Real Boys

by William Pollack

  “Have you ever spent a day at work with your dad?”

  “It’s not allowed. But anyway, I don’t want to be an FBI agent. My grandfather was an agent and now my dad is too.”

  “So, is there pressure on you to become an agent? That must make you scared too.”

  “Well, I look up to my father a lot and in some ways he probably wishes I’d become an agent. But my mom tells me that I can do whatever I want. When we talk about my future, she always says ‘you don’t have to be just like your father and take risks and put your life on the line to be a man. You can be just as much a man by being yourself and doing whatever seems the easiest and the most fun for you—that is what you should do.’ ”

  “That sounds pretty fair.”

  “Yup. My mom’s pretty cool. She always knows what to say to make me feel good about myself. I don’t think I’d be much without her.”

  “So, do you have an idea of what you’d like to do in the future?”

  “I’m thinking about law school—maybe I’ll become a criminal lawyer. I like the whole law enforcement world as long as I don’t have to go through what my dad does. But I’m not really thinking so much about careers these days.”

  “That makes sense,” I told Clint.

  “Yeah,” he explained, “I’m more worried about finding the right girl. If I could find someone just like my mom, I’d be golden.”

  Clint’s story is important, I believe, because it shows how his mother could not only talk openly with her son and help him deal with his most vulnerable emotions but also be instrumental in helping him to feel confident, to feel he’s a good, competent, “normal” boy. Moreover, by encouraging him to choose whatever kind of career he’d like (despite the family history of FBI work) she also gives Clint the message that he can become a man according to his own definition.

  WHAT’S A MOTHER TO DO?THE BOY OF THE FUTURE

  Fortunately, many of today’s mothers are no mindless enforcers of gender stereotypes. After all, this generation of mothers was raised in the bracing atmosphere of feminism. Many have embraced the ideal of equality between the sexes, struggled to rediscover their own voices and to find qualities of toughness, assertiveness, and competitiveness within themselves. Today’s mothers have successfully battled for the right to work, think, and compete as men do. They have battled for the right of their daughters to be outspoken and strong, to succeed in math class, even to play football if they want to. And at home, these women have struggled with their male companions to rework their most intimate relationships on a more equal basis. Today’s mothers demand from their partners more than help with the diapering and vacuuming—they want empathy and sensitivity.

  Yet I find that these women, who are so confident about so many gender issues, are frequently still unsure of themselves when it comes to raising their own sons.

  Time after time women have voiced to me their doubts and confusion. Yes, they say, we want to raise boys who are sensitive to others, who can play with girls, who are aware of their vulnerable emotions and not afraid to express them. But, they add, we also don’t want to raise a boy who will be branded as a wimp, who will have to endure teasing and beatings from other boys, who will have no friends and no dates in high school. How can we raise a son to be the kind of sensitive man we’d want to have a relationship with and still have him survive the relentless peer pressure of grade school and the adolescent years? How far ahead of the gender curve can we be? they wonder.

  Mothers who try to ignore gender stereotypes often find they have a rocky road. Society is quick to let them know that the old Boy Code is still in effect, that mothers too must abide by the rules. Whether it’s a little boy who runs home crying when his peers tease him about his long, curly hair, the adolescent who complains that Mom’s alternative dispute-resolution techniques just aren’t working at school, or the husband or other family member who implores her to stop trying to make the boy so “sweet,” a mother receives constant outside reminders that she must comply with society’s rules about boys and masculinity.

  ELLEN AND JACK

  Take, for example, Ellen, who discovered that her husband, Jack, was concerned about her relationship with their son. When I first got to know them, they were struggling over “how to set limits” for Christopher, their fourteen-year-old son—each of them was advocating a different way of disciplining the boy when he was acting out.

  But as Ellen and Jack talked things through with each other, they realized that underneath the problem of discipline was a more volatile, more emotionally charged difference of opinion. Ellen and Jack disagreed over the Boy Code’s rules about tenderness between mother and son and what this might mean for Christopher’s development:

  “You let Christopher get away with murder,” Jack said to Ellen, “especially with all that hugging in public. He’s all over you like a monkey in heat—it’s so inappropriate.”

  Ellen responded with passion: “It’s one of the most wonderful things about our son. In this world of guns and TV violence, Christopher can still show his love openly by hugging me and his friends. We should reward that, encourage this gentle, loving side.”

  I attempted to empathize with both: to support Ellen in her courageous stance and to help her husband understand its benefits. Jack grudgingly agreed that he would want his son to be well loved by Ellen. Yet Jack was unable to let go of his fears for the boy’s masculinity and his nagging sense that there was something “inappropriate” about their physical show of affection.

  GRACE AND DINO

  Mothers tell me they feel pressured to cut off their close relationships with their sons from many sources, both intimate and institutional: peers, teachers, coaches, in-laws, grandparents, and fathers. But years of psychological research confirm what we all know—that the more love small children receive from their mothers, the more confidence they gain in themselves as individuals. A mother’s love can help a boy become more self-reliant and more adventurous.

