Some would say that my son, Andrew, is getting mixed messages. As his father, I am the home’s secondary wage earner. I cook and clean and change diapers. His toys include a lawnmower, a play kitchen, a workbench and a baby stroller.

His upbringing so far has been an exercise in parity—there are no “boy jobs” or “girl jobs,” just jobs. Still, as someone who doesn’t fit many of the “manly” stereotypes, I’d begun to wonder how I would convey the meaning of “manhood” to Andrew.

I then recalled the wedding more than 10 years ago of my friend Dave, who passed out engraved Zippo lighters as groomsmen gifts—even to the ones who didn’t smoke. When I asked him what logic was behind the gifts, he said this: “Every good action hero needs a Zippo lighter.”

He was referring, of course, to Bruce Willis as John McClane in the 1990 film Die Hard 2, in which the hero brings down a plane load of terrorists by lighting a trail of jet fuel with his Zippo.

So, we were action heroes, were we? The truth is, compared to Dave, we didn’t really think we were. We called him Danger Dave, and it wasn’t an ironic nickname. He was in the Army. He tended to gunshot victims from a Washington, D.C. ambulance. He studied martial arts and taught autistic children. Since then, he’s completed multiple tours of duty as a Special Forces medic in Iraq and still trains those being sent overseas. He was and is an action hero in the truest sense of the word.

Most of us, though, are denied such exploits. Our battles aren’t with fl ames or injuries or insurgents—they are with bills, bosses and lousy traffic. There is no clear victory, no “Mission Accomplished,” only the daily march forward in quiet battles that never truly end.

Manhood these days is a dicey subject, and it’s one a lot of people feel uncomfortable talking about. It’s as if breathing the word brings to mind so many disparate images, emotions and reactions that it might be easier to just not bother.

Rituals and traditions that help young men make the transition to adulthood are few anymore, and as a result the responsibilities and obligations of being a man are less clear.

But asked to convey to my son one abiding rule of manhood, I would say this: Be an action hero. Don’t let events and circumstances push you along with the tide. If you are unhappy with the direction of things, fi ght to change them.

The cinematic examples of traditional action heroes are easy to tick off: Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood, Sean Connery’s James Bond or Willis as McClane in the Die Hard movies.

But who is to say these action heroes are manlier than Tom Hanks’ Sam Baldwin in Sleepless in Seattle, mourning the loss of his beloved wife while bravely trying to make a new life for him and his kid? In Say Anything, how much male pride does John Cusack’s Lloyd Dobler have to tamp down to stand there with that boom box blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” to his first true love? Those men took action, too, in their own subtle ways. In the end they became better men, and, in their own small ways, action heroes.

Action heroes fight stereotypes. The TV commercials say we have an almost universal fondness for little more than sports, power tools and fried foods that involve dipping sauces. They say we bungle. We botch. Women are the givers of life and the cleaners of our knuckleheaded messes, they tell us. Nonsense. We are just as capable at changing a diaper as we are at changing the car’s oil. If James Bond can fly a jet and drive a tank, who’s to say we can’t drive a lawnmower and maneuver a vacuum?

We have even learned to listen. Oh, how we listen. Our shoulders are ripe for crying upon and supporting chaste hugs of consolation. We know now that women don’t need men to fix things, but instead just need an ear to bend.

But when our bended ears begin to look like origami, men eventually tire. There is a point where, as action heroes, we must say, “So, what are you going to do about it?” The deep impulses of our Neanderthal brains demand that we take action against the foe, whether it’s a rival tribe or wishy-washy indecision. Action heroes don’t sulk after snits with our lovers or wives, we embark on a mission. We ask what we can do to fix the problem, then we do it. But we also have the wisdom to suppress pride and recognize when something is irreparably broken. Then we know to move forward, keeping in mind the lessons we learned to use down the road.

It’s the difference between sitting in a canoe letting the current guide you and pulling out a paddle to make your own course. The hurdles of life are your Sheriff of Nottingham, your Ernst Stavro Blofeld, your Hans Gruber—all enemies to be defeated. But it doesn’t take a sword or a gun or a bulletproof Aston Martin. Instead, it takes strength, wit, determination and love: the invincible powers of a true action hero.