Male Role Model Essay

Growing up, my siblings and I didn’t have a father-figure to look up to. I didn’t care. As I grew up I realized that I have a female role model in my life, which was my mother. My brother, however, didn’t have a male role model to show him the ropes of life.

My brother was a bright child. He was on the honor roll, played on a basketball team; we did the school musical together. Everyone had called “a respectful boy.” He always responded, “yes ma 'am” “no sir” He made people smile, and everyone loved when he danced. I especially, I could never stop smiling when I saw my brother dance. That was the old Hakim, the one that I will never forget, never. Sadly, that all changed around the age of 13, I didn’t understand what was going on. My sweet

I always wonder what was going through my brother’s mind when he did the things he did. “ Children also develop the belief that the absent parent is bad and so, through genetics, they must also be bad” (Guertin). Maybe this is what he thought when my dad wasn’t around.

Yesterday I interviewed my mother’s friend who works at Banneker Elementary School. She talked to about her son who was murdered in 1995. She told me “she wished she was more involve in her sons life, and if she was he may still be here”. She told me that his father had left when her son was young; she believed if he had stuck around in her son’s life he may still be here (West).

Most boys tend to want to grow up as fast they can, to become men. “These include intense competition with other boys, engaging in risky behaviors, and criminal “tough guy” behavior intended to scare the world into seeing them as men”(Pittman). When boys do this, they think there doing something right. They can be to others what their fathers were never to them. More than that there trying to prove it their selves because they don’t want to turn into their dads, somebody who just leaves their