Audre Lorde Quotes

Boys want to grow up to be like their male role models. And boys who grow up in homes with absent fathers search the hardest to figure out what it means to be male.

I think there is a time in every person's life where they have to let their parents go and figure out what being a parent means for themselves.

How can I be a man if there is no role model?

I love my father, but I have worked to develop a separate and distinct identity in different projects I have worked on.

Men were only made into 'men' with great difficulty even in primitive society: the male is not naturally 'a man' any more than the woman. He has to be propped up into that position with some ingenuity, and is always likely to collapse.

When you are no longer a boy, you have to be tough.

Wear what you want to wear. Do what you want to do. Be who you are. Pick out your own clothes. Be a man. And if that's too much to ask, as it almost always is for me, think of someone you consider to be a man and pretend to be like him. I pretend to be like my dad.

I grew up in a home where I was literally told from a young age, 'No daughter of mine will ever wash a man's socks,' and I am pleased to say I never have. It was made clear that whatever I wanted to do I should aspire to, regardless of my gender.

I think that parents grow up with an idea of what they want their kids to be like - and then their kids grow up to be people of themselves, of their own.

Men spend their whole lives showing that they're strong and silent. They fight for independence the way women struggle to connect.

My father raised me from the time I was 12 years old. And it would never occur to me that I wouldn't be strong - I wasn't raised like that.

I think the ability to emphasize is, in large part, what makes me a man and not a boy.

I deliberately try to carry a different perception of myself as opposed to my father's. I respect my dad and his body of work, but I can't give him credit for what I am today. As a person, I give my parents full credit; career-wise, no.

My dad would leave at 4 or 5 in the morning and then I wouldn't see him until evening. The conversations we used to have, he would tell me, 'A man takes care of his home first. A man handles his responsibility. He doesn't ask another man for anything.'

My first vehicle I had to buy it myself and work to get it. My dad was really hard on me.

I have never been convinced throughout my life that one needs to be imitating others. I even tell my daughters not to look at me as a model.

I grew up and still didn't know what it meant to be a man.

I believe there's a huge distinction between un macho and a real man. I don't think you have to be one to be another.

Maturity… is the ability to do something even though your parents have recommended it.

Our father has an even more important function than modeling manhood for us. He is also the authority to let us relax the requirements of the masculine model: if our father accepts us, then that declares us masculine enough to join the company of men. We, in effect, have our diploma in masculinity and can go on to develop other skills.

The hip hop community is not at fault here - I'm definitely not blaming them. But, that can't be the only view of manhood for our young men.

Once you move away from home, it's never quite the same again. You expect everything to be just as you left it, and it never is. It's almost the first step into adulthood, realising you've got to make your own way.

Children need parents who will let them grow up to be themselves, but parents often have personal agendas they try to impose on their children.

The evil queen was stupid to play Snow White's game. There's an age where a woman has to move on to another kind of power. Money, for example. Or a gun.

We long for our father. We wear his clothes, and actually try to fill his shoes. . . . We hang on to him, begging him to teach ushow to do whatever is masculine, to throw balls or be in the woods or go see where he works. . . . We want our fathers to protect us from coming too completely under the control of our mothers. . . . We want to be seen with Dad, hanging out with men and doing men things.