The Forgotten Man: Why I Chose to Write the Book Society Didn’t Want to Read

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3 hours ago

By Tobias Otieno Ogola

There comes a point where watching the world ignore a wound becomes more painful than the wound itself. For years, I watched boys move through life like shadows present but unacknowledged, carrying burdens no one wanted to name. Their laughter was loud enough to distract us, but their silence was where the truth lived. And because no one dared to confront it, I decided I would.

That’s how The Forgotten Man: How Society Failed the Boychild was born.

This book is not gentle. It does not whisper. It does not massage egos. It exposes the quiet crisis unfolding in our homes, schools, churches, and communities the slow erosion of the boychild. It demands we look directly at what we have been taught to overlook.

Why I Had to Write This Book

The modern world tells boys to “be strong,” then punishes them for showing the pressure that command creates. They’re denied emotional oxygen growing up, then criticized for lacking emotional intelligence as adults. It’s a contradiction so absurd it borders on cruelty.

You cannot command resilience without providing support.
You cannot demand leadership from people you’ve emotionally starved.
You cannot expect men to build strong families when they grew up unable to express basic fear, pain, or confusion.

My intention was clarity not comfort. Illumination not accusation.

Behind Every Strong Man Is a Boy Who Was Not Allowed to Break

Many boys are raised inside emotional droughts. Their tears are policed, their vulnerability mocked, their fears weaponized. I met men who were emotionally abandoned long before they learned how to spell their own names. They weren’t broken they were never allowed to bend.

A society that treats male pain as a joke ends up raising men who treat pain like a language they don’t speak.

This book cracks that silence open.

The Boychild Is Not Privileged He Is Unclaimed

There is a myth that boys have all the advantages. It is a convenient narrative simple, tidy, and wrong. The truth is that many boys grow up emotionally orphaned, mentored by expectations, punished for weakness, and rewarded for silence.

This book confronts that reality by exploring:

The impossible expectations placed on boys

The hostility toward modern masculinity

The identity confusion young men face

The mental health crisis destroying the current generation

The roadmap toward raising emotionally healthy, confident men

Why This Matters

A society that sidelines its boys is a society gambling with its future. You cannot build safe homes with emotionally abandoned men. You cannot build stable homes on the backs of men who never had space to heal.

Uplifting the boychild is not anti-woman.
It is pro-society.
It is pro-family.
It is pro-humanity.

I Wrote This for Anyone Who Has Ever Felt Invisible

The Forgotten Man carries the voices of men who have carried pain like a second spine. It is for the mothers raising boys without blueprints, for the fathers trying to break generational habits, and for the women who desire deeper understanding of the men they love.

This book is not perfect.
But it is honest.
And sometimes honesty is the most radical thing we can offer a broken world.

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