  Study after study has shown that small children who have a close relationship with their primary caregiver—so-called securely attached children—are psychologically healthier and stronger. The more nurturing children receive, the braver they can be. Secure attachments to mother, concluded Megan Gunnar at the University of Minnesota, work as a buffer against new, frightening situations. And Gunnar’s colleague Alan Stroufe found that those who in their infancy were securely attached to their mothers may enjoy greater self-reliance, have lower rates of psychopathology, do better at school, and have higher self-esteem throughout their lives.

  Yet in the face of society’s relentless pressure to make them disconnect from their sons, even the most nurturing of mothers feel the need to limit their love.

  Grace, a mother of two sons, spoke to me of the guilt and confusion she felt: “My first boy and I were as close as any two humans could be. It was a difficult pregnancy and a tough few months after birth. But we felt really bonded. Then, when Alexander turned four, I’d notice that sometimes he’d get an erection when he was in the bathroom with me. I got worried. Was I doing something wrong, something hurtful?”

  “How did you handle that—the worry you had?” I asked Grace.

  “I turned to my husband, Dino. But he wasn’t much help. Both he and his parents seemed like they were out to get me.”

  “What do you mean exactly?”

  “Well, Dino just told me: ‘Of course—what do you expect? You baby him too much. He still has that baby doll you bought him years ago. If we don’t do something right away, he’ll turn into a sissy. You’ve got to give him more space. I’ll sign him up for karate classes and when he asks you to hold him on your lap or in bed at night, try to discourage it—at least a little.’ And his parents told me I should stop ‘babying’ Alexander.”

  “And how did that feel for you?”

  “Well, I followed all the advice, and Alex did seem a little more independent. He said good-bye at preschool with less fuss, stopped asking to have me wash h
is hair in the tub, and forgot all about that doll set when his dad bought him a Batman costume. But somehow in his eyes and in my own heart I could perceive a subtle sadness, like a little flickering light had gone out. He’s in college now, a fine, healthy young man; but our relationship is limited and we seem to talk less and less about the things that matter in life.”

  THE MOTHER’S CATCH-22

  The net result of society’s conventions is that a mother like Grace or Ellen who’s trying to raise a healthy son finds herself in a difficult Catch-22 situation. She is held responsible for a boy’s emotional growth and development, and yet she’s also expected by society to push him away so he can learn how to survive in a culture that may shame him for showing the very feelings she’s teaching him to express. She’s supposed to hold back the amount of physical affection she shows him and limit the emotional intensity of her interactions with him, especially as he grows older—yet she’s also expected to consistently nourish her son’s self-esteem so that he’ll know how to cope with the Boy Code.

  It’s a painful bind for mothers. Again and again, mothers like Ellen and Grace ask me: “How can I give my boy the love and attention he craves and still prepare him for the tough male culture?”

  ARE MOTHERS CONFUSED, OR IS IT ALL OF US?

  Many mothers I know would love to fight for the right to stay connected to their sons, but part of the reason they hold back is that they become overwhelmed by society’s myths about boys—especially the myths we’ve spoken of, that “boys will be boys” and that “boys should be boys.”

  Some moms throw up their hands, mutter something about testosterone, and turn to their husbands and other “experts” about how to raise their sons. The advice they get is usually similar to what Grace and Ellen heard from others—things like “Don’t be so close and mushy with him,” “Stop babying him,” and “Let him be more independent.” Mothers may find it easier to engage in battle for the sake of their daughters. We know what little girls need, they say firmly. But boys, well, boys are a different story. And so mothers learn to distrust their best instincts, curb the natural flow of love and empathy they feel for their young boys, and participate in the push to prematurely separate from their sons.

  Michael Gurian, a leader in the new men’s movement, believes that mothers are simply confused by boys. “We don’t educate moms very well in how to raise kids, especially how to raise boys. Moms weren’t brought up in male cultures and don’t have male bodies, so that’s harder for them. We don’t educate them about how active their little boys are, how testosterone affects them. The boys will act up in ways that don’t make sense to them.”

  I disagree. The problem for boys is not that mothers are confused by them. Mothers, today and throughout history, are simply part of a culture. And it is our entire culture that is confused about masculinity and therefore about how to raise boys. Mothers have been confused by mixed messages about boys and masculinity in the same way that teachers, coaches, clergy, grandparents, children, and men themselves are confused. So if mothers are to be helped—mothers who are usually given primary responsibility for raising our sons in their earliest years and who must first struggle with these mixed messages about boys and masculinity—it is society as a whole that must clarify the best way to support our boys as they grow toward manhood.

