The Father-Son Mirror_ Teaching Healthy Manhood Through Presence

In this powerful episode of 15 Minutes with Dad, host Lirec Williams explores how fathers shape their sons' emotional, mental, and masculine identities through presence—not performance.

Drawing from attachment theory, growth insights, and real-life fatherhood challenges, this episode unpacks how early father-son relationships impact everything from emotional regulation to identity formation and future relationships. Learn how insecure attachment and outdated views of masculinity can lead to emotional detachment, anger, or self-doubt—and how to break the cycle.

You’ll gain practical, evidence-based tools to build your son’s emotional resilience and model healthy masculinity in a world that desperately needs it.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

• The impact of early attachment on boys' development
• How father wounds and avoidant behaviors show up in adult men
• What modern, emotionally intelligent masculinity looks like
• 5 real strategies for raising sons with confidence, clarity, and compassion

Whether you're a new dad, a co-parent, or working through your own emotional healing, this episode offers a roadmap for building secure attachment, transforming your fatherhood identity, and leading your son into a future defined by emotional strength—not suppression.

Take the challenge: Lead your son this week with intention. Reflect out loud. Connect on purpose. Show him how a man loves, listens, and leads—with heart.

Chapters

• 1:44 Introduction to Father's Son Mirror
• 3:21 Attachment Theory in Father-Son Relationships
• 4:52 Unhealthy Masculinity and Personal Struggles
• 10:17 Healthy Masculinity for Modern Fathers
• 15:07 Five Practical Ways to Build Connection
• 19:18 Closing Challenge and Next Episode Preview

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:53

Welcome back to another episode of 15 Minutes with Dad, the podcast where we explore real fatherhood, emotional presence and personal growth in action. I'm your host, lyric Williams, a father of four, creative leader and someone who's learned that the mirror our sons look into every day is us. Today's episode is called the Father's Son Mirror teaching healthy manhood through presence. This conversation is deep, personal and for some of us it's uncomfortable, but it's one we can't afford to avoid, especially in a world where masculinity is often misunderstood, misapplied or completely missing the mark. We're going to talk about how sons form their identity by watching their fathers, what attachment theory teaches us about the father-son dynamic, the difference between healthy masculinity and performative masculinity, and how to heal the father wound by becoming the man your son needs. Let's get into it. Let's start with some facts. I'm going to talk about attachment theory, so stay with me at the beginning of this as we dive into this very deep topic. Attachment theory, developed by John Baldby and expanded by Mary Ainsworth, teaches us that early relationships shape how we connect to others throughout our life. When it comes to sons and fathers, secure attachment in early childhood leads us to better emotional regulation, higher self-esteem, stronger relationships in adulthood, reduced anxiety and depression and lower risk of violence, substance abuse and emotional detachment. Now, what creates secure attachments? It's not perfection, it's consistency, responsiveness and emotional safety. Now, when fathers are emotionally distant, overly critical or even absent, whether physically or emotionally, sons often develop avoidant attachments, where boys grow up emotionally walled off and hyper independent. Anxious attachment, where boys feel they have to earn love or avoid disapproval from their significant other or people's people in their lives. Or worse, disorganized attachments, which creates chaos in relationships, identity confusion and poor emotional control. This is how the father wound begins and it doesn't just impact boys. It becomes the emotional foundation or dysfunction they carry into manhood.

Speaker 1: 3:31

What does unhealthy masculinity look like in men? When an attachment is broken or the message of manhood is warped, we get what we often see today as men who have no language for their emotions, men who express anger but suppress everything else, and men who mistake control for leadership, silence for strength and dominance for respect. Here's what the wrong messages sound like Toughen up, don't cry, handle it yourself. Real men, don't talk about feelings, be the boss and never back down. And here's what that turns into Emotionally distant men fathers, husbands, workaholic providers who can't connect at home with their significant others or their kids or people in their life, and men who fear intimacy but crave validation. Dads who love their kids deeply but don't know how to say it or show it. This isn't because we are bad men. It's because many of us were never shown how to be whole men.

Speaker 1: 4:44

And this is something that I struggle with as well, and I've struggled with over a huge chunk of my life of really trying to navigate people and relationships and women and all these different things. I didn't have my dad to really explain things to me and I think that if my dad was in my life, he probably wouldn't be able to have explained it, because he's also just not learning it. And while struggling through all of these things with relationships with women and with my kids, with relationships with women and with my kids, there's often times where I put my ego first or my pride first to really navigate something. Or at a point in time in my life, just because I'm talking louder than the other person means that I'm a little bit dominant and the biggest part is the validation part. I avoid strong feelings that people have towards me. Well, I used to do this quite often, but I used to avoid these intimate feelings and I would engage with semi-fixed relationships with females where they committed. They were committed but I wasn't fully committed for one reason or the other and I didn't tell them. But being with them gave me validation because they expressed how good of a person I am. They expressed that I'm a good man and this and that and the other. But I never felt it for myself and I've talked on many different episodes of past relationships. That's gone terribly bad. That could have been really great relationships, but because I was still developing as a man where I thought, just because I could get into a relationship, that I was really ready for one.

