At my job I talk to younger men and try to live by example. I don’t drink, smoke or womanize. I’ve been faithful to my spouse for 17 years and make it plain how I feel about the woman I love. When I have the opportunity to give advice, I do it with humility.

I can’t mentor all the lost boys, but I can provide them with an example that all is not lost for them.

I was one of them after all.

I’m suggesting that there are a lot of sons out there without fathers as thoughtful and dedicated as you and that men should do what their conscience dictates for these poor souls.

I will not tell another man how he should raise his own kid, nor what energy he should spend on children that are not his own. So, I’ll tell you what I’d do.

If writing an e-mail to an advertising company is all it takes to change the way men are portrayed in popular media, the very media you must compete against for the attention of your son, then, as a man, I see no problem doing that.

As I see it, men don’t just look after their own. Wolves can do that much. Men make it their responsibility to look after others as well. They go beyond what is expected of them and do what many will not, not just for their own sake, or the sake of their family, but for the sake of those unwilling or unable to do so for themselves.

If we eached looked after our own only, what a pitiful sight we’d all be.

And when asked by the Almighty Himself, “Why didn’t you care for this one,” and I’ll be asked that because I’ve not done all I certianly can, I’m really not looking forward to answering, “It wasn’t my responsibility.” If not mine, then whose?

I’m one man responsible for one other person on this planet right now. All I can do is live my life according to my conscience, do the best I can and pick my battles carefully.

I think a real man can take a stand for them as well.

why do you not challenge society to change?

I do and I have. But honestly I don’t know what is best for Society all the time; I do know what’ s best for me and my Kid.

Why are you ceding that authority to society?

I’m not. I’m responsible for raising the Kid – not Society. When Society tries to take over my job, I push back. It throws up a lame brained father in a commercial, I discuss it with the Kid. Then I show him by example what a father should be like: tolerant, playful, insightful, hard-working, humble… Vicious when necessary…

I used to shrug it off too until it dawned on me that boys are seeing this junk. Now I cannot watch it at all. Guess it’s just part of getting older.

In my opinion, a real man is able to casually ignore this sort of thing.

Then you have a very narrow view of what it means to be a “real man”.

To me a “real man” is someone that knows how to clean a kitchen as well as an AK-47; that knows his way around a grocery store as well as Home Depot. A “real man” is a three dimensional character, not the two dimensional laughing stock portrayed by Hollywood.

I’m trying to raise a “real man” but I’m competing with Society. I have to win and I’ll do everything that it takes to do that – including telling ad execs to take a long walk off a short pier.

Good letter, Scott. And I happen to know women who would agree with you on all of that, by the way.

About a year ago I was asked by a marketing company to watch an episode of a new TV show they were thinking about putting on the air. I don’t think it would be called a pilot because it wasn’t even aired yet, and I’m imagining they do a lot of these pre-screenings for shows that don’t actually wind up airing.

Anyway, it was yet another show about a complete idiot husband, clueless about the world, with a smart, domineering, and sometimes even threatening wife. I savaged it in my review, and it never made it on the air so far as I know. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t the only one who expressed contempt for this contemptible trend in Hollywood.

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