  A NEW KIND OF MOTHER, A NEW KIND OF BOY

  If we really think carefully about it, many of the qualities today’s mothers are trying to develop in their boys—far from being “feminine” qualities or qualities that women will tend to reject in the men they choose to love—are actually the very qualities most of today’s women seem to be urging their male partners to develop. I firmly believe that as a society the time has come to encourage women to trust their instincts when it comes to mothering a boy. For as society begins to put a premium on “emotionally intelligent,” verbally capable, empathic, loving men, there could probably be no better way to cultivate such “new men” than by starting to cultivate such “new boys.” So if we’re beginning to officially revise the Boy Code so that it’s considered a plus for boys and men to have these special qualities, let us also revise this code so that it’s considered a real plus for boys to remain close to the people who are often best positioned to teach them these qualities—their mothers.

  But how can this be done? How, you may wonder, can we simply revise the Boy Code? What happens when I teach my son to be sensitive and empathic and he comes home with a broken nose?

  While it certainly is not easy, many mothers are indeed finding ways to fight back, buck the code, and foster sons who are both close to them as mothers and successful within their contemporary peer culture.

  SARAH AND EVAN

  Sarah, the forty-something mother of two, had let the Boy Code talk her into constraining her feelings for Max, her first son. A lot of her friends (including her first husband) had chided her for being too “clingy” with Max, and so she had decided to back away from the boy, to be less “soft” with him. Max had grown distant from her, gotten involved in drugs, and ended up going to college thousands of miles away from home. Disappointed in herself for letting society’s old-fashioned rules tell her how to raise her son, she decided that when she gave birth to another boy in her second marriage she would listen to her own intuitions about being a mother:

  “This time I did things differently. Evan was a lot like Max was—rambunctious, independent, high-energy. But for all his rough play, he’s always loved to run back to my lap, have me stroke his hair and tell him stories about my childhood. With Max, I wasn’t allowed to indulge in this. My first husband would never have allowed it. But my second husband, Jim, encourages me, and now Evan is twelve, and he and I are superclose.”

  “It sounds like you’re doing a great job this second time around,” I told Sarah as she proudly smiled back at me.

  “Well—it hasn’t always been easy, but we’re doing it. I’ll never forget this one time when his third-grade teacher wrote me a note expressing concern that Evan seemed to enjoy playing the ‘girls’ games’ at recess and wanted to try out for the starring role in the class play, even though it was the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz. I thought to myself—Oh, God, here we go.”

  “That sounds pretty tough. What did you do about it?”

  “Oh, I dealt with that teacher and the other parents, all right. Evan and I have always had too much of a meaningful relationship to sacrifice to their rigidity. All I had to do was think about how difficult things had become with Max, and I found the courage to go in there and tell them that Evan could play the Wizard, the Scarecrow, or Dorothy as far as I was concerned!”

  “It sounds as though you handled the situation pretty well.”

  “Well, in private, I remember explaining to Evan that sometimes society is hard on boys—that girls these days are usually allowed to be more experimental and expressive. You know, if some girl wanted to play the Wizard, can you imagine anybody complaining? If anybody did, they’d probably be labeled a ‘sexist.’ So why couldn’t Evan play a female role if that’s the one he found most interesting? I told him he might get teased if he played the Witch, but that it was fine with me.”

  “So what did he decide?”

  “Well, actually, he decided to be the Lion instead. After we discussed the way other people might have tried to make him feel, he thought it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. I was pleased with myself, because instead of just snapping at him and telling him he’d have to play a different part, we talked really openly about the situation and he decided to handle it how he thought best.”

  “Not bad for a boy who was only in the third grade at the time,” I told Sarah.

  “You bet,” she said. “In fact now that he’s a teenager, he’s just this really great kid. He seems like he’s much more popular with his peers than Max was, he’s close to a number of girls, and his teachers report he’s one of the best behaved and most caring boys in the whole class.”

  Of course, Sara
h and other mothers who are bucking gender stereotypes worry that such a wonderfully empathic boy will barely survive within the peer culture, where conformity and macho ideals may still squeeze out boys whose emotionally expressive and caring capacities are still intact. Yet though this is a very real challenge for mothers, Sarah shows us that it’s not an impossible one. As Sarah and I discussed, by not shaming Evan for his dependency needs and meeting his desire for a close mother-son relationship, and by standing up for him when his teacher tried to hit him with the Boy Code, Sarah gave her son wonderful gifts that will last his lifetime: strong social skills, empathy for others, and the kind of positive, self-confident personality that attracts friends. And because he remained connected with his mother and was comfortable discussing things with her, Evan will probably have richer, more satisfying relationships with women than most men do. Since he has not been straitjacketed by the rigid code of masculinity, Evan will be more flexible in his behavior.

  But it’s no mystery that gentle, so-called feminine attributes still do not have widespread approval, especially among adolescent boys, many of whom are hiding their own tremendous insecurity about their masculinity behind a mask of coolness, and are all too willing to taunt and abuse anyone who drops the pose of cool. But I believe that even for adolescent boys, women like Sarah can continue to play a very important role, helping them adjust to peer culture and the Boy Code in a healthy way.