Childless at 52: How sweet it would be to be called Dad

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childless, Children, disconnection, family, Grief, loss, men, regret, women

Childless at 52: How sweet it would be to be called Dad

A few years ago, I was visiting a friend who has two daughters, a newborn and a two-year-old. Reflecting on his experience of being a father he said that he felt he loved them so much he could “take a bullet for them”. I wept all the way home. If only I could feel that intensely. And here I am, a man who would love to have a child, wondering how I let this happen.

Some people surmise, “It’s different for men. You don’t have a biological clock.” And that’s pretty much the end of the discussion. As a 52-year-old man, can I know something of the anguish of women who long to have a child? The biological clock is, after all, a reality for women – I could theoretically still have a child if I were 70.

The problem is that “it’s different for men” translates easily into “it’s easier for men” and it’s one small step more to “you can’t understand what it’s like for us!” And from this the debate about not having a child is sequestered firmly into the experience of women: women grieve for the children they longed for and men don’t. Maybe that’s true – I can’t claim to be surrounded by men who talk about this. I think that by and large we don’t.

I am not sure what I am allowed to feel and how that differs from what I actually feel. Do men feel grief over being childless differently from women? If so, how? Does it matter?

Daily encounters remind me of what I don’t have. Just this morning, returning from the local shop, I saw my neighbour standing outside the door of our mansion block. Our building is set back off the road and has a communal garden bordered by hedges. There she stood with her two tiny ones, a little boy and girl gazing curiously at the pearled intricacies of a spider’s web spun across the lower branches of our hedge. I say good morning to their mother and then to them. I crouch down to join their wonder, and agree with their mother that probably the mummy spider was having a rest after her hard work and we should not disturb her. I watch their faces, their cheeks the lustre of rose petals, full of wonder at the spectacle. Adorable.

Shopping isn’t easy either. Politely standing aside for the harassed family of four as they pass, trying to manage the strollers, the shopping and the children’s runaround energy, I feel socially inferior. Despite loving my job and enjoying strong friendships, I feel I am not a real member of society – an unmarried man without children. I can’t participate in the hullabaloo about schools, catchment areas, snotty noses, and playdates. I am outside, looking in.

How do I disentangle these feelings? It’s easy just to distract myself. I think the most accessible layer of feeling is a sense of regret – I remonstrate with myself for the chances I missed and sadness for the people I have hurt. I can’t help but replay moments in my life that I wish could have turned out differently. These are so painful. That evening six years ago when I managed in one short hour to say all the wrong things to the right woman, precisely because she was the right woman. I could not bear to have that which I most wanted. So I destroyed something that I really longed for.

Only a few days later, she met someone else and two years later got married. They have a child now. I really wish I didn’t know that. But I do. A little girl. And I can’t help but wonder what it would be like if that little girl were my little girl. Would she have my eyes? My smile? What is it like to see in a child little mannerisms, a way of doing things, moving, speaking, laughing, playing, that remind us of ourselves? Or of course, she may have the eyes of my loved one. And what a joy that would be, to see in our child’s face, our love; to bring into this world a beautiful child that was of us – a child that would grow into her own person but growing out of who we are.

So another part of my sadness is born out of absence – fearing that I will never feel those exquisite joys; that I will never hear my son or my little girl call me dad. How sweet it would be to hear that word from the mouth of my little girl or my small son. To see them take first steps, to comfort them when they cry, to tuck them in before sleep and read them stories. To kiss them goodnight and be with them when the world seems too much. It could still happen. But it feels less likely with each passing year. And just because theoretically I still could doesn’t mean I don’t feel the loss of all those could-have-beens. Also, with the passing of the years, would I now have the energy if it were to happen?

