We Need More Good Men

There’s a waitlist of boys and young men in this country — for mentors.

I mean that literally. One YMCA mentoring program in Maryland reports more than 800 youth on its waiting list, and says plainly that its greatest need is men.

That’s one program, in one state.

I’ve spent this week thinking about the men who showed up for me. I looked hard for mentors in every endeavor I’ve tried, from cooking to corporate leadership to teaching to fatherhood. I found them some of the time. They weren’t always within reach.

Dr. Zanvoort was. As a teacher, he gave me a love of visual arts I’ll hold forever, especially the impressionists and the art scene in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. He literally filled my life with color.

Boys today have fewer Dr. Zanvoorts. Men are down to about 23 percent of public school teachers, from roughly a third when I was a kid. Fewer men on volunteer rosters. Fewer men in the everyday lives of kids who could use their wisdom.

This absence doesn’t stay empty. Boys looking to understand what a good man is will find an answer somewhere — too often from a screen, from toxic voices that profit from keeping young men angry, isolated, and buying.

The fix is not complicated. It’s presence. If you’ve ever thought “somebody should do something about this,” I’d like to introduce you … to you.

Big Brothers Big Sisters is the biggest door in. The commitment is about an hour a week, being yourself with one kid, with professional staff supporting the match the whole way. Boys wait longest for matches because male volunteers are scarcest. If you’re a man reading this, you are the shortage.

The Mentoring Connector, run by MENTOR, is the national database of vetted mentoring programs. Enter your zip code, the ages you’d like to work with, and the kind of program you want, and it shows you who needs you nearby. Parents can use the same tool to find a program for their own kid.

100 Black Men of America has run mentoring, education, and economic empowerment programming through local chapters for over sixty years, built on men showing up for boys in their own communities.

Boys & Girls Clubs and your local YMCA both run mentoring and youth programs in nearly every community in America, and both chronically need male volunteers. Search your city’s club or Y directly; the front desk will know exactly where to put you.

Maybe you’re mid-career, and the thought keeps returning. Here’s what most people don’t know: you don’t need to start over with an education degree.

TEACH.org explains alternative certification state by state and offers free career coaching to talk through your specific situation. If you hold a bachelor’s degree in anything, there’s a pathway.

Teacher residency programs let you earn a paycheck while you train, teaching under a mentor teacher for a year while completing certification. Many big districts run their own, like the Chicago Public Schools residency for career-changers. Search your district’s name plus “teacher residency.”

Your state’s alternative route. Every state maintains its own programs for career-changers, often 12 to 24 months, often while you’re already earning a teacher’s salary under a provisional license. This guide breaks down how the routes work.

The classrooms with the biggest shortages — math, science, special education, trades — are the ones where a man with real-world experience walks in with instant credibility.

AmeriCorps places members in schools, youth programs, conservation, and disaster response, with a living allowance and an education award. Many Boys & Girls Clubs run AmeriCorps programs directly. Men are only about 28 percent of AmeriCorps volunteers. That number is an invitation.

Operation Bigs, a Big Brothers Big Sisters program, matches mentors with children from military families. Veterans especially: a kid with a deployed parent could use someone who understands the life.

Presence doesn’t require a program.

Coach the rec league team nobody wants to coach. Show up to your nephew’s game. Teach a kid to cook something, fix something, build something. Ask the boy who mows your lawn what he’s planning after graduation, and then actually listen to the answer. Mentorship existed for a few thousand years before anyone built a nonprofit around it.

Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona has introduced two bills aimed at this problem: the Educators for America Act, which supports earn-while-you-learn teacher residencies and recruits men into them, and the Building Community in America Act, which funds service programs that actively recruit male volunteers. You can read the press release here. Good policy can widen the doors.

But nobody’s waiting on Congress to walk through them.

The doors are open now.

There’s a line of boys out there, waiting to learn what being a good man is about. They’re going to learn it from someone.

It should be you.

The Dad Briefs covers the civic, political, and quietly human stories that shape family life in America — with recipes along the way. Food, Fun and Fatherly Wisdom. Recipes for Resistance.