@ Joe: yeah, great questions and thoughts. I’m seeing this as ongoing. My friend Dave and I are a third of the way through a year where we offer a lot of activities for the boys to do: camping, rockclimbing, “charity”/community work, etc. As both my boys get older, we’ll do some sort of cross-cultural aid trip or another where they get to make a contribution as well as have an adventure. The young man and I also catch up for a chat often. At the moment I’ve bought him a bass guitar and we just jam and learn new songs and talk while we’re doing it. So finding something in common is helping…

As for has he changed? I’m noticing two things: yes and no. No, in the sense that at times he actually regresses to toddlerhood again (like most adolescents) where he does dumb and senseless stuff, or just reaches out for reassurance in immature ways. Yes, in terms of him standing taller, if that makes sense. He has a new sense of assurance that two months after his 13th birthday is obvious to me and others…

Let us know what you experiment with, Joe.

I’m just thinking about how it might play out in my family. I could probably build a rite of passage…but then what? Boy 14 goes back to skateboards and Playstation, and the rite becomes just a memorable event.

In a hunter-gatherer culture, he would go out with me to literally bring home supper. He might have a shift at night by the fire to keep the wolves (or dingoes) away. But in modern western culture, our options seem fairly limited.

Thanks