And what of those parents who might answer me and say, “this guy is clueless. Does he have any idea of how hard it is to be a parent?” No. I don’t. I don’t know what it’s like to be short of sleep for a decade. To be exhausted and overwhelmed and have no time for myself. To feel mind numb after reading the same story for the 20th time. No, I don’t understand these things. But I do know what it is like to feel incomplete. To be fit for a purpose that I cannot fulfil. I will probably never know if I could bear the exhaustion and sacrifice that being a father would require but I long to try, precisely because that is the only way I can express something essential about who I am. It is not simply that I would like to be a father. I feel I am made to be a father. And because I don’t have a child, and it saddens me very much to admit this, in some ways I don’t feel fully like a man.

Sometimes, however, I get invited into the club. Four-year-old Archie arrived with his mother, Maggie, for a gathering of friends yesterday. Of course, he didn’t so much arrive as explode through the door. “I’m here!” he shouted as he ran into the hallway. While we adults exchanged smiles, Archie pulled out a dozen assorted soft toys, including a penguin, a lion, a giraffe and a hippopotamus, and left them strewn around the living room floor where he set up camp – a play base from which to launch sorties of boy energy into the kitchen.

Under his arm, too large and perhaps too fierce for any bag, is a pink Tyrannosaurus rex. The first chance I got, I served up food and went to play with him. Once we agreed that Captain America really was the best superhero, we were firm friends for the day, and Lego building and soft toy wars could ensue. Later, as we walked to the local cafe for tea and cake, he took my hand. For so many parents, this must be commonplace – to feel a small hand neatly clasped around the fingers of an adult – but for me it was special. His mother and I swung him, one, two, three, and up he went, until our arms were tired. An afternoon replete with the small joys of spending time with a little boy as he negotiates his way through the world.

And then they go home.

 

Why are men still ignored when we talk about miscarriage?

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future, Grief, men, miscarriage, unborn child, women

Why are men still ignored when we talk about miscarriage?

“How is Julia doing?” That was the question my husband was repeatedly asked after our first miscarriage. And after our second; and third; and fourth. We had lost baby after baby, but it was my state of mind and health – the devastated mother who had lost her child – that was uppermost in the thoughts of our family and friends. Almost nobody asked my husband the other obvious question: how are you doing?

While it is couples who “are going to have a baby”, miscarriages only happen to women. Yet the emotional trauma of the overwhelming sense of loss and grief affects both parents. So it was with great courage that Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg chose to reveal, as he announced he and his wife are expecting a baby girl, that they have suffered three miscarriages. His deeply personal words will have echoed strongly with everyone who has experienced the loss of a pregnancy: “You start making plans, and then they’re gone. Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you. So you struggle on your own.”

And that it precisely what many men do after losing a baby. They struggle on and bottle up their own feelings of loss to keep strong for their partners. Yet, as Mark Zuckerberg explained in a poignant Facebook post, for the couple who have miscarried, it was very much a real baby, containing all their love and hopes for the future, so the grief is very real too. And it needs to be treated like any other grief.

New research by the Miscarriage Association has found that, despite their intense feelings of sadness, anger and loss, a quarter of men whose wives or girlfriends miscarried never spoke about their grief with them because they feared upsetting her or saying the wrong thing. The sheer horror and shock of a miscarriage, and all the bleeding it can entail, can be overwhelming – an emotion that is compounded by a man’s utter powerlessness to do anything to help the woman they love.

Yet – and, importantly, quite unlike women – men are simply expected to get back on with normal life straight away, with no time off to recover. They report returning to work shell-shocked but unable to talk about their loss with colleagues because the pregnancy had been kept a secret. Even when men do attempt to talk about their feelings the response can do more harm. Well-meaning but clumsy comments such as “never mind, you can try again” and “at least you aren’t shooting blanks” underestimate the grief experienced.

The best way to cope with miscarriage is for men and women to talk – to their partners, to their friends, to a counsellor. After a rich, successful man like Mark Zuckerberg publicly shared his grief about his wife’s miscarriages, it may make it easier for more men to finally open up about their own feelings of loss. There is nothing unnatural about grieving for the loss of your unborn child.

