I used to think that masculinity was innate. But now I see it is, in fact, a social construct.
After years of living in foster homes, I was adopted by a woman who got a divorce — which was followed by a string of catastrophes in our lives. Then my adoptive mom entered a relationship with a woman named Shelly. When I was in eighth grade, they figured out that heating a house with firewood was cheaper than using the central heating system.
That winter, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. every day to light a fire so the house would be warm by the time my moms got up for work. At first I objected to this new chore, complaining that it wasn’t fair. My mom and Shelly calmly explained that they worked all day to pay the bills, and keeping the house warm was the least I could do as “the man of the house.”
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Boston Globe (paywall)
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Rob Henderson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He has a PhD in psychology from the University of Cambridge and is the best-selling author of “Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.”
Photo by Aitor Diago/Getty Images
