I still remember the day my grandfather taught me how to tie a tie. He stood behind me at the mirror, hands over my hands, walking me through the loop and the pull, again and again until I could do it myself. That tie was a symbol. What he was really teaching me was what's expected of a man, and what it looks like to carry yourself. I've since had the honor of teaching that same lesson to young men I've coached, and every time, I feel my grandfather standing behind me again.

Your son needs that moment. He needs a lot of moments like that. And if you're a divorced father who doesn't see him every day, the honest question is whether he has enough men around him, period.

The Research Is Loud on This One

Boys who grow up without consistent male involvement face real, measurable risks. A 2013 literature review out of Princeton, Cornell, and UC Berkeley found that father absence significantly affects children's social-emotional development, with the impact hitting boys especially hard in the form of behavioral problems and difficulty regulating emotion. The Institute for Family Studies has tracked young men raised without their biological father in the home and found them roughly twice as likely to have spent time in jail by their late twenties, even after controlling for income, race, and mother's education. Economists David Autor and Melanie Wasserman, in their paper Wayward Sons, documented that boys raised in homes without a positive male adult present are at heightened risk across nearly every measurable outcome — dropout rates, criminality, and violence among them.

That's what happens when a boy's world runs short on men who show up for him consistently. Divorce creates that shortage only when you leave it to chance.

Boys Fill the Gap Whether You Do or Not

Here's the part that should get every father's attention: boys find their models somewhere. If the men in his life aren't consistent, present, and worth following, he'll still go looking — toward older kids on the block, toward whoever's loudest in the group chat, toward whatever version of manhood is easiest to find. Researchers studying fatherless boys have noted they often lean hard on peer groups and older males outside the home, who function as informal surrogate families shaping what "being a man" means. Sometimes those groups build a boy up. Sometimes they don't.

Your son will find role models with or without you. The only real choice you get is whether you had a hand in picking them.

What I Learned From My Own Brotherhood

I didn't grow up with brothers. When I pledged Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, I got an entire international network of men who've shown up for me in ways I never could have planned for — checking on me, correcting me, celebrating with me, pushing me when I needed pushing. My fraternity gave me something I didn't know how badly I needed until I had it.

Your son needs the equivalent of a fraternity — a small circle of men who know his name, ask about his day, and hold him to something. A coach who notices when he's off his game. An uncle who takes him fishing. A godfather who calls just to check in. Men from your church, your job, your own fraternity or brotherhood, who are willing to pour into a kid who isn't theirs because that's what good men do.

The Village Doesn't Build Itself

Programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters have been studied for decades, and the research consistently shows that boys matched with a caring, consistent adult mentor are less likely to start using drugs or alcohol and less likely to get into physical altercations, with stronger outcomes tied directly to how long and how often the mentor and boy actually spend time together. The lesson there is that consistency and intention, not the name of the program, are what make a male role model matter. A man who shows up once a year at a holiday dinner isn't doing the same work as a man who shows up every other Saturday.

This means you have work to do even when your son isn't in your house. Building his village is still your job. Nobody else is going to build it for him, and nobody else has as much reason to.

Who's Standing Behind Your Son?

My grandfather stood behind me at that mirror because somebody once stood behind him. That's how it's supposed to work — man to boy, generation to generation, whether it's a father or an uncle or a coach doing the standing. Your son is going to become a man either way. The only question is how many good men helped raise him into one.

Call somebody today. Give him a role. Start building the circle your son is going to need long after he's stopped needing you to tie his tie.