One Sri Lankan Tamil’s testimony: beaten, branded, suffocated and raped

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asylum seekers, men, rape, sexual abuse, Torture

One Sri Lankan Tamil’s testimony: beaten, branded, suffocated and raped

Siva, a Tamil from Sri Lanka, is facing deportation from the UK for the second time in two years. The last time he fought the journey every inch of the way.

“They loaded me on the plane first, right at the back, because I was making a lot of noise, screaming. I was very scared and begged them not to send me back but they said if I didn’t go quietly, they would handcuff me and force me to go,” he told the Guardian.

Given his account of what he had lived through in his home country, his panic is unsurprising. Since the brutal end to the Sri Lankan civil war five years ago, human rights groups have accused the government in Colombo of routinely abducting and torturing Tamils it suspects of sympathies with the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) insurgency.

Rape and sexual abuse of men and women is a factor in two-thirds of the cases studied by Freedom from Torture, the British advocacy group.

Siva was detained in a police station, tortured and forced to perform oral sex on his guards over a period of five weeks. He only escaped after his family paid a bribe. But, when he finally arrived in the UK, the Home Office did not believe his account. He was deported in 2012 after exhausting his appeals.

“I was confused and frightened. I couldn’t sleep and was on sleeping pills. At first I thought I’d get a last-minute reprieve because twice before I’d been taken to the airport to be deported but not been sent.

“This time I realised it was going to happen when three people surrounded me and escorted me on to the plane and stayed there till it started to move. After takeoff I just sat there and didn’t speak to anyone because I was too scared.”

When he arrived at Colombo airport, he was interrogated by police for five hours, but they did not appear to be aware he had been in detention before and had claimed asylum. He was allowed to go, but soon the police came looking for him, forcing to him to flee and hide with friends in the tea plantations, never venturing outdoors. It was attending his sister’s wedding in Colombo that was his undoing.

Police officers came for him on the second evening, arrest warrant in hand, claiming he had helped channel money to the LTTE when he’d worked in a shop in Colombo five years earlier and was now trying to reorganise a terrorist organisation.

“I don’t know how to describe what went through my head at that moment; I was very scared. I cried and shouted but they handcuffed and blindfolded me and put a gag in my mouth to silence me. They started hitting me even inside the vehicle and put a gun to my head because they were angry that I’d hid from them. I knew I was going to be tortured again.”

It started that first night at the police station in Colombo, with kicking, punching, slapping and beating with blunt instruments. Siva was hung upside down by his feet, his hands tied behind his back, and his head submerged in a barrel of water.

He was suffocated by having a plastic bag soaked in petrol tied over his head. He was, branded on several occasions with a hot metal rod, leaving 11 visible scars on his back, and burned with cigarettes leaving at least 17 visible scars.

An expert independent medical report subsequently obtained in the UK confirms Siva’s scars are consistent with his account of torture. He also has the arrest warrant and court documents renewing his detention to prove he was indeed held in custody.

He was also repeatedly raped. “Even at night they didn’t allow us to sleep; they sexually tortured us. I was raped by different men and sometimes other men watched. They were not wearing uniform and they were drunk. They called me ‘Tamil slave’ and ‘son of a bitch’.”

Ten months later, Siva’s family again paid a bribe for his release, though the official police records say he escaped. Siva took a boat to India and then made his way back to the UK, arriving this year. When he went to the Home Office to apply for asylum again, he says he wasn’t eligible because he had already been deported. Now he has to sign in at a police station monthly but every time he fears he could be detained again and deported.

In Sri Lanka, his parents also have to report to the police; as soon as Siva fled the island, his father and brother were detained. He doesn’t know if they have been mistreated because they have never talked about it.

“If I am deported for a second time, I won’t go; I’d rather die here. Because of the immigration people here I suffered more; they didn’t take the right decision and because of them I was detained for months and suffered physical and mental torture.”

