The Boy Who Stared at the Wall
- Apr 25, 2025
- 6 min read
Written by Mark W. Guay, Men's Coach
Mark Guay is an Integral Certified Coach and IFS practitioner. He is the founder of Fathers Without Compromise, a group coaching program and community for business-owning dads to be great fathers and build a great business without compromising one or the other.
Sometimes the deepest truths surface in the most ordinary places. A cracked tile. A father’s hand. A child’s question. The Boy Who Stared at the Wall begins in a bathroom but ends in the heart, unearthing the quiet tragedies passed between generations of men. This is a story about what happens when curiosity is punished, when tenderness is mistaken for weakness, and when the wounds of boyhood are left to parent the next generation. But it's also about the possibility of something different. Something whole.
The moment
I was in a public bathroom, the kind you find in a stadium or an old train station. Cold tiles. Echoes.
I had my son with me. He’s young enough that I still help him at the urinal. I lifted him up, steadying his back with my hand, and he grinned as the stream arced. I laughed, remembering doing that as a kid too, one of those ordinary father-son moments that makes you forget everything else.
Then the door swung open.
Another man walked in with his two sons, one maybe six, the other bouncing around with three-year-old life. The man lifted the younger boy to the urinal the same way I had just done, a small rite passed from one father to another.
Then came the moment.
The man said, “Now I need to pee.” He told both boys to stand against the wall. The younger one obeyed. For a second.
But then the boy crept forward. Quiet. Curious. Probably watching my son still standing beside me while I peed. The boy edged closer, trying to do what the other boy was doing, wanting to be near his dad.
“I said go back,” the man barked.
The boy took another step forward. Then it came, quick and sharp. A thunderous slap across the boy’s backside. Loud. Clean. Final.
“I told you to go back.”
The boy held his bottom. His face flushed with confusion. He didn’t cry right away, but something in him did. You could feel it. Something went underground.
They left fast. The man didn’t look at me, not even at the sink. His eyes stayed down, and I wondered why he feared being seen.
My son and I were silent for a while. Then my son said, “Why is that man so mean?”
Later in the day, the image circled in my mind. Something in me wouldn’t settle.
Because I saw more than a spanking.
I saw a boy being sent away from a healthy part of himself.
This is how exile happens
A three-year-old boy is curious about his father’s body. Of course he is. It’s what we all once were. It’s healthy. We want to know how we’re made. We want to understand this strange thing between our legs and why it matters so much to everyone around us.
The father’s penis is not just a body part to the boy. It’s a mythic symbol, a glimpse into the mystery of growing up.
To be curious is to be alive. And to reach toward the father, the source of strength, wisdom, protection, is to say, “Teach me. Show me what it means to be like you.”
But when the hand lands, when the voice turns sharp, when the shame fills the air, that natural reaching turns into retreat.
Not just from the father. But from himself.
The boy learns quickly: curiosity is dangerous. Closeness brings pain. And some questions are not just unwelcome, they make you bad.
This is not discipline.
This is exile.
A part of the boy’s wholeness just got pushed out of the village.
The father’s fire
The father wasn’t angry at his son.
Not really.
He was angry at something deeper.
Something in himself that got touched the moment that boy stepped forward.
A part he buried long ago, likely in a bathroom not unlike this one, under the same cold tiles and fluorescent light. A part that was curious once too, and punished for it.
He did not mean to hurt his son.
He meant to protect him. But from what?
Not from danger. From shame.
His own.
He couldn’t hold the heat of it, so he passed it on.
This is how the lineage of shame works. It moves like a ghost through generations, silent, invisible, until it finds a voice, often disguised as aggression, or control, or the need to be obeyed without question.
This is not just parenting.
This is a man reacting to a memory that still lives inside his body.
And in that moment, he wasn’t the father.
He was the boy who had once been hit.
The cave behind the tiles
What I witnessed in that bathroom wasn’t just a scene between a father and son. It was a place where two generations met on the edge of a wound.
The boy stepped forward with natural curiosity, and the father, still bleeding from his own unhealed past, mistook the moment for defiance.
But it wasn’t defiance.
It was invitation.
An invitation to pause. To see. To remember. To choose differently.
But the father couldn’t take it. Not yet. So he did what was done to him.
And a little boy, bright-eyed and curious, was sent to the wall.
Where the healing begins
If I were working with this man, I wouldn’t start by judging what he did. Because the truth is, I get it.I’d ask him what rose up in him.
What made his chest tighten? What memory came alive when that boy took a step forward? Was it fear? Was it shame? Was it the terror of being seen?
What would happen, I’d ask, if that boy had looked at you and you had just let it be? What’s the story you’re afraid would unfold? That he would think you’re weak? That someone else would see? That you’d be exposed? That he would look at other men’s penises?
Beneath all that, I’d want to find the boy he used to be. The one who once asked the same question. The one who was told no in a way that made him feel like he was bad for asking.
That boy is still waiting.
And until he is met with courageous love, the cycle will keep spinning.
A different ending
In another world, the same father kneels down after the bathroom and says, “Hey, buddy. I know you were curious. And that’s okay. It’s normal to wonder about bodies. But it’s also important to give people privacy. Next time, just ask, okay?”
And the boy, with wide eyes, nods.
No shame. Just a boundary, held with love.
And a boy who gets to keep his curiosity intact.
That version of the story isn’t a fantasy.
It’s a choice.
A choice we make every time we feel the fire rise in us, and we decide to breathe instead of burn.
Why I created awaken the father king
Moments like this are why I created Awaken the Father King, an online course for men who are ready to end the patterns they swore they’d never pass on.
It’s not self-help. It’s soul work.
A path back to the parts of you that were exiled long ago, the boy who was curious, the man who wants to lead with love instead of fear.
It’s a modern-day rite of passage.
Inside, we do the work of remembering who we are beneath the shame. We claim the throne not to dominate, but to serve, to lead our families with clarity, courage, and the kind of authority that’s earned from within.
Because what we don’t heal, we hand down.
And what we face with truth, we transmute into love.
You can learn more about Awaken the Father King here.
The boy is still watching
That little boy, the one in the bathroom, standing against the wall with pain in his eyes, I haven’t forgotten him.
I see him when I look at my own son. I see him when I look in the mirror and remember the boy I once was.
He’s still watching.
Waiting to be told that he’s okay. That his questions are sacred. That his body is his. That curiosity isn’t a sin, it’s the beginning of wisdom.
The truth is, we don’t need more perfect fathers (or perfect mothers).
We need men (and women) who are willing to remember what was exiled in them and bring it back home.
One moment at a time.
Even in the most ordinary places.
Even in a bathroom, tiled in shame.
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Read more from Mark W. Guay
Mark W. Guay, Men's Coach
Mark Guay is an Integral Certified Coach and IFS practitioner. He is the founder of Fathers Without Compromise, a group coaching program and community for business-owning dads to be great fathers and build a great business without compromising one or the other. As an adoptee and survivor of childhood domestic violence, he leads with this approach: To really change our lives, we must heal the past and embrace the unknown. To do this, we need self-accountability, the courage to take decisive action, a community of support, and trust that doors will appear, leading us on our path.
