“ Brothers: Find your brothers!
Like minds: Share your thoughts. Let customs and traditions develop. Let respect be the medium of exchange. ”
Anonymous
Come Together
In today’s Western, city-based culture,
there is a growing lack of gender balance for our children, whether in families or amongst primary school teachers.
The breakdown of families due to divorce, the rise in single parent families, and the collapse of community support, have meant that too many boys and girls grow up fatherless.
At the Chiron Centre (Liverpool) we will promote self-empowerment and well-being by men for men: the group least likely to seek help for mental, emotional, physical and spiritual problems.
For most children, generally until they reach secondary school, the significant people in positions of authority tend to be women. This lack of gender balance is a concern for all children, yet it affects girls and boys differently.
Women cannot turn boys into men and, therefore, single parent families can create boys that grow up feeling abandoned and lost. This feeling of abandonment is often due to the lack of consistent positive fathering.
There is no set “deadline” for parenting and, therefore, bigger boys continue to live with their parents - usually their mothers - until well into their late twenties. We believe that it is the job of all adult men to consciously and actively encourage, with the appropriate tools, our lost youth to grow up.
- Women outnumber male teachers in English primary schools by the ratio of eight to one (The Observer Magazine, 07.10.07).
- In the U.K., 60% of 25 year old males live with their mothers (The Guardian).
- Men often fail at close relationships; a third to a half of all marriages break down, and divorces are usually initiated by women (Steve Biddulph).
- Although workshops for wellbeing are available to all, men tend to be in the minority: these groups tend to have a ratio of 1:10, men to women. These men tend to drop out – hence the need for men-only workshops.
- Men, on average, live for six years less than women do (Steve Biddulph).
- Men and boys commit suicide three times more frequently than women. The highest rate is amongst men aged 15-44, according to Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM, www.thecalmzone.net).
- Worldwide, men tend to kiss each other when greeting one another. In the U.K. however, kissing and even holding hands, is considered suspect. To do so is considered a political act. Studies show that wellbeing and self-esteem grow when people give and receive hugs. However, generally speaking, the British touch each other the least.