Asked what he felt about the global summit on preventing sexual violence being held in London Docklands, a few miles from where he is staying, he said: “I feel like the British government has double standards hosting this summit; they are showing two different faces to the world.”

UK launches £500,000 fund to help male victims of rape and sexual abuse

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counselling, male rape, men, rape, Sexual Violence, taboo

UK launches £500,000 fund to help male victims of rape and sexual abuse

A £500,000 fund to provide help, including counselling and advice, to male victims of rape and sexual violence is to be launched on Thursday.

The creation of the fund comes as the latest set of crime figures showed there were 2,164 rapes and sexual assaults against men and boys aged 13 or over recorded by the police in the 12 months to last November.

The crime survey for England and Wales estimates that there are as many as 72,000 male victims of sexual offences every year, whether they are reported to the police or not.

The victims minister, Damian Green, said the new fund would also help “historic victims” who were under 13 at the time. He said: “We believe around 12% of rapes are against men. Yet many choose not to come forward, either to report the crime or seek the support they need. I am determined to help break the silence on a subject still seen as a taboo.”

Green said the average sentences for male rape had increased but there was still more to do: “That is why we are toughening up sentencing and have introduced a mandatory life sentence for anyone convicted of a second very serious sexual or violent crime.”

Duncan Craig of Survivors Manchester, which specialises in helping male survivors of rape and sexual abuse, welcomed the new funding. He said: “In the past, there has not been enough support in the UK for male victims of sexual violence. But in the future I would like to see both the government and society begin talking more openly about boys and men as victims and see us trying to make a positive change to pulling down those barriers that stop boys and men speaking up. This funding will help to raise awareness of the issue and ensure that male victims are no longer ignored.”

The launch of the fund comes as the justice ministry starts a social media #breakthesilence campaign to encourage male victims to speak about their experiences. The Channel 4 teenage soap Hollyoaks recently featured a male rape storyline.

Domestic violence: ‘As a man, it’s very difficult to say I’ve been beaten up’

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abuse, domestic violence, embarrassment, men, partner abuse, stigma, taboo, violence

Domestic violence: ‘As a man, it’s very difficult to say I’ve been beaten up’

An inch under six foot tall, Dave, a gardener with a deep, gravelly voice is not most people’s idea of a domestic violence victim. But he suffered two years of abuse at the hands of his girlfriend and was too embarrassed and loyal to report her to the police. He slept in his car for weeks before speaking to his local council, who found him a place at a men’s refuge.

He struggles to keep it together when he recalls the day his girlfriend smashed a bottle of Jack Daniels across his head, leaving him bleeding on the pavement: a deep scar is still clearly visible on his forehead. But when the 45-year-old from Essex describes the relief of being believed by the authorities, he breaks down, his broad shoulders heaving beneath his rugby shirt.

“When help finally comes it’s an emotional thing,” he says, sitting on the sofa at a safe house in Berkshire where he is being helped to rebuild his life. “As a man, it’s very difficult to say you’ve been beaten up. It seems like you’re the big brute and she’s the daffodil, but sometimes it’s not like that.”

He is one of the lucky few to get help. His refuge has two new requests every day to take in men from across the country who are fleeing violence. The home, which can accommodate three men and their children, is already full.

One in three victims of domestic abuse in Britain is male but refuge beds for men are critically scarce. There are 78 spaces which can be used by men in refuges around Britain, of which only 33 are dedicated rooms for males: the rest can be taken by victims of either gender. This compares with around 4,000 spaces for women. In Northern Ireland and Scotland there are no male refuges at all.

Alan Gibson, an independent domestic violence adviser for Women’s Aid which runs the men’s refuge in Berkshire that is helping Dave, said: “Four organisations phoned us today looking for places for four different men. They’ve been attacked and abused, but there is only one room available in the country and someone will have to decide which of those four men is most in need.”

