Real Boys

by William Pollack

  Bruce Perry, a developmental neurobiologist at Baylor College of Medicine, summarizes it this way: “a child’s capacity to think, to laugh, to love, to hate, to speak—all of it is a product of interaction with the environment. Sensory experiences such as touching . . . literally stimulate activity in the brain and the growth of neural structures.”

  The people in a boy’s life—moms and dads, teachers and siblings, coaches and ministers, day-care providers and doctors—may have an effect equal to that of testosterone in shaping a young boy, not only by influencing his formative experience but by affecting his brain structures and neurotransmitters. The potency of connection is not just about the power adults have to create safe, nurturing, “holding environments.” It is also about how these caring environments, in turn, affect the biological development of infant and toddler brains. Modern science has demonstrated how easily nurture becomes nature; there is no rigid dichotomy between the two.

  So, let’s rid ourselves of the myth that boys can never escape their biological fates. The truth is that we can do a great deal to shape how a boy behaves. We can search for ways to celebrate our boys’ energy and channel it into positive and productive activities. If they feel the urge to hit, let’s give them a punching bag and help them learn to box. If they want to scream and yell, let’s play a game that gives them a chance to cheer. If they want to argue, let’s engage them in a conversation that allows them to develop their debating skills. If they refuse to do what’s on the family agenda, let’s challenge them to come up with an alternative plan.

  MYTH #2: BOYS SHOULD BE BOYS

  The myth that “boys should be boys”—that they must fulfill the stereotype of the dominant and “macho” male—inhibits some parents and their sons from living in the way that comes most naturally to them. The Boy Code says that boys should be tough, should demand respect from others, and should never act “like a girl.” As soon as a boy behaves in a way that is not considered manly, that falls outside the Boy Code, he is likely to meet resistance from society—he may merely be stared at or whispered about, he may be humiliated, he may get a punch in the gut, or he may just feel terribly ashamed.

  When eight-year-old Ethan tells his physical education teacher that he would rather jump rope than play basketball with the boys, some of his second-grade classmates cannot contain their laughter. The teacher smiles indulgently but pushes Ethan firmly in the direction of the basketball courts.

  Thirteen-year-old Steven arrives at school with flesh-toned acne lotion covering an embarrassingly large pimple on his nose. His peers tease him about how “pretty he looks.” They humiliate him by asking whether he “forgot to put on his lipstick,” or what color dress he plans to wear to the dance that night.

  When seventeen-year-old Brad reads a poem in English class with dramatic intensity, there are a few sniggers from the back row. Later, someone mocks his recitation, adding an exaggerated lisp, and whispering loud enough for all to hear: “Faggot.”

  When boys act in less than conventionally “masculine” ways, their peers—both boys and girls—can be quick to tighten the laces on their gender straitjackets. Some parents, teachers, coaches, and other mentors also act in ways that reinforce society’s myths about masculinity by letting boys know when they are violating the Boy Code.

  Jennifer, a teacher at a Boston-area preschool, is thirty-six years old and holds degrees in childhood development from Wellesley and Harvard. She asked for my advice about one of her students, four-year-old Benjamin. “He still wants to play the mother and put on jewelry in the dress-up corner,” she told me. “When I suggest something else for him to do, he cries in front of all the other kids. He seems perfectly healthy otherwise,” she explained, “but I’m getting worried about whether he’s really ready for kindergarten.”

  “Didn’t I see Lisa wearing a cowboy hat and slapping her thigh like a horse the other day?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Jennifer said, “but all the girls do that.”

  Even this well-educated, highly competent, and sensitive teacher was influenced by the “boys should be boys” myth—playing mother and putting on jewelry did not constitute “healthy” boy behavior.

  I witnessed similar attitudes at another private school that prided itself on being progressive. Recently they had instituted a coed program called Boxing Can Be Safe, designed to help kindergarten kids express their anger. I attended one of these kindergarten boxing matches and watched as five-year-old Michael, who stood no taller than three feet, made an awkward attempt at a punch. “Not like that, Michael,” the coach admonished him. “You’re swinging like a girl!”

  It’s hard to imagine how damaging these reproaches must be for boys. As a therapist—working with young people as well as adults—I have been through countless sessions with adult men who shared painful memories about being shamed as children for not being “manly” enough, for not being “like the other boys.” Especially for very young boys, the humiliation leaves them feeling that there is no place to turn.

  Without safe places where they can voice their pain or discuss their shame and deep embarrassment, many boys begin to toughen themselves up into little men. They become cut off from their own feelings, and their voices no longer fully connect with their emotional selves.

  As difficult as the shame-hardening process is for boys, it is almost equally difficult for parents to watch. In many ways the myth that “boys should be boys” shields us, as adults, from dealing with our own pain and frustration as we observe our boys going through this extremely upsetting process. Perhaps by accepting the myth that boys must learn on their own how to act, must be like other “masculine” boys, and “tough it out,” we somehow make ourselves feel more comfortable that this process is a necessary rite of passage, a natural part of growing up as a boy. Adult men in particular may rely on this myth to protect themselves from remembering how hurtful this “hardening