Boys to Men and Rites of Passage - Why They Are Important

4 min read

It’s a cold morning, and I wake before dawn. My team and I get up and prepare for another day. We slept well after an emotional and intense day yesterday. This is the fourth day of a Rite of Passage (ROP) program I am involved with running in Queensland, Australia. I have been involved with these camps since I did one with my dad at 15, now almost 15 years ago.

We take 10 to 15 fathers and their sons aged between 13-15 out into the bush for 5-days. No technology. No phone reception. Nothing but nature and each other. I am here with some of my best friends in the world, I am leading a team of 30 staff who together make this Rite of Passage possible.

These ROPs camps for teenagers in Australia have been running since the early 1990s. These camps were originally set up when Dr Arne Rubinstein, Geoff Price, Paul Henley, Bere, Joseph Raya, Ranald Allan and others from around Australia realised something was missing in the modern culture of raising boys. 

In all traditional cultures around the world (at least the ones I have studied), Rites of Passage have for thousands of years. In almost all cases it involves taking boys away from their normal life and showing them what it means to be a man. 

In many modern cultures, this type of Rite of Passage opportunity is not available. Rituals, which previously marked clear lines in the sand between one part of life in another, have been forgotten or ignored.

And here I am on the fourth day of one of these camps. Like all ROPs they aren't fun but they are extremely rewarding to be part of, today a lot happened. The boys returned from their challenge (all ROPs contain a challenge of some kind) and continued with opportunities for the fathers and their sons to connect and share about life, its struggles and joys. 

A Rite of Passage for young men is an opportunity for them to stand up and claim their own identity. Up until puberty, many children have identities heavily tied to their parents, and at the age of puberty wanting to create separation and starting to forge their own identity is totally normal and yet many parents don’t know how to make this happen or how to support their child to create a new identity separate from them. This is made much harder when the parents themselves never had an experience like this to help them make the transition into adulthood. 

This is where these programs come in. They, like traditional rites of passage, support this natural transition away from their parents and create the space for a new type of relationship. A relationship based on mutual love and respect. The normal relationship between parents and childs is one where the parent/guardian is 100% responsible for the relationship. As the child grows, a healthy adult relationship is one where the young person is 50% responsible and the parent/guardian the other 50%, the result is a mutual relationship where the respect and trust flows both ways. 

I was able to establish a new relationship with my Mum and Dad. One where I am an equal. The result is that I am free to hold my own opinions, views and perspectives. Where I value their input and I value theres. I still have the letter from my mum saying that she officially freed me from the constrains she had put on me as a boy, consciously or not. The freedom this granted me as a young person and the long-term impacts have had lasting positive impacts on me. 

It is a chance for stories to be passed from one generation to the next. Over the years, I have heard dads tell their sons stories of their childhoods or their relationships with their parents that they had never before shared. Hearing stories of the past creates connection, shared understanding and a type of connection that is hard to come by.

I have personally been on many of these camps; I know they provide positive and life-changing outcomes. While letting it happen on its own, the results can be highly varied - more or less, leaving it up to chance. 

For me, when I did mine at 15, it helped a lot having other dads there. I know I wasn’t able to hear certain things from my father but hearing it from other dads was fine. The conversations on sex and relationships were ones I didn't want to have with my dad. However, hearing from other men was great as I was able to actually listen instead trying to actively avoid those conversations. Something, it seems that is very common for teenagers.  

I certainly felt like I had a chance to be who I wanted to be, totally my doing without needing to impress or be someone for the benefit of others - totally unlike my experiences at school where I felt a pressure to fit in and conform. To be part of the crowd. 

The mentoring and support I got at the camps over the years was transformative for me. It was like having uncles I never had. I remember once when I was emotionally drained and on the edge of tears while on a camp. I think it had been a long day and I was emotionally depleted, I remember one of the staff, who has since become a good friend being there to support me. It helps a lot at that moment, so much so that I remember it with huge gratitude all these years later. 

The ROP I was running that week was coming to an end. I noticed as everyone was getting in their cars to leave was one of the young men and his dads crying. They said that he didn’t want to leave. This contrasted vividly against the son, who earlier in the week spent a lot of time complaining loudly about how much he did want not to be there. 

For many, the age has past where a ROP as a teenager is possible, intentionally or not, some transition will have happened, and this doesn’t mean that there aren’t more waiting.

I have done this for enough years to watch these teenagers grow into men, with their own full lives and I am grateful I may have had a small impact on them on a camp, in the bush years ago.

These small camps, now done in many countries around the world, support our young people to step into their adulthood with supporting communities and confidence in themselves. 

It gives me hope for our future.

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