More married men (2.3 per cent) suffered from partner abuse last year than married women, according to the latest British Crime Survey. Yet help is still much harder to find for men.

Mark Brooks, chairman of the men’s domestic abuse charity, the Mankind Initiative, said: “Support services for male victims remain decades behind those for women. This is not helped by the Government and others having a violence against women and girls strategy without having an equivalent for men. Everybody sees domestic violence victims as being female rather than male. This is one of Britain’s last great taboos.”

The Mankind Initiative helpline receives 1,200 calls a year from men or friends and family calling on behalf of men. Stigma and fear of being disbelieved, among other factors, make men much less likely than women to report abuse to the police. The British Crime Survey found that only 10 per cent of male victims of domestic violence had told the police, compared with 29 per cent of women. More than a quarter of male victims tell no one what has happened to them, compared with 13 per cent of women.

The human cost of ignoring the problem is stark: 21 men were murdered by a partner or former partner in 2010/11.

Kieron Bell very nearly became one of those grim statistics. He is also one of a handful of men who has successfully prosecuted a partner for violence. The 37-year-old bouncer from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, had to have emergency heart surgery after he was stabbed in the chest by his wife, Sarah, in 2009. She had been violent since the start of their marriage in 2006 but he did not want to turn to the police at first, initially because he still loved her and later because he thought they would never believe that a 5ft 2in woman would be subjecting a bulky 5ft 10in bouncer to a reign of terror.

After the stabbing, his wife tried to claim that Mr Bell fell on a knife but, while recovering in hospital, he decided to report her to the police. In 2010 she was charged with grievous bodily harm and was released from prison only in May last year. “I was scared to call the police. I’m a big bloke and I thought I’d get laughed at,” he said. “I think there needs to be more information out there for blokes. If I’d known what the signs to look out for were before, I could’ve done something sooner. But I loved her and because of my child I stayed with her.”

Nicola Graham-Kevan, an expert in partner violence at Central Lancashire University, said: “Society is blind to women’s aggression. The biggest disparity is women’s ability to seek help which makes men very vulnerable to false allegations. People often won’t believe that men are victims. Men have to be seen as passive, obvious victims with clear injuries, whereas, if a woman makes allegations, they are believed much more easily.”

Dr Graham-Kevan believes the system needs to adjust to make it safer for male victims and their children, who can end up with an abusive mother. “The biggest thing for me as a parent is that children are being placed in significant positions of harm. It sounds anti-feminist, but I think we’re allowing women too many rights in the family court, because courts assume that the women are the best parent as a starting position, rather than looking at it equally.”

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We recognise that men are victims of domestic violence, too, and they deserve protection. In December 2011, the Home Office set up the Male Victims Fund to support front- line organisations working with male victims of sexual and domestic violence. We also fund the Male Advice (and Inquiry) Line.”

Names have been changed to protect identities

‘My wife attacked me 11 times. I didn’t think the police would believe me’

Tim, 59, has severe learning difficulties and is now living in a men’s refuge in Berkshire after his wife assaulted him repeatedly during their short marriage

“My wife attacked me 11 times through our marriage. We were married for 18 months, but, being a bloke, you don’t know where to go to get help.

“She tried to strangle me and she used to bite me. She also stabbed me in the hand with a fork. I’d been on my own for 14 years and she seemed like the right woman for me when we got together.

“The violence started in the first three months of the marriage. She would go for my throat if I wouldn’t do certain things.

“She wouldn’t let me see anyone. My family were trying to help me cope with my disabilities, but she wouldn’t let them come round. On New Year’s Day, she threatened me with a knife and I was frightened. Then the other day she tried to strangle me again.

“My sister said I should call the police, so I did.

“I didn’t think the police would believe me because she always seemed to twist things, but they want me to press charges and make a statement now.”

