Boys Don’t Just Need One Better Role Model—They Need Many

There’s a growing conversation about the crisis facing boys today. More and more people are recognizing that many young men are being drawn into a narrow, one-dimensional vision of masculinity—one that glorifies dominance, emotional detachment, and financial shortcuts over depth, learning, and connection.

The response from many well-meaning commentators has been to say, Boys need better role models. 

But I’d argue that the solution isn’t to simply replace one idealized version of masculinity with another. Boys don’t need just one better role model. They need many.

Or how about this? Perhaps we need to move beyond the very concept of 'role models' altogether. What boys need isn't one or two perfect examples to imitate, but a diverse constellation of male figures who demonstrate different ways of being - what the Germans might call 'Vorbilder,' a gallery of living examples rather than pedestaled ideals.

The Influencers Whisper in Their Ears

I’m a middle-class, educated mum to a boy who, on paper, has everything—a safe, small rural town, a close-knit family, married parents who love and support him. And yet, still, the influencers whispered in his ear.

They didn’t have to kick the door down. They arrived on his phone, in his headphones, through algorithm-driven videos promising strength, success, and certainty.

Some of it was just fitness advice, or messages about self-discipline. But woven into it were threads of something darker: contempt for education, scorn for vulnerability, exaggerated physiques and the idea that emotions are a trap..

And my son isn’t alone. My daughter, who’s 13, sees it too. She watches boys in her school parroting extreme ideas, and she doesn’t feel threatened—she feels sorry for them.

Why do they think like this? she asks. Why aren't they in the real world?

She’s seeing first hand what happens when boys are fed a diet of one-dimensional masculinity.

The Men Who Showed Me Possibility

If I grew up believing I had choices in life—about who I could become and who I might partner with—it’s because I was lucky enough to know different kinds of men.

They were my gallery of "role models" (or "Vorbilder"), even if I didn’t realize it at the time.

May I present you with the sides I saw from some of them:

• Dad - affectionate, funny, principled.

• Uncle - poet, loquacious, learned

• Dad's friend - quiet, thoughtful, lover of nature

• Friend’s dad - jovial, magnanimous, hospitable

• History teacher - zany, ebullient, unpredictable

• First boss warm, kind and patient

Not one of them was, of course, perfect. No single man gave me the right vision of masculinity.

But together, they showed me that this other category of 'man' could be as multidimensional as - and this I hadn't quite grasped yet - 'woman' was.

They gave me options. They showed me that my future choices weren’t confined to one small pool.

And boys need the same.

The Cost of One-Dimensional Boys and One-Dimensional Men

When boys are only taught to value dominance, what happens when they fall in love? When they’re only encouraged to chase wealth, what happens when they face failure? When they’re told emotions are weakness, how do they navigate fatherhood?

A society that raises boys with a narrow, performative version of masculinity also shapes the relationships those boys will have—with friends, partners, and eventually, their own children.

That's why I also feel concerned for my daughter.

I've been told by various professionals that 'this is just a phase' of normal teenage male adolescence. I'm not so sure. We've never before let those impressionable teenage brains come under such a bombardment of singular, pervasive messaging. How is she going to get past all that and find someone who's genuinely a good fit as a life partner?

Coaching My Own Son— A Battle of Mantras

As a coach, I help people break free from limiting beliefs. But with my own son, I’ve faced an enormous challenge. Because the influencers who found him also present themselves as life coaches.

They have their mantras, and at first glance, some of them seem positive. Take responsibility. Build discipline. Work hard. There’s wisdom in some of it. But tangled in that message is something else. Trust no one. Being average is failure. Emotions make you weak.

I try to offer a counterbalance, but I’m fighting against an entire ecosystem designed to keep boys engaged, to hook them with the promise of belonging and power. I can’t just tell my son, Ignore them. Because they’re giving him something addictive - identity, certainty, a feeling of control.

What I can do is offer him something richer. A wider landscape of possibility. More voices. More perspectives. More versions of what it means to be a man.

expanding the male landscape - an example

I come from a background of teaching philosophy and religion and I reckon we have an opportunity here.

Take Jesus. When we teach about him, we don’t do enough to separate out and discuss the intriguing aspects of the historical Jesus from the divine claims made about him. And the historical Jesus? Quite the man.

This was a guy who got his doubters into knots, turned the status quo upside down, and subverted expectations about what it meant to live rightly. He was sharp, charismatic, a radical social force. The kind of person who, if he were around today, would be deeply controversial—someone you’d follow on social media because you’d want to see what he’d say next.

And Buddha? We often teach him as a peaceful, meditative figure—but in reality, he was someone who walked away from privilege, rejected the mainstream values of his time, and built a movement that challenged the entire social order.

These figures weren’t passive. They weren’t one-dimensional. They disrupted their worlds.

If boys today are looking for men who stand against the status quo, who challenge the norms they’ve been given, maybe we should be discussing these figures. Not as sanitized religious icons, but as real men who broke moulds and said "think differently" in a deeply humane way.

We Don’t Need Sparta, But Maybe More Aristotle

I love looking back into the past for wisdom. But if we’re looking for inspiration, I don’t want Sparta, where boys were stripped of softness, connection, and even choice in their own destinies.

Maybe what we need is more Aristotle - the idea that a good life is about cultivating virtues, building character, and finding balance. Aristotle taught that flourishing (or eudaimonia) comes not from extreme discipline or detachment, but from nurturing a variety of qualities: courage and kindness, intellect and humour, ambition and humility.

This is the kind of masculinity I want boys to see. Not a single rigid ideal, but a rich and diverse landscape of possibilities.

Let’s not ask, What’s the right kind of man for boys to look up to?

Let’s ask, How can we show boys all the ways they can be men?