“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

- Tyler Durden, from Fight Club (movie)

I’ve been reading Chuck Palahniuk’s, Fight Club lately. I watched the movie again the other night. I can’t help but feeling that I relate to the men in the book, the movie, a generation of men who feel like boys, lost, and unsure what it really means to be a man to begin with.

To deal with these insecurities, these men create a Fight Club, a place they can all join together and try to discover their hidden manhood by beating the shit out of each other.

“We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.”

What happens to a boy as he grows up without a strong father figure in his life? Does he grow up becoming less of a man…a man child?

Mother’s are great, but I don’t think they can show a boy how to be a man. They can’t give a boy that sense of pride, and inner strength that a man has. Some things a boy has to hear from a man, has to learn from a man before they can be truly believed and appreciated.

My mom raised me, even though my dad was around till I was 19. He provided for my family, but it was as little as he could get away with. I think about it sometimes, and wish that my dad had taught me how to play sports, or any sport, helped me with my homework, or showed me how to talk to girls. It may seem unimportant, but really I wanted a father who was involved in my life. I needed a father to show me how to be strong, dignified, and instill those values in me.

I didn’t have that example to learn from, so instead I had to learn from his bad example. I realized that when I grew older that I wanted to be nothing like my dad, that I would learn from his mistakes, so that when I had a family of my own, I wouldn’t treat them the way my dad had treated mine.

When I used to get into arguments with my mom and things got heated, she’d say to me that I was like my dad, and I wonder if she knew how badly telling me that had hurt. I ended up telling her at one point to never say I was like my dad again, because it wasn’t true, and she had no right saying it. A child shouldn’t feel this way about their father.

I think boys raised by their mothers tend to be more creative and expressive. I look at the music industry, and I know this holds true for hip hop artists. Tupac, Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, 50 Cent, and Kanye West all grew up without major father figures in their lives. I wonder how this relates to visual artists, writers, and other creative men. Does being raised without a strong father figure lead to an increase in creativity or expressiveness as an adult? How about increased femininity?

Who knows…but I’m thinking about starting my own Fight Club. Any other lost fatherless males care to join me?

“Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?”