Men risk health by failing to seek NHS help, survey finds

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access, employment, men, treatment, well-being

Men risk health by failing to seek NHS help, survey finds

Many men are leaving their well-being to chance, sometimes with “shattering consequences”, according to research that suggests they are far less willing than women to access NHS services.

A study by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has found that men are much less likely than women to take advantage of primary care services, including community pharmacies. They are also unwilling to consult a pharmacist face-to-face or seek treatment when sick.

Men visit their GP four times a year compared to six times for women, according to the NPA. On average they visit a pharmacy four times a year compared with 18 for women. More men than women admit that their understanding of medicines is poor, and they are twice as likely to take a new prescription medicine without first reading the patient information leaflet or seeking professional advice.

The review also found that nearly nine in ten men do not like to trouble a doctor or pharmacist unless they have a serious problem. As a result, men are less likely to access disease screening or seek professional support for healthy-living initiatives such as stop smoking schemes. In the three months to June 2012, 10,000 more women than men in England set a date to quit smoking, the NPA found.

“Our review shows that men aren’t taking full advantage of the support to maintain good health which is available free of charge on their doorsteps,” said Mike Holden, chief executive of the NPA. “Men tend to be driven by what they see as their immediate healthcare needs, and focus rather less on long-term wellbeing.”

The review, compiled to coincide with the start of Ask Your Pharmacist Week, suggests men’s reluctance to consult health experts will have wide-ranging implications for the nation’s health in the future because a number of treatable conditions will go unaddressed. By 2015, 36% of men are likely to be obese compared with 28% of women. Alcohol disorders are also twice as common in men.

The NPA suggested employment patterns could have a bearing on men’s attitudes to health services. Men are twice as likely as women to have a full-time job and are more than three times more likely to work over 45 hours per week, making getting to a surgery or pharmacy more difficult.

Suicide Prevention Strategy: Government Pledges £1.5m Funding

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Bereavement, Children, economy, men, mental health issues, prevention, self-harm, suicide, support, women

Suicide Prevention Strategy: Government Pledges £1.5m Funding

The government has promised to pump £1.5m into research exploring how to prevent suicides among those most at risk of taking their own lives.

The pledge comes as ministers unveiled a new suicide prevention strategy that is aiming to cut the suicide rate and provide more support to bereaved families

Funding will be used to look at how suicides can be reduced among people with a history of self-harm.

Researchers will also focus on cutting suicides among children and young people and exploring how and why suicidal people use the internet.

Launching the new strategy to coincide with World Suicide Prevention Day, Care Services Minister Norman Lamb said: “One death to suicide is one too many – we want to make suicide prevention everyone’s business.

“Over the last 10 years there has been real progress in reducing the suicide rate, but it is still the case that someone takes their own life every two hours in England.

“We want to reduce suicides by better supporting those most at risk and providing information for those affected by a loved one’s suicide.”

Around 4,200 people in England took their own lives in 2010 and suicide continues to be a public health issue – especially in the current period of economic uncertainty, the Department of Health said.

The suicide rate is highest amongst men aged between 35-49, while men are three times more likely than women to take their own life, according to statistics.

The new strategy, which is being backed by charity the Samaritans, is the first in more than 10 years.

Under the fresh approach, the government will work with the UK Council for Child Internet Safety to help parents ensure their children are not accessing harmful suicide-related websites.

It will also aim to reduce opportunities for suicide by ensuring prisons and mental health facilities keep people safer.

Improved support for high-risk groups – such as those with mental health problems and people who self-harm – and well as those bereaved or affected by suicide will also be offered.

Chair of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Group, Professor Louis Appleby said: “Suicide does not have one cause – many factors combine to produce an individual tragedy.

“Prevention too must be broad – communities, families and front-line services all have a vital role.

“The new strategy will renew the drive to lower the suicide rate in England.”

Around 50 national organisations from the voluntary, statutory and private sectors have also agreed to work together to tackle suicide by sharing best practice and providing support to those in need.

