I grew up in an abusive turned single-parent household and then became a role model to my son, brother, little cousins, niece, and nephew whose fathers weren’t around. This put a lot of pressure on me. Inevitably, I built up this societal depiction of masculinity where you limit your cries, take a hit and show no feelings. You become desensitized to fighting, death, and violence. You handle everything on your own.
Listening to President Barack Obama, Steph Curry, and others break down this conversation on toxic masculinity explained so many things to me. Just to see such powerful, graceful men of their stature being able to relate to the bottled up pain that many brothers carry within us daily showed us two things. Read more here.