Speaker 1: 6:23

And a lot of times, like when I got into relationships, is because I could serve a purpose and I felt that I can do things for this person and they would love me because of it, because I'm capable, because I felt like growing up I was, you know, weighing hand and feet for my grandmother throughout her. You know all of my life. But you know, until, like the last couple of years before she passed, I spent my entire life of doing acts of service and when I do it right, I got approval or I got love, or I got, you know, a compliment or like you know, and that's like making her food, cooking dinner, cleaning up for her, changing out her bedpan, like literally being her care, her, her provider, and and that's what I thought love was and going into my relationship, not really ever questioning my own attachment styles. I ended up in relationships where I initially was of value because I can do a thing, but then, when it was time for me to be intimate with this person, I didn't really build that. I didn't have that form of intimacy because I was, I felt all my value, like I felt I did everything I was supposed to in a relationship because I was doing everything that they wanted me to do.

Speaker 1: 7:46

And for a lot of men that's the case. A lot of men don't know why their relationships fell because they feel like they're doing everything that this person wants and they just don't. This woman just can't get enough. In reality, they either you know it wasn't communicated properly because they're going through theirs or we aren't even aware that this form of relationships exists, of how we attach to people right, like just because you're old enough to have a relationship and you've been in it a long time doesn't mean you're doing it right.

Speaker 1: 8:14

I wasn't doing it right, and I think I'm still not doing it right, because I'm still learning how my attachment style affects the people that I love and the people that I'm with, even my daughter, like. I'm learning how my attachment style has affected her, how I get anxious and I, and you know, anxiously avoiding like I avoid those hard, crazy moments because of how somebody else might feel about them, or I negate how I feel in order to make sure people please and make sure that someone else feels good and even if it breaks, even if it goes against my boundaries or something that I hold dear, I'm still learning that, as a 36 year old man, I'm still learning that. And so I say that to you guys, as this conversation is about you're a father, son, but really it's about you, whether you're a father or not, you know, and as you navigate your manhood and navigate being a man or navigate this world, as you know, as a man, and you know portraying your masculinity, how do we do it in a healthy way that you know keeps us grounded and keeps us at bay, but also helps build the people around us. So let's flip it and talk about what healthy masculinity looks like in fathers, like healthy masculinity is rooted is rooted in presence, not performance. It values truth over toughness and connection over control. Here's what it looks like Fathers who name and regulate their emotions. It's a big one. Most fathers bottle things up until it overcomes them and they don't know what to do and they feel like now they can't take it anymore. Now everybody got to hear what they got to say. That is the wrong way to go about it. That's toxic guys. Dads who admit when they're wrong and apologize you can have the best intentions and do something wrong to someone. Regardless on what your intentions are. It's important that you find how you wronged them and apologize. It won't mean it won't take away from what you did the value of why you did it. Just know that not everybody is going to be OK and you got to be mindful that not everybody is going to be OK and you can be there to help facilitate that, just by simply apologizing and admitting if you're wrong.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Men who create emotional safety for their sons to cry, question and express. My plus son, abraham, is a crier, obviously my toddler and my five-year-old is a crier, but my 11-year-old he's a crier. Sometimes I got to talk to him in a tough way. But my tough way is just because he doesn't agree with it, right, or he'll start raising his voice and I have to tell him, like calm down, we're not yelling at each other. Why are you yelling at me? You know he gets frustrated or something. He'll start crying and I'm like, ok, go ahead and navigate that, figure that out, take a deep breath, like I understand that you're frustrated, and then we talk about it and he talks and he tells me what I did wrong and I apologize and we creating a better and more emotional safety.

Speaker 1: 11:41

It was hard for me when we first started, when I first got with this mother, is because I'm not used to boys crying. I'm not used to. You know, like I think I was a sensitive kid when I was a little soft kid, when I was growing up, you know cause? I didn't have a man to really teach me. I was taught by women emotions, and so that's the only way I really knew how to express myself. But you know, being as a man that I've grown into be, this was the first time I'm like engaging with the son that cries a lot and I was like we're going to have to get you out of that. That was my first impression, but in reality, I was like I need this. I need this space for you because I also need the space for me, and so I just use it as a way to create emotional safety for both of us.

Speaker 1: 12:27

The next one is like leaders who model respectful power and not domination. Like in my household, I teach my boys about when we say something, we mean it and if we commit to it, we do it. We have the power to break someone with our words, but we don't use that power. We don't have to use that power. We can take what we're trying to say and express it in a more healthier way and still get the same outcome.

Speaker 1: 12:57

The next one is men who teach their boys that vulnerability is strength and action. Vulnerability this word is scary to some men sometimes because they think like, oh, people are going to take advantage. If you hear the word vulnerability and the first thing you think is that people, you're vulnerable and that means that people are going to take advantage of you, that is because you probably need to go get some help, go seek a therapist and talk to them about your attachment style, if that word scares you. Vulnerability if it scares you, that means that you have an attachment style that is not secure, and that's something that we have to work on. I think most men are raised to have non-secure attachment styles, because that's what makes us hard, but that's also what's sending us into these situations that we're in right now is because we want men to be so hard and dominant and unapologetic and all these different things. But this is how you help your son from a secure to form a secure identity and a clear sense of who he is and how to engage the world as a man who leads with integrity and not insecurity.

Speaker 1: 14:16

I'm gonna give you five things that you can start today to build your son's emotional, mental and masculine foundation with intention. It's important that you show him the full emotional range. Let him see you happy, disappointed, afraid, joyful or even crying. Teach him that real men feel and still stand strong. It's important that you say what you feel and why. For example, I'm frustrated because I want to help and I don't know how to help. This gives him emotional vocabulary and modeling.

Speaker 1: 15:02

A next one is you can replace commanding with coaching. So, instead of because I said so, try here's why I do it this way. What do you think? Because I said so, try. Here's why I do it this way. What do you think? This one is a big one? Because it's easy for us to be like. That's what I said, because I said so. And so many times when I tell my son something and they say why, oh my God, I want to say because I said so, that is the most like, that's the, that is the found, that is it. I don't need to explain to you why I said what I said, but in reality it doesn't apply, it doesn't have value to why you're saying what you're saying. But if you can explain it, it makes sense to them. They're asking why, inquisitively, not to question you, but to really get an answer, so that they can make it make sense to themselves based on what you say. Because I can promise you when you can give them a why, they're going to be like, tell their friends when they do, and their friends asking why are you doing it that way? Because my dad said that I should do it this way because of this, this and this and this.

Speaker 1: 16:08

But first, cultivate coaching. Last, let's create rituals for connections. Boys connect through actions. Go on, father-son, walks, train together, cook a meal or do something consistent. That opens emotional doors For my daughter. We had moment of honesty. We drive everywhere, we were always in the car a lot, so she would just roll me and we would talk all the time still right today, that's a thing that we do go to the grocery store and talk a lot for my sons. We train in jujitsu so like when we're fighting in jujitsu we're working together. I'm like, or he'll cook food with me or something like that, but like it's important to create these emotional, open, emotional doors. My son will talk to the end of earth and I just give him door openers to continuously communicate so that he can feel safe to think and feel things, even if it's annoys me.

Speaker 1: 17:07

And lastly, talk about your past and what you're still healing. Let them know that growing doesn't stop at adulthood. You don't lose credibility when you share your journey. You gain trust. This is a big thing to me. That I think has made me more human to my kids is because they know that I'm not this perfect dad. I do great things and they see me as this great person, but I am not a perfect person. But I am a great dad to them and I let them know that I'm a great dad because of all these things that I've learned as a child and it's helped me through navigating all these different feelings and knowing the why I am the way that I am helps me give them the answers to their problems a lot better and they can receive those answers and receive that advice a lot better. My teenager is still getting challenged with that because she's a teenager, but for the most part, my kids. They're able to see that I have hard times with some things and some things I'll say no and I have to let them know. Okay, that was kind of rooted in my trauma. You probably can handle it better than I did. To let them know, okay, that was kind of rooted in my trauma. You probably can handle it better than I did, but I didn't. You know, I didn't handle it well when I was a kid. So here let me give you this trust and stuff like that. So that's how I navigate this stuff Like talk about your past and what you're still healing. On.

Speaker 1: 18:24

Boys don't learn manhood from what we say. They learn it from how we live, how we love, how we lead. So today we've talked about the power of secure attachment and father-son relationships, what the wrong script of masculinity produces and how to rewrite it, five ways to guide your son into healthy, grounded, confident manhood. And I have a challenge for you today Create one intentional moment this week to reflect or connect with your son, whether it's a real conversation or shared activity or simply naming your own emotions. Model the man you want him to become. You want tools to help you practice this. Visit 15minuteswithdadcom to listen to many other episodes that we have, and next week we're shifting gears and exploring the father-daughter dynamic and the father-daughter blueprint, showing her how she deserves to be treated. Until next time, teach through presence, lead through healing and leave a legacy worth following.