Samaritans chief executive Catherine Johnstone said: “We are encouraged that the government has taken this step in continuing to acknowledge the importance of suicide prevention.

“We firmly believe that suicide can be prevented by making sure people get support when they need it, how they need it and where they need it.

“This means we all have to try harder to reach people who may not now be talking to anyone about the problems they face.”

We tell boys not to cry, then wonder about male suicide

Tags

Depression, men, mental health issues, sports stars

We tell boys not to cry, then wonder about male suicide

I’m not sure how old I was when I was first instructed that boys don’t cry – at a guess, maybe six or seven. Once it began, it came at me from all angles: family, teachers, friends, the myriad voices of media and culture. Like pretty much all boys, I learned that tears and sobs were markers of failure. Whether facing up to playground beatings, bullies or teachers, the rules of the game were simple: if you cry, you lose. As little boys begin to construct the identities of grown men, the toughest lesson to learn is toughness itself. Never show weakness, never show fragility and above all, never let them see your tears.

With such beliefs (literally) beaten into us from an early age, it is easy to be shocked by the candour of the former footballer Dean Windass. In a heartbreaking interview on Sunday he described two suicide attempts in the past few days. “Everyone thinks that Dean Windass is a laugh and a joke and a kid blah blah blah, and got loads of money and his wife and kids are lovely,” he told the People. “But that’s all a mask. I was in pieces, I couldn’t stop drinking or crying. I’ve cried every day for the last two years.”

Coming just weeks after the dreadful loss of Wales manager Gary Speed, the interview has again focused attention on the mental health of sports stars. Professional athletes undoubtedly face unique problems, but it would be a mistake to think this is just football’s problem. One out of every 5,700 men will kill themselves in any given year. The rate is between three and four times higher for men than for women, and highest among men under 35. In recent years, suicide has become the single largest cause of death for young men, overtaking even road traffic accidents. In the UK, more people die from suicide every decade than have ever died from HIV/Aids.

We are looking at an epidemic, and worse, an epidemic that society seems content to accept. There is little apparent concern that men underuse primary healthcare, and are consequently less likely to be referred to mental health services. With most psychiatric professionals accepting a causal link between suicide rates and socio-economic conditions, worklessness, poverty and insecure employment, prospects of these statistics improving in the near future look bleak.

While politicians and health services could certainly do more, surely we have a wider responsibility as a society to examine how we implant and enforce the damagingly rigid, insular stoicism that underpins our understanding of what it means to be a man. Most of us recognise that women’s sexual continence has been traditionally policed by prevailing social attitudes, but it’s less often observed that men’s emotional continence is policed in a very similar way.

As I’ve written before, attempts by men to address their own gender-specific issues are often greeted with hostility and disdain. Last year, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, revealed that he sometimes shed a tear listening to a moving piece of music, and that he took personal attacks to heart. The response from some journalists, such as Christina Odone in the Telegraph, was vicious attacks on a “blubbing big boy”. Jane Powell of the brilliant charity Calm, who knows more about this issue than most, responded: “Telling men that they should at least pretend to be invincible, shouldn’t show feelings, should be strong and silent if they want to be a ‘real man’, is destructive, selfish and plain nasty.” Even the Guardian is not immune. Recently one professional attempted to bring a successful Australian scheme to the UK, which uses the imaginative hook of garden sheds to get men discussing and addressing their own mental health and wellbeing. The response was an article mocking the very idea that men might need help, and demanding to know why it wasn’t being offered to women instead.

There is no single, simple solution to the suicide epidemic. The first stage must be to acknowledge the problems, at both an individual and societal level. It takes immense courage and strength for men to speak about their own mental health, flouting our deepest conditioning. For that reason, we should not only wish Windass a full recovery from his current illness, but recognise that in speaking up and seeking help he did something more courageous, more important and, perhaps, more truly manly than anything in his distinguished career on the pitch.