Our personal nostalgias for the holidays are well curated things. Our stickiest memories from childhood rush to the front of the room. We listen to the same music, break out the same decorations and eat the same foods at the same times with the same people, if we can help it. We create a universe from the bottoms up full of details we’ve made synonymous with happiness and good will. And it makes us feel good.
It’s also why the holidays are so hard on many people. The details aren’t always festive. And the people aren’t always there any more. And so nostalgia can turn to sadness. But that’s not the heart of the holiday season. It’s joy and good will to our fellow humans. It’s happiness.
The holidays have changed for me as I’ve changed over the years. And there’s one American cultural holiday staple in particular that has evolved in my Christmas canon. I noticed it a few years ago; a bit of a whisper at first but now grown into a full throated carol. It’s that the holiday movie I loathed as a kid is now my favorite. And in that change I think there’s something interesting about how the world of men works.
The movie is It’s a Wonderful Life, of course. And if you’re a dude, even more so a dad in your 40s or so, this is likely to resonate a bit. I posted a picture of it on my TV on Instagram noting the evolutionary shift of dads in their 40s to loving after decades of indifference or even dislike. I was met with a long list of comments and posts by other dads saying the same thing. And so it struck me that I wasn’t alone.
The obvious reason is that we’re all George Bailey. Which is the point. We weren’t yet when we were kids. And if you grew up in the 70s and 80s like I did, we believed that movies that came before the grit and detail of the 60s and beyond were hokey. They were of naive people from a naive time. And nothing really drove that home like hokey Jimmy Stewart.
Of course that’s wrong. 1947 was not a naive time. And the people that lived in it weren’t naive or hokey. They lived through the first half of the 20th Century. Two world wars. The Great depression. The Holocaust. They saw the dawn of the nuclear age and the use of a nuclear weapon. They lived through one of the most dynamic transformational and dangerous times in human history. The human stories they told through them in film may have had a layer of sterilized packaging, but the Straussian messages that came through were no less powerful.
For men my age, there’s nothing more real to us than the memory of the towering hopes to change the world that young George Bailey had. And there’s nothing more real to us than the hard reality that interrupted them and forced him into a smaller world than he had one day hoped. And there’s nothing more real to us than the ugly five minutes on screen of George coming home to his family after he learns that he’s ruined professionally…and financially. His family is the center of his world; his purpose. And he’s failed them. He can’t face them. Nothing else matters. His house seems old and drafty. His children are a burden. His wife is amazing but oblivious to the specific weight that’s crushing him. He’d rather not exist at all then to have failed them. This is George at the bottom. And we feel every bit of it.
That world has updated quite a few times since 1947. The problems of George Bailey are no longer discreetly on the shoulders of men. Roles at work and at home have changed for a more equitable, just and efficient share. But what has not changed is the innate need for a man to feel responsible for something. To be beholden. To be tied down by the consequences of their actions being greater than the consequences to themselves. This endures across time, culture and geography. It’s in our source code. Without it we’re lost a little. We need to matter to someone.
The beauty of George Bailey’s resurrection is the acknowledgement of what it means to matter is not narrowly defined. If we are good and decent people we live a life that matters deeply to many. The good that we’ve done endures. And our failures can be overcome if for no other reason than we’ve got more life to live. And more good to do. It’s an affirmation that’s unconquerable. That the problem of the Building and Loan were solved is a coincidental Hollywood ending. George runs delirious through the streets without it because it’s all true after all. That the life of a good man is a wonderful one, categorically. Not easy, but wonderful. Failure’s be damned. And in that we 40 something dads fill the tank a bit for the year of responsibility to come.
There’s no shortage of diagnoses for the worst problems of men today. It’s easy for some to think that they could be solved by turning back the clock to when it was easier for us to matter. It’s easy to lose ourselves into the purpose of some imaginary online manosphere to fight back against the attacks on our sacred masculinity. The truth that George Bailey shows us is that mattering is as simple as being some use in supporting the people around us. And doing what you can, where you are with what you have to make the world a better place. Sometimes that’s hard. But that’s what being a man is about. It’s not about sounding tough online or voting a certain way. It’s about doing hard things that matter to other people who depend on you.
I hope they show that movie for another 80 years.
I am lucky to be married to just such a man. A man who is willing to do hard things for the people who depend on him. He is one of the smartest, hardest working, and kindest people I know, and your writing helps remind me to be grateful for him.
Blessings to you and your family this Christmas and in the coming year.
This post really hit home for me. I have definitely had my share of ups and downs since leaving active duty back in 2009 and it is tempting to define my success (or lack thereof) in purely financial terms. Christmas is definitely a time for remembering that our purpose in life has nothing to do with the balance in our bank account and your essay was a welcome breath of fresh air as I prepared to spend some quality time with my family over the holiday break. Thank you!