FOCUS: MEN’S THRIVABILITY


Mindfulness: an answer to the challenges of today’s men


Mindfulness is one tool today’s man can use to develop the emotional resilience to successfully surf the ups and downs that are unique to his generation.


by Judith Lissing


EVER-EVOLVING GENDER ROLES When my parents married nearly 70 years ago, a man’s role was clear: support your family. My parents were refugees from war-torn Europe and as such, when they arrived in Australia, my mother had no choice but to share in the family’s income generation until she had children. At this point, my father decided


that the mother of his children should not work – in his generation, manhood was defined by a man’s ability to support his family. And so my mother became a stay-at-home mum, a decision about which she was ambivalent but which she accepted, as this was a ‘man’s world’. When I married about 30 years ago,


male-female roles had begun to blur. Most women chose to work outside of


the home, but few men were prepared to share in the domestic and child- rearing duties. This was tough on both men and women. Women had more to juggle, which caused them a lot of physical and emotional stress, and men who chose to help at home and take on more of the traditionally female roles were often socially stigmatised as soft or ‘hen-pecked’.


66 SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2017


IMAGE: PABLO HEIMPLATZ


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