, but they start to fall apart. So thank you for tuning in. Please man it forward. Share this episode with somebody in your life that you think needs to hear it, that you think would have something value to contribute to this conversation or would benefit from. Just thinking about some of the things that I've put forward. Till next week, Connor Beaton signing off.
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