One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven  

Here instead are the 12 ways to reach adulthood in our society. Don't panic as you read them. You don't have to do all these things today or tomorrow. The time will come then something deep inside you tells you 'I should do this now'.

Listen to that voice and respect it.

On the other hand you may be ready for a number of these things now:

• You Need to Defeat Your Father

• This may not be necessary for young men who have excellent relationships with their fathers: relationships of mutual respect, liking and understanding.

  Most teenage boys however need to defeat their fathers.

  I remember talking to a group of 17-year-old males a few years ago. Several of them told stories of how they found themselves in a position to defeat their fathers for the first time.

  One boy described racing his father along the beach. After a while he realised that his father was puffing and panting, falling further and further behind, no longer able to keep up. Until that moment the father had always been faster than his son.

  Another told how he was playing his father at tennis. Suddenly he was serving at 5-1, 40-15, one point away from his first win over his father.

  I asked the tennis player: 'What happened?'

  He said: 'I double-faulted, lost that game and the next five, and lost the match 5-7.'

  I asked the runner: 'Did the same thing happen to you? Did you fall over? Did you slow down and lose the race?'

  'No way,' he said. 'I beat the bastard by the biggest margin I could.'

  It seems to me that the second teenager might do better in the next stage of his life, because when the moment came he found the courage to go on and beat his father. He was ready to become a strong and independent adult.

  The moment will come for you, if it hasn't already, when you realise you have surpassed your father in an area which is important and powerful for you both. You may realise you are now faster than your father or stronger or fitter. Not necessarily in a physical way either. It may be that you can at last beat him at chess, or use the computer more effectively, or do calculations in your head faster than he can.

  You have to defeat him in a field in which you have always thought him to be superior: the acknowledged powerful one in the family in that particular area.

  It may be that you can already use the computer better than he can, but it doesn't mean a huge amount if he didn't have great skills in that area to begin with.

  A French writer tells the story of a boy who was dominated by his vain and ignorant father. The boy was not doing well at school. The father was angry when he saw the boy's reports and said: 'Right, from now on I'm going to take a hand our education.'

  A few days later the boy brought home his next assignment, an essay. The father was very excited. 'I'll help you with this!' he said. 'Here, write down what I tell you.'

  He dictated the entire essay to his son.

  The boy took it to school the next day and handed it in as his own work.

  Every day from then on his father asked him: 'Have you got the essay back yet? What did we get?'

  Everyday the boy answered: 'No, not yet father: They haven't been marked yet.'

  Eventually however the great day came. The teacher handed out the essays. The last one on the pile was the boy's. The teacher held it up in front of the whole class.

  'As for this essay,' he said to the students, 'in all my 22 years of teaching, I have never marked a more self-indulgent, badly written heap of absolute rubbish.'

  That afternoon the boy came home again. Again the father was eagerly waiting. 'Have you got the essay back yet? What did we get?'

  'Yes', said the boy. 'The teacher has marked them and we got them back today.'

  'Well', asked the impatient man. 'Come on, tell. What did he say?'

  The boy stood there, trembling. It is the critical moment in the story. The reader understands that it's the critical moment in the boy's life. He can break his father's tyrannical hold over him forever, and begin to become his own person. Or he will be dominated by his father forever.

  'The teacher said it was a wonderful essay,' he mumbled, 'and he gave it an A.'

  'Good', says the father, rubbing his hands with glee. 'Now, what's the next topic? Come and sit down and we'll get started.'

  Even where there is a positive relationship between father and son most young men still need to defeat their fathers.

  Why?

  Because for most boys, when they're little, their father seems so big and powerful that he is like a king. Everything the boy can do, the father can do better. The father is stronger, smarter, tougher.

  The time comes to move on. If you grow up still thinking your father is bigger and dominant, you'll have an immature view of the world. More importantly, you'll feel you can never do better than him. He's always going to be Number One. The best you can hope for is to be Number Two. This is injurious to your confidence, and your development.

  You have to recognise that not only is your father far from perfect, you're actually your own person. You have strengths and skills that are uniquely yours. Very different from your father's. By defeating him you free yourself to go on and achieve the great things that life holds in store for you.

  Some fathers think it is a good idea to deliberately make mistakes and let their sons beat them. They pretend they've foolishly put their queen in a bad position in a game of chess, or they hit a simple catch to you, or they pitch you a soft ball so you can hit a homer. This is not helpful. The son is left not knowing whether his victory is genuine, but suspecting it isn't. Worse, when he finally does achieve a real victory over his father, he's not convinced it is genuine.

  You can tell a lot about your father and your relationship with him by the way he reacts to being beaten. A good father will smile, congratulate his son, be proud of his son's achievement. That shows greatness on his part. After all, it has been a powerful moment for him too. He has been brought face to face with his mortality. The young buck has beaten him. He is growing old. He may have known unconsciously that he was slowing down, getting weaker, but now he knows it for sure. Father Time has tapped him on the shoulder.

  The good son will be sensitive to his father's feelings, and will not brag about his victory. But he may well celebrate it in a way that has meaning for him, and good on him too.

  The bad father is angry at losing. He may be furious, and he shows it. The son's moment of victory is spoilt, and he is left wondering whether it really was a victory after all. The father has robbed this important moment of much of its meaning.

  In one family I know the father collapsed, holding his heart. A doctor rushed to the scene. He could find nothing wrong and suggested that perhaps it was heat exhaustion.

  Some boys reading this have no fathers. Some men reading this will feel that they never defeated their fathers at anything, or if they did the father rendered the victory hollow. They worry that now it's too late: the moment when it should have happened is long past.

  Certainly it is hard to beat the absent father; of course literally it is impossible. But it can be done symbolically. I suggest you set out to do or make something which will represent your victory over your father. Choose something difficult, but something you will do supremely well. It might be a carving, a tough hike, a level of sporting achievement, the creation of a piece of music, the reconstruction of a car engine. It could be in a field where your father valued his own prowess, but it doesn't have to be.

  Let your success be your victory over your missing father. 

   

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