Real Boys

by William Pollack

  Such language carries tremendous power to make a boy feel shame and to reinforce his own conception that he is somehow toxic.

  Look behind anger, aggression, and rambunctiousness. In so many cases, a boy who seems angry, displays a lot of aggression, or is constantly rambunctious is indirectly asking for our help. If you notice a boy who’s acting in such ways, try to create a setting where he’ll feel comfortable talking with you and then ask him how things are with him. With a young boy, you might not be able to ask him a lot of direct questions—and he may not yet be able to talk about feelings in a clear way—but try your best to get a sense of what he’s feeling. For instance, if you notice that your son has seemed angry a lot lately, you might say, “Gosh, you’ve seemed upset a lot. Is everything OK? Have things been rough for you lately?” Or, if you’re a schoolteacher and you notice a boy who’s constantly roughing up and provoking other kids, rather than chastising the boy, ask him how things are at home. Ask him if he’s upset about something. Try to get a sense of whether there might be deeper, more vulnerable feelings that are motivating his anger or rowdy behavior. You might even tell him that sometimes when we act irritably or show aggression, we might be feeling sadness or other upset feelings.

  Express your love and empathy openly and generously. Despite all the messages you might receive about “letting go” of your son, of not staying too attached to him, of not “babying” him, you simply can never show him too much love or empathy. Cutting off your affection and support, to let him “stand on his own,” as we’ve discussed in this chapter, can actually traumatize him.

  Tell your boy that you love him as often as you like. Give him hugs. Tell him you’re proud of him and that you care about him. Stay involved in his emotional life. Seek opportunities to connect with him for moments of playful closeness and emotional sharing. If he asks you to let him alone, give him the space he needs, but let him know that you love him very much and that when he’s ready to spend time together, you’ll be up for it. You cannot “spoil” your son with too much love or attention. You will not make him “girl-like” or “feminine” by maintaining a close relationship. There’s simply no such thing as too much love!

  Let boys know that they don’t need to be “sturdy oaks.” So many boys, even at a very young age, feel that they need to act like a “sturdy oak.” When there are problems at home, when he suffers his own failures or disappointments, or when there’s a need for somebody who’s physically or emotionally “strong” for others to lean on and he feels he has to be that support, the boy is often pushed to “act like a man,” to be the one who is confident and unflinching. No boy should be called upon to be the tough one. No boy should be hardened in this way. So through thick and thin, let your boy know that he doesn’t have to act like a “sturdy oak.” Talk to him honestly about your own fears and vulnerabilities and encourage him to do the same. The more genuine he feels he can be with you, the more he’ll be free to express his vulnerability and the stronger he will become.

  Create a model of masculinity for him that is broad and inclusive. Despite all the narrow messages about “being a guy” that they may get at school, on television, or elsewhere, you can help boys to create their own model of masculinity. Try to help them develop a model that is broad and inclusive. Try to do for them what we have done for girls by valuing them as people before evaluating them as a distinct (and therefore restricted) gender. This means encouraging boys in all their interests, relationships, and activities. It means letting them know that “big guys do cry” It also means exposing boys to people who bend society’s strict gender rules—to men who are nurses, women who are plumbers, girls who are “jocks,” boys who cook, and so on. Boys especially benefit from getting to know adult male “role models” who exude masculinity in a genuine and expansive way. When you give your son a sense that there’s no one single way of being “manly,” you’re helping him develop confidence about who he really is. You’re letting him know that no matter what he enjoys doing, whom he likes spending time with, and what sorts of feelings he experiences, he’s a “real boy” on his way to being a “real man.”

  Create a model of masculinity for him that is broad and inclusive. Despite all the narrow messages about “being a guy” that they may get at school, on television, or elsewhere, you can help boys to create their own model of masculinity. Try to help them develop a model that is broad and inclusive. Try to do for them what we have done for girls by valuing them as people before evaluating them as a distinct (and therefore restricted) gender. This means encouraging boys in all their interests, relationships, and activities. It means letting them know that “big guys do cry” It also means exposing boys to people who bend society’s strict gender rules—to men who are nurses, women who are plumbers, girls who are “jocks,” boys who cook, and so on. Boys especially benefit from getting to know adult male “role models” who exude masculinity in a genuine and expansive way. When you give your son a sense that there’s no one single way of being “manly,” you’re helping him develop confidence about who he really is. You’re letting him know that no matter what he enjoys doing, whom he likes spending time with, and what sorts of feelings he experiences, he’s a “real boy” on his way to being a “real man.”

  — 3 —

  REAL BOYS:

  THE TRUTHS BEHIND THE MYTHS

  “Sometimes just because you‘re a guy, people treat you like you’re a little hoodlum. I think if they opened up their eyes, they’d see that most of us are actually pretty good people.”—Dirk, age seventeen

  Though the stereotypes about what boys are and how boys should behave continue to be perpetuated, in our hearts many of us know that these outdated ideas are simply untrue. And we now have research confirming what most of us have always known.

