Let Him Hold the Baby: What Happens When Men Can’t Be Soft
Reimagining care, harm, and accountability beyond gendered myths
Not all men are monsters. Not all women are saints. And nurturing is not gendered. We need to get the fuck over ourselves.
I read a local news article the other day that made my stomach turn—not just because of the crime itself, but because of the comments underneath. A male daycare worker was sentenced for molestation and possession of child sexual abuse imagery. The horror of that is real. But then came the flood:
“Men shouldn’t be allowed to work in childcare.”
“He should be fed through a woodchipper.”
“This is why only women should care for children.”
“Muslims shouldn’t be near kids.”
“He looks like the type.”
The type.
What does that even mean? A Black man? A Muslim man? A man at all?
I’ve seen this pattern across the country—not just in comment sections but in the way people look sideways at male nurses, preschool teachers, or stay-at-home dads. We have allowed fear and prejudice to masquerade as protection. And if we’re going to get honest about abuse, we must start here: not all men are monsters. Not all women are saints. And nurturing is not gendered. We need to get the fuck over ourselves.
The Myth of the Dangerous Man and the Safe Woman
Yes, many abusers are male. We know the numbers. We’ve seen the headlines. And every year it feels like the stories multiply, the arrests increase, and the crimes get darker. So yeah—on the surface, it makes emotional sense why people react so strongly to men in caregiving roles. The harm is real. The fear is real.
But what’s also real—and what too many people ignore—is the lie that harm has a gender.
We’ve allowed ourselves to fall into these concrete molds of who is “likely” to abuse and who is “safe,” like we’re still living in a time where men rule by force and women are delicate angels with no agency. And while we’ve chipped away at those molds in other parts of society, when it comes to children, we still cling to them like it’s 1920.
Men are cast as predators, women as protectors.
Men are assumed to have power, women assumed to be powerless—or victims acting under someone else’s influence.
And sure, sometimes that is the case. Women can be manipulated, coerced, abused into complicity. But sometimes, they’re not. Sometimes, women offend all on their own. And just like men, they don’t always look like the “type.”
But we excuse it—or worse, we frame it. We soften it. We say she must’ve been traumatized, or unstable, or acting under pressure. We reframe her abuse as a tragedy, not a crime.
The myth of the “safe woman” is just as harmful as the myth of the “dangerous man”—because it creates blind spots. It keeps us from seeing patterns. It trains us to watch the wrong people while giving others a pass based on gender.
And this isn’t about demonizing women. This is about being honest—about what harm looks like, and who can cause it.
Because if our goal is to protect children—not just to uphold the image of what we think a caregiver should be—then we need to throw out the myths and start seeing clearly.
What About the Women?
We already know that women are statistically underrepresented in major crimes—and especially in cases involving sexual violence. But let’s ask the better question: Is it because they don't do harm, or because we don't see it?
This isn’t just about the headlines, or even high-profile cases like Ghislaine Maxwell. That’s rarefied air—where money, influence, and silence all protect the abuser. I’m talking about ordinary women—women in everyday communities, schools, churches, and families—who have committed abuse, and yet somehow, there’s still a cultural refusal to believe it.
I watched a documentary recently about women who had been convicted as child sex offenders, and one of the most disturbing things wasn’t the crimes themselves—it was how ill-equipped the system was to name them.
The language wasn’t there.
The sentencing guidelines weren’t there.
The mental framework for female predation wasn’t there.
Because for so long, the assumption has been that there was no need. That women don’t commit these crimes—not in that way. Not like men.
And so when they do, people don’t know how to react. The harm gets reframed:
She must’ve been coerced by her boyfriend.
She was probably abused herself.
She’s mentally unstable, not predatory.
The victim must’ve misunderstood what happened.
And I’m not saying women can’t be victims of coercion or trauma. They absolutely can. But so can men. That doesn’t excuse the harm, and it shouldn’t erase the truth.
Because here’s what happens when we refuse to name female abusers:
Survivors don’t come forward.
Victims are doubted—or worse, blamed.
Systems don’t evolve.
And children stay unprotected.
We can’t talk about harm and only center men as the villains. We can’t talk about safety and only imagine women as the solution. That binary leaves too many people in danger.
It’s not about leveling the blame across genders. It’s about leveling the awareness—so that protection and accountability actually mean something.
Being Nurturing Doesn’t Make You Less of a Man—But Denying It Might Make You Disappear
We don’t talk enough about what happens to men when they’re denied softness.
We don’t talk about the imbalance that’s created when a boy is told not to cry, not to comfort, not to seek comfort, not to feel.
We don’t talk about what happens when gentleness is mocked out of them.
When the only forms of power they’re taught are loud, hard, controlling, and violent.
We don’t talk about how stripping men of their right to be tender isn’t just sad—it’s dangerous.
Because when we tell men that nurturing isn’t for them, that care is emasculating, that softness is weakness—we leave a void. A pressure. A disconnect between their spirit and their behavior. And eventually, that disconnect doesn’t just become pain—it becomes action.
Sometimes, that pain turns inward: depression, shame, addiction, isolation.
Sometimes it turns outward: aggression, abuse, control, unchecked rage.
But sometimes—it just sits. Unspoken.
It hides behind a hardened exterior. A tight jaw. A stoic face that never cracks.
Because not every man explodes—some disappear.
They become ghosts in their own lives. Fathers who can’t say “I love you,” brothers who pull away when things get emotional, partners who shut down when care is needed most.
They wear the mask well—stoicism as survival.
But behind it? There’s often an unnurtured, untested part of them that wants to care. That wants to soften. That doesn’t know how—or if it’s even safe.
And still, when a man does show up soft—when he chooses caregiving, emotional labor, or healing work—he’s viewed with suspicion. He must have an ulterior motive. He must be a creep. Because we still don’t believe men can care without conquest.
But I know better.
I’ve seen men who are gentle and strong. Who raise children, tend gardens, wipe tears, and still hold their own in a world that questions their worth because they’re not loud or mean or controlling.
Let me be clear: being nurturing doesn’t make you less of a man. If anything, it makes you more whole.
This isn’t about replacing dominance with submission—it’s about balance.
It’s about building a world where men don’t have to choose between being safe and being seen.
If we ever want to shift the culture of violence—or silence—we have to start where it begins: with the stories we tell our children about who they’re allowed to be.
Section 4: If We Truly Care About Protecting Children, Let’s Start With Truth and Boundaries
Here’s what I know: when we’re allowed to explore and express who we truly are, we become more whole.
More generous.
More balanced.
More capable of care—whether that shows up as tenderness or as strength.
Authenticity is key.
Not the filtered kind we post online. Not the masked-up version we perform in workplaces or family dinners. But real authenticity—the kind that allows us to be soft without shame, assertive without apology, quiet without suspicion, fierce without dismissal.
If someone is truly a nurturer at heart, let them nurture.
If someone is assertive and energetic, let them lead.
If someone carries the gift of caregiving, regardless of gender—let them use it.
But here’s the truth that keeps the whole thing from unraveling: authenticity is not the same as license.
Being real doesn’t mean being reckless.
Being free doesn’t mean being unaccountable.
Yes, some people will say, “But what if someone’s authentic self is harmful? What if their wiring includes violence, or predatory urges, or a deep-seated desire to harm others?”
And that’s where we return to the baseline.
The ancient, communal, unspoken contract that allows any society to function:
Do not harm others.
Do not steal what does not belong to you—be it a person, a body, a boundary, or a life.
That’s the deal. That’s the line.
Freedom and authenticity cannot thrive without shared responsibility.
So if your “truth” causes pain, violates trust, or robs someone of their autonomy? That’s not authenticity. That’s abuse. And it will be held accountable—not because we hate you, but because we value us.
If we really want to protect children, we won’t do it by banning men or blindly trusting women.
We’ll do it by teaching boundaries and consent.
By holding everyone accountable—regardless of their gender, background, or status.
And by allowing people to fully develop who they are, so that their gifts don’t rot under the pressure of shame, suspicion, or suppression.
Authenticity, yes.
But grounded in care.
Anchored by values.
And shaped by love that knows how to say, “This is who I am,” without needing to harm anyone else to prove it.
Authenticity Over Authoritarianism
At the end of the day, it comes down to this: authenticity over authoritarianism.
Not because anything goes—but because we are more human, more whole, and more honest when we’re allowed to show up as who we truly are.
That doesn’t mean chaos. That doesn’t mean harm. That doesn’t mean “do whatever you feel like.”
Because living in community—raising children, building trust, sharing space—requires rules. Real ones. Not patriarchal control or performative policies, but shared, soul-deep agreements:
Don’t harm anyone.
Don’t take what isn’t yours.
Respect the bodies, boundaries, and spirits of others as if they were your own.
That’s the baseline.
And if you’re in a position of care—whether as a parent, a teacher, a partner, a friend—you carry a sacred responsibility: to honor the people in your charge the same way you wish you had been honored.
Even with your own trauma.
Even with your flaws.
Even if no one gave you that same respect growing up.
We don’t get to rewrite the past—but we do get to break the cycle.
Men deserve to be seen as more than threats.
Women deserve to be held accountable when they harm.
Children deserve to be protected by truth, not by tired myths about who’s safe and who’s not.
And all of us deserve a world where care isn’t gendered, where softness isn’t punished, and where being real doesn’t require a mask or a warning.
That’s the world I want to live in.
And that’s the world I’m fighting for. 💎
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