This #BoyDad essay is one of six, from a collection of fathers who are raising sons in modern times. Click here to read the rest. And, while you’re at it, check out Cool Dad HQ for tips, gear, and strategy guides—all designed to help you raise great kids better.
YESTERDAY MY ELDEST boy was an infant. Now he’s in high school. By the time I wake up tomorrow, he’ll be in his 20s. I worry about the cohort he is joining so (shockingly) soon.
One stat, from Pew Research Center, tells the story: Sixty-three percent of American men aged 18 to 29 are single—up from 51 percent just three years ago.
What they’re missing is affection.
I kiss my boys and hold their hands. It’s such a small thing, but it’s joyful and profound. Kissing them is something I owe to a friend of mine from my 20s whose Italian father looked like Burt Reynolds’s younger brother and who would kiss his adult son, unashamedly on the lips, when they met. The first time I saw it, I was shocked. Then I thought, This is nice.
I never enjoyed holding hands until I had kids. The things we do for our kids—the soccer practices, the carpools, the worry, the bad movies we watch with them, the remote controls we set up for them, the work we do to give them a better life than ours—are each tolerable in isolation, but nothing that anybody who doesn’t have kids would ever do.
However, the sum of these parts checks an instinctual box. It gives you the sense that you’re serving a larger purpose—the whole evolution thing.
Few actions encapsulate this reward better than holding your child’s hand. Every kid’s hand fits perfectly into his or her parent’s. It’s one of those moments when you feel that if you were to drop dead, yes, it would be bad, but far less tragic than if you had never marked the universe with purpose and success. You’re a parent, and your kid is holding your hand.
When they were young, they held my hand instinctively. My youngest was a barbarian when he was little, terrorizing us all at home, but when we were out in the world, he’d get intimidated and want the security of touch from someone who would protect him. He went for his mom’s hand first; I was the runner-up (but that’s okay).
As the years have passed, I’ve made sure to keep up the habit. It’s less common now, but I’ve never let them drop it entirely. The eldest started pulling away first, of course.
It’s hard to know what your kids will remember about you when they’re older. But I’m committed to ensuring that one of their associations with me is “always kissing us, always extending his hand.” If men who look like Burt Reynolds can kiss other men, so can I.
I’m taking affection back.
A version of this article originally appeared in the May/June 2023 issue of Men's Health.
Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business and the author of several books, including, Adrift: America in 100 Charts.