  There are three major myths about boys that persist in all kinds of situations and among all sorts of people, even among the most thoughtful and progressive families, schools, and communities. They are so deeply embedded in the culture, that without realizing it, they often short-circuit our ability to see and love the real boy before us—the true boy behind these old-fashioned ideas.

  MYTH #1: BOYS WILL BE BOYS: NATURE AND TESTOSTERONE

  WIN OUT OVER NURTURE

  One myth, which recent studies, including my own, show to be untrue, is that nature controls much about a boy’s behavior. More specifically, that where there are boys there is testosterone, and where there is testosterone there is aggression, and where there is aggression there is violence, or at least its potential. The phrase “Boys will be boys” is saying, in effect, that boys are prisoners of biology, that their behavior is predetermined, an inherent part of their nature. “Typical” boy behavior is assumed to involve insensitivity and risk-taking. The phrase is used when a little boy breaks a window with a baseball and runs away laughing. Or when a teenager skateboards into traffic, narrowly avoids a collision, and zooms away. Or when an older adolescent stays up until four in the morning playing Doom, and drags himself to school the next day.

  “Boys will be boys” is not said, however, when a little boy brings a present to his teacher or gives his crying mother a hug. Or when a teenage boy obviously feels racked with guilt for breaking up with his girlfriend—unless he covers it up with a convincing show of apathy. Or when an older boy spends time with a dying parent in the hospital—unless he takes the opportunity to watch football on the hospital-room television.

  The great danger in subscribing to the myth is that it tends to make people assume that they have less power to affect a boy’s personality, behavior, or emotional development than in fact they do.

  TRUTH #1: A BOY’S BEHAVIOR IS SHAPED MORE

  BY LOVED ONES THAN BY NATURE

  Underlying the “boys will be boys” myth, is a misconception about the role of testosterone. Testosterone does contribute to a boy’s natural patterns of behavior, but testosterone is not necessarily the major factor in determining a boy’s behavior.

  I
t’s true that many boys enjoy being active. For most little boys, running hard across the playground, kicking a soccer ball, or zooming down the slide is action enough. I might add that plenty of little girls take delight in these very same activities. We don’t apply the “boys will be boys” myth to that kind of “typical” boy behavior until it takes on a careless edge—when the running turns into a race, when the ball gets kicked at someone, or when the boy leans over the edge of the slide daring himself to fall off.

  The unfortunate effect of the myth is that it allows us to shrug off a boy’s behavior when it crosses the line from active to aggressive. We are more inclined to throw up our hands and say, “We can’t do anything about it—that’s the ways boys are!” But I strongly believe that a boy’s behavior can be shaped, that any natural need for action can be encouraged and satisfied, and any impulses toward violence and aggression can be discouraged and channeled in creative, positive directions. The case of Kyle illustrates my point.

  Kyle was six when his sister, Charlotte, was born. “We expected Kyle to show the usual sibling jealousy,” says his mother, Roberta. “But he was much worse with her than we’d expected. Kyle showed no delight in having a new member of the family, and demonstrated no affection for her. He would poke her with his toys, and make faces at her as if he was completely disgusted with her existence.

  “One day, we put Charlotte down for a nap. She slept longer than usual, and my husband, Don, went in to check on her. He found Kyle in the room with her, with his hands close to her neck. It looked for all the world like Kyle might strangle his baby sister. Don rushed to grab him, and realized that Kyle was just pretending. The baby was fine—she hadn’t even woken up—but both Don and I completely lost our tempers.

  “I rarely yell at my kids, but this time I just went over the edge. I felt as if there was something horribly wrong with my son, that he had a violent nature or something, and this incident had revealed his true self. I didn’t try to understand what prompted his action. I viewed my baby daughter, a girl, as a helpless victim, and my boy as the aggressor.”

  Roberta told her friends about what had happened, and asked them for advice. “I was very worried about Charlotte’s well-being. Don was an only child in his family, and I was the youngest child in mine, so neither one of us could really relate to what Kyle was going through. Finally, my friend Gloria helped me understand how Kyle might be feeling.”

  Gloria, the oldest of three children, explained how her life had changed when her two siblings came along. She had not been consulted in the decision to bring other children into the home—children rarely are. When her siblings first arrived, Gloria lost her status as the special, the only, child. She received far less attention than she’d had before. She had to share her parents and their limited resources of energy with two other children. “Gloria made me understand how much better things were for Kyle before Charlotte appeared, and I had to admit it was true. Kyle got our undivided attention before. Now it was hard to find the time or the energy to play with him.”

  Roberta and Don determined to work with Kyle to change his attitude toward Charlotte, to curb his “aggression,” and to help him understand that his parents still loved him as much as ever. Together, the three of them read stories about big brother/little sister relationships, which sparked lots of conversation about the topic. “Once we convinced Kyle that we weren’t going to blame him or punish him for his natural feelings,” Roberta recalled, “he opened up. We had some really good talks with him, and we told him he would always be our special boy.”

  “Kyle’s become a very caring brother,” Roberta now says. “One day, he spent an hour drawing an elaborate picture of our family—including Charlotte—and he told me he wanted to give it to his baby sister as a present. Today, he’s the kind of brother I’d hoped he would be. He knows that we’re not going to abandon him for Charlotte, and he feels comfortable enough to share us with her. I can even laugh now at the memory of him pretending to strangle Charlotte, because I know he never would and never could do such a thing. He’s not a violent person. He was just in a very difficult situation and couldn’t express his feelings about it, and we certainly weren’t helping him any.”

  My clinical experience and research—as well as work done by others—have shown that most boys, when lovingly nurtured themselves, will in turn nurture and show empathy for others. We have learned that the way parents care for their sons has an even more powerful effect on a boy’s behavior than we had realized, an effect at least as strong as biology in determining a boy’s nature. How you treat a boy has a powerful impact on who he becomes. He is as much a product of nurturing as he is of nature.

  THE MYTH ABOUT TESTOSTERONE

  The idea that high levels of testosterone equate with high levels of violence stems from a mistaken assumption that testosterone is the only force that inclines boys toward both active, rough-and-tumble play and violent behavior. This is not the case. Boys do play differently than girls, but their style of play is not solely a function of testosterone and it certainly does not prove a proclivity for violence. Boys, in general, like play that is competitive, physically rough, and forceful. They like games that involve interaction in large groups and take place in large spaces (such as playing fields, gymnasiums, stadiums) as well as those that follow rules and have a hierarchy of authority. Girls, on the other hand, generally enjoy play that is more interpersonal, often one-on-one, and less physically aggressive.

  Although scientists have long recognized the differences between the play styles of girls and boys and continue to debate the evolutionary and hormonal influences, they have not been able to establish a clear link between boys’ rough play and aggression or violence.

  While testosterone does, in fact, contribute to boys’ proclivity for action, scientists over the years have tried without success to establish an unequivocal link between testosterone and violent behavior. The fact is that testosterone is just one of many biological factors (including serotonin) that have an influence on aggression. In addition, testosterone can have a variety of different effects on boys’ behavior. A high testosterone level in one boy may enable him to play a chess match with great intensity and alertness; in another, it may give him the energy and concentration to make complicated arrangements for a political rally. In a third case, it may contribute to his involvement in a brutal fistfight. But the amount of testosterone in a boy’s system fluctuates depending on when it is measured and the activities he has been involved in—rather like the pulse rate. In older men the effects of testosterone vary from man to man. Research has also shown that when older men are given supplemental testosterone they become calmer and less aggressive than before. By contrast, when athletes take anabolic steroids, the cousins of testosterone, they become ornery and excitable. No simple scientific link has been made between testosterone levels and the tendency for aggression and violence.

  The level of testosterone in any boy—and the way that testosterone affects him—has less impact on his behavior than how the boy is loved, nurtured, and shaped by his parents and by the context of the society within which he lives. The hormone may well predict a certain type of energy in boys. But the way in which that energy is funneled and expressed lies in our hands.

  THE POTENCY OF CONNECTION: THE POWER OF PARENTING

  TO AFFECT OUR BOYS’ BRAINS

  Parents, and others who love and look after boys, are empowered in their efforts by their boys’ own deep yearning for connection. This is what I call the potency of connection. The power of love can dispel the myth that, in boys, nature and nurture are at odds, or, indeed, have distinct separate influences on a boy and his life. The way we interact with boys, and the connections we make with them, can have a permanent effect on a boy’s biology, his brain, and his social behavior. Scientists have found that early emotional interaction can actually alter a boy’s brain-based biological processes.

  When a boy (or girl) is born, the baby’s brain—unlike the brain of
any other primate—is not fully developed. In the first year of life a child’s brain doubles in size, and then doubles again. By the time a child reaches the age of two, his or her brain has as many synapses (connections between brain cells) as an adult’s. During this period of development, the human brain is very pliable and plastic, and—more than in any other species—is very open to learning from emotional and cognitive experiences. The human brain can, in fact, be permanently altered by its environment in these early years of its life. Scientists have demonstrated that at birth the human brain is wired to accommodate developmental interactions that further shape the nervous system after birth, with profound consequences for lifelong functioning.

  How we respond to our baby boys and young sons—the manner in which we cuddle, kiss, and reassure, teach, comfort, and love—not only determines a young boy’s capacity for a healthy emotional start in life but deeply affects a boy’s characteristic style of behavior and the development of his brain. Our behavior fundamentally, and at times irrevocably, alters a boy’s neural connections, brain chemistry, and biological functioning. The capacity to use language, to tolerate distress, to show and name feelings, and to be timid or eager to explore are all dramatically affected by the emotional environment created for a boy during early childhood. While nature creates boys whose behavior is influenced by biological proclivities—more than we used to believe—nature also creates boys who are more receptive to interaction with their caretakers than we had ever imagined.