Willow Glen Resident

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Photograph by Zach Beecher

United: Nation of Men, a group that meets to discuss fatherhood and ways to become better men, gathers at Bramhall Park in Willow Glen for its monthly meetings. There are 70 members, some come from come from as far away as Hillsborough.

Nation of Men offers a world of support

By Alicia Upano

Charlie Bedard was 42 years old when he was about to become a father for the first time. Bedard faced the idea of fatherhood with joy, and then fear.

"Geez, we're pregnant and I'm so excited," says Bedard, thinking back to the birth of his son in 1993. "Uh, what do I know about being a dad?"

He began by reading the book, The Measure of a Man: Becoming the Man You Wish Your Father Had Been by Santa Clara University professor Jerrold Lee Shapiro. The book was a gift from his wife. Then a month after his son, Adrian, was born, he joined Nation of Men.

The organization allowed him to share his fears and grow in fatherhood with other men. The group is "a place for men to be their best."

Nation of Men, a non-religious nonpartisan group, was in its fledgling years back then. Today, the group is composed of teams with six to 10 men, who meet weekly. The entire membership of nearly 70, including men from Hillsborough to Campbell, meet monthly in Willow Glen's Bramhall Park.

While parenthood was a learn-on-the-job experience, Bedard credits his men's group with helping him listen to his heart when raising Adrian and his younger son, Andrew. On one level, the organization has fulfilled a need to be connected with other men. Society, he says, has led men to believe they need to be alone. He refers to the influence as the "John Wayne/Rambo crap."

"Biologically, men want to be connected. Yes, we want to be connected with women, but we want to be connected with other men and kids," says Bedard, who lives in Saratoga.

Bedard and his men's group talk about their joys and fears about fatherhood, their marriages and careers. The men run the gamut from an ex-con to CEO.

"When we get into the circle, we're all basically the same," he says. "We all want to be heard; we all want to be cared about."

When Bedard hosted weekly meetings in his home, Adrian and Andrew would sit in. While men discussed the possibility of losing their jobs or how to deal with their teenage sons, Bedard's young sons shared their feelings, too. At the monthly general meetings, the boys grew up around many "uncles," he said.

"I'm a better dad, because I'm a better man, and guess what that means? My kids are going to learn by watching me. If I'm a better husband, my kids are going to learn what it means to be a husband," Bedard says.

Several Nation of Men members consider their teammates as extended family. The men were there for Bedard when his immediate family faced crushing tragedy.

Andrew was born with a brain aneurysm. A month short of his ninth birthday, while playing with his brother, he had a headache and collapsed. Andrew underwent surgery, but his brain swelled and it led to his death.

That evening, the Nation of Men team arranged a candlelight vigil for the family in the hospital. The following day, teammates who had moved to Idaho and San Diego flew in to comfort Bedard and his family.

"I was lost," Bedard says. "I just couldn't imagine that Andrew didn't get a shot at life, and I would've rather have been dead."

Men from Nation of Men, and his other men's group The ManKind Project, cleaned his home for visitors. Nation of Men members arranged for a member to be at Bedard's house 24 hours a day, in case he woke despondent and needed a shoulder to cry on.

The men set up meetings in his driveway every night for the two months following his son's death.

"Those guys carried me," he says.

Male bonding

Bedard's experience is not an anomaly in Nation of Men. When Campbell resident Russ Towne's daughter was ill two years ago, the men's group came to the hospital to support the family. When San Jose resident Udy Gold sought partial custody of his two children, 10 men arrived in the courtroom to show their support.

Some men find the group through their therapists, through other men, the Internet, or are prompted by the women in their lives to seek male support.

For Towne, these men's groups provide a camaraderie that men of older generations found through paternal organizations such as Lions clubs, or even the military.

"We find a lot of men who say, 'Whoa, this is what I was looking for and I didn't know I was looking for it,' " Towne says.

Towne came to Nation of Men after he witnessed the benefits a woman's organization was having in his wife's life.

"Overnight her life changed in positive ways," says Towne says about his wife, Heidi. "She's formed very positive, very strong relationships with women."

Towne wanted that same connection with other men. Like other men, he had few male friends.

"Certain things are best left to other men. It's not for me to say as a woman, 'You need this,' because I don't know what he needs," Heidi Towne says.

She noticed a difference in her husband through his Nation of Men participation.

"I think he's more present. Instead of being the old traditional '50s dad, he's really involved. His relationship with the boys and him is really good. It's amazing to see," she says.

Unlike Bedard, Towne's children are older. He gas two sons in their 20s.

"As I clear up stuff elsewhere in my life, it helps me come home with fewer toxins. As I deal with men in better ways, I deal with my sons in the same way," Towne says.

Common topics in Nation of Men groups are also good lessons for children, he says, including keeping commitments, lack of self-deceit, and being as good as your word.

Towne settled on Nation of Men over other men's groups because he liked that there were no "have-tos," he says. Men can get as actively involved as they like, including participation in community service projects. Some men disappear for months at a time and then return. Towne led the group as its chief three years ago.

For Gold, Nation of Men helped him develop his own fatherhood style. Gold's father died when he was 7 years old, and he did not have a father figure for a role model, Gold says.

Today, he shares custody of his two teenage children with his ex-wife. He wants to provide a safe place for his children to learn self-sufficiency and a way to develop a strong a parent-child relationship built on trust

Nation of Men also gave Gold an outlet beyond work following his divorce, a place where he was free from societal expectations.

"When you have a group of men who do not judge you by your income, your external appearance, social status, and support you whoever you are, that's a gift," Gold says.

After three years of being a Nation of Men member, Palo Alto resident David Templeton says there's another reward: giving back.

"I think the big thing in the last year and a half for me is really making that transition from being a man in a crisis all the time to having the opportunity to give back to other men in crisis," he says. Yet he adds, "NoM's not necessarily about men fixing problems, it's about becoming a better man, however that man chooses to do it."

Bedard has seen the benefits at work for over a decade.

"I frankly don't know how the rest of the world exists without this stuff," he says.

To learn more about Nation of Men, visit www.nom.org. Men interested in joining Nation of Men are invited to the team rotation program, in which men rotate teams every four weeks until they find a match. The organization hosts general meetings the first Saturday of the month at Bramhall Park on Willow Street near Meridian Avenue.