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We keep hearing that boys are struggling. Of all the possible reasons, the lack of father figures in their lives should be near the top of the list. Like it or not, to become a man, it takes a man.

It is indisputable that we need strong male influences in our upbringing to help mold us into the type of men that are necessary for a society to thrive. If you are lucky, as I have been, you can learn by osmosis through your father and the other male role models around you as you grow up.

Statistics, like one in four children in America grows up in a fatherless home, can tell us what’s missing. However, they can’t tell us what it actually looks and feels like to have that influence there. The question becomes what, and how, can fathers — or the other male influences in our lives — teach us to help America’s boys become men? All I can share is my experience with my own dad.

Let’s start with the most obvious, yet something that unfortunately must be said: He was there. Literally. My dad never missed anything. Games, school events, ceremonies, plays, you name it. If it mattered to my sister or me, it mattered to him.

And not because he viewed fatherhood as an obligation. He genuinely wanted to be there for us. That’s an important distinction. Kids can tell the difference between a father who is physically present and one who is genuinely invested.

Our society talks a lot about ambition, career success, personal freedom, and self-fulfillment. Words we hear a lot less than we used to are responsibility, commitment, and sacrifice.

The best way for boys to learn what manhood looks like is by watching good men live it. They learn it from watching how their father treats their mother with love and respect. They learn it from seeing a man keep his word, even when it’s inconvenient. They learn it from knowing someone who worked all day but still made time to be in the stands at your basketball game or pick you up from school and stop by Dairy Queen on the way home for a “little treat.”

They learn it from presence.

The beauty of it is, my dad taught me all of those things without ever really sitting me down and announcing it like a lecture. Although, to be clear, as the son of a teacher, I experienced plenty of lectures, too. But most of the important lessons my dad taught me have come through example rather than words. I fall short of his example every single day, but he gave me a standard to strive for and something to live up to.

A lot of the problems we are seeing with young men today stem from the fact that too many boys never get to experience that kind of example firsthand. That is not to diminish the incredible single mothers raising boys under difficult circumstances every day. But even they will often tell you the value of strong male role models and support systems in a boy’s life.

When fathers are absent, boys don’t stop looking for guidance. They start looking elsewhere. Sometimes that means the internet. Sometimes it means social media influencers, athletes, celebrities, people in their communities, or even just anyone who will fill the silence and the void first. In some cases, those people can be positive. Often, they are not. And, ultimately, it is difficult for any of them to replace a father who is engaged, invested, and present in his child’s life.

A good father gives his son something increasingly rare in modern America: stability. He has the power to impart not only confidence, dependability, and toughness, but kindness, warmth, and humility.

Most importantly, he shows his sons the kind of man they should strive to become.

Growing up, my dad embodied all of this in ways both big and small. But should this really be surprising for a man who, in recent years, made it a habit of sending me Instagram videos of Archie Bunker?

Wrap up that humor and warm smile in the same person who insists clean-shaven is better than a 5 o’clock shadow, and you see how to set a standard while still making life fun. It’s one text message with a Bible verse or motivational quote, followed by another text with a “Golden Buzzer” moment from “America’s Got Talent” that you know made him tear up.

It’s the dad whom you want to call every day to check in, even when you’re a full-grown adult — because you know he isn’t always going to tell you what you want to hear, but he’ll always tell you what you need to hear. Yet, you don’t realize until later in adulthood how much those check-ins really matter or how much they truly shape you.

It’s wearing a suit and tie to church every single Sunday when I was growing up to make sure he set an example for his kids about the importance of the Lord and our faith. But he would also break out a slingshot on the eighth floor condo to launch water balloons too close to unsuspecting strangers camped out on the beach and then play dumb when they came up to complain.

It’s the dad who never misses a basketball game but films the game by himself at the top of the bleachers just to calm his nerves and keep him from accidentally elbowing the person sitting next to him. It’s the dad who knows what grades you are capable of and who will accept nothing less, but who will also go in and complain to the middle school principal that Ms. Swineford chose the Monday after the Super Bowl to give a make-up math exam.

Looking back now, I realize fatherhood is built in ordinary moments. Small habits, routines, jokes, phone calls, rides home, and quiet acts of consistency that don’t feel extraordinary at the time, and then one day you realize they shaped almost everything about you.

“One day” for me was on February 10, 2026. The day I got the last phone call from my dad. It was the day I lost my dad and my best friend.

One of my favorite quotes says, “Everything in life has a cost, and grief is the price we pay for love.” But grief also has a way of clarifying things. I’ve found myself recently thinking less about the big moments and more about the mundane ones. And maybe that’s the point. A good father can help shape your life so gradually and consistently that you don’t even fully realize how much of who you are has come from him until he is gone.

We spend so much time in modern American discourse debating or defining masculinity. But I was lucky enough to grow up seeing it lived out every day. Not perfectly, but faithfully. The older I get, the clearer it becomes how rare that was and how desperately more children need it.

So, what makes a man? The answer is a good father, someone like my dad.

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Evan Berryhill is a Republican communications strategist and attorney.

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My Dad’s Biggest Lesson Was Something He Didn’t Have To Say