Calling all Elders

Dynamic Education for Turbulent Times

Posted by Alan Maguire on May 20, 2008 at 6:42pm

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I have 2 separate but related areas of interest. The first is the respect I feel for Entrepreneurs and the courage it takes to step out of "secure employment" and strike out on one's own. The other is in the transitions we men must make from boyhood to old age.

There are 9, largely unsupported, transitions that a boy must make to mature manhood.

1. At 18 he becomes an “adult”. He can get his driver’s license, he can buy alcohol in a bar and bottle store, he can buy cigarettes, he can sign his name to a piece of paper and bind himself to a commitment for life, he can go to war, he can go to jail, he can vote, and in most cases he leaves school, gets a job or goes to college. He also has his first serious girlfriend and a few of his classmates become his lifelong friends
2. With all that, he is also expected to make the transition from boyhood to manhood. In some societies this transition happens with an initiation ceremony conducted by Elders who pass on their cultural knowledge. In 1st World, Western Society he is taken out and gets drunk and gets a pat on the back from the “men”. What he is not told is what a man is, how a man should conduct himself, what manhood entails.
3. Sometime in his 20s or 30s he gets married (or establishes a permanent 'live-in” relationship. If he is involved with the church he will get some guidance and he may go for counselling with his fiance sometime before the wedding. In most cases he is going to walk into being the “man of the house” blind. And what are the rules for living with this other person 24/7?
4. Sometime later he becomes a father. What does this fatherhood entail? There is a crisis of fatherhood in our society. We suffer an appallingly high incidence of family violence perpetrated by the father, a high rate of absentee fathers through abandonment, overwork and lack of understanding of the father’s role. What role model does this new father have?
5. Fatherhood also means that the household income is halved as his wife stops work for a time – so he has the additional burden of creating an income sufficient to support his wife and child (children) on his own.
6. At some time in his late 30s or early 40s he may also decide to go out in business on his own – in many cases this isn't a matter of choice. Just because he is good at what he does doesn't prepare him for creating his own company. So he needs help in the form of a business qualification or some form of mentoring programme.
7. In his 50s his career levels off and many of his dreams remain unrealised. Does he sit back and allow life to happen to him or does he go out into his community and create different dreams – and who is there to help him through this “change of life”?
8. At 60 he is retired. 90% of men and their families are not sufficiently provided for, for an extended retirement, but worse, most men have not planned for the psychological assault that “honourable unemployment” brings. “How am I going to spend my time? How do I stay physically and mentally active? How is my wife going to stand having me around 24/7? How will I see my work colleagues again – how do I build a new social life” As a society we place little or no value on the skills and knowledge retirees take with them. Instead we place them in Retirement Homes and wait for them to die. And die they do – quickly! The life expectancy of a man who works to retirement age and then “goes on pension” is 18 months to 3 years.
9. And there are other psychological transitions – the death of his parents, possibly the death of a child and his wife, but also the death of his immortality – the loss of his fitness and his body beautiful, a heart attack, a retrenchment.

Modern life has stripped men of their “traditional” roles. The emancipation of women has deepened the crisis and the popular media portray men as buffoons at best and as rapists, child molesters and killers at worst. Boys create their sense of belonging in gangs and in substance abuse and men create theirs in their jobs and in sport.

Men are in crisis and a culture of wise Elders is needed to help them through their transitions. So where are our Elders and where do we start. Your comments would be most welcome.

Tags: boys, culture, elders, manhood, men, of, passage, rites, to, transitions

Comment by Jon Foster-Pedley on May 28, 2008 at 1:01pm: I am completely with you on this, Alan. While I cannot in reality lay claim to wisdom, as I keep messing up (!) as I walk through life's cha(lle)nges, I guess we do, as 'elders' collectively have more to offer than we might imagine, and the teaching of these matters will assist us in devloping wisdom too. I am in.

Comment by Jon Foster-Pedley on June 12, 2008 at 10:33am: Alan - i am working on an 'elders' consultancy - do you have any interest?

Comment by Alan Maguire on June 12, 2008 at 12:09pm: Hell yes!!

Comment by Jon Foster-Pedley on June 12, 2008 at 12:32pm: Great - broad concept 1) is vv confidential coaching of senior execs often fast tracked to help them deal with working at senior level, both as leaders and in specifics of working with board packs etc and coached by 'greys' with deep experience and 2) a more pro bono initiative to build ZA moral substance by role model and courageous stances on issues

Comment by Alan Maguire on June 12, 2008 at 1:18pm: For the Execs, my background is in HR Management and Leadership development. On the Pro Bono side my view is that men (and SA men) are in trouble - both wrt their changing roles at work but particularly as fathers, responsible for the emotional and moral development of their kids. I'm keen to make some noise.

Comment by William van Zyl on July 1, 2008 at 9:43pm: Men. As a young man I have found an avenue to elders that has benefitted me and am looking to further this in an even more authentic fashion.
3 years ago I was faced with a high point in a journey I had been on for a while. I attended the Makind Project's New Warrior Training weekend of inner process work based on four of Jungs male archetypes. King, Warrior, Magus and Lover.
The weekend is focussed on warrior as being a rite of passage from adolesence to manhood according to native american rite. This movement was founded in the USA.

The key is to provide a safe space for this transition and the work is continued in the MKP community after the weekend.

I am in discussion with a colleague and friend of mine in Durban to put together a smaller scale, wilderness work based program that brings men together to learn from each and attempt to recreate the roles of elders that a broken and isolated society has lost.

I am also working with a dear female friend of mine to create a similar opportunity and container for women in South Africa.

Feel free to contact me if you have want more detail.

Comment by Jon Foster-Pedley on July 1, 2008 at 11:12pm: Hi William
I also did the Mankind NWT - I'd be interested in what you are doing....

Comment by Alan Maguire on July 7, 2008 at 2:19pm: I haven't yet done the MKP, but the King Warrior Magician Lover archetypes really make sense to me - my view is that there are lessons we need to learn through each of the archetypes and in combination those lessons create Elder wisdom. My interest is in creating appropriate rites of passage that will teach those lessons.

Comment by Jon Foster-Pedley on July 8, 2008 at 12:28pm: I think this will work very well - I have seen these archetypes used in facilitation a few times and my sense is they are a very strong foundation fro building elder work. maybe it's getting near time when we should pull in a few more to think on these lines?.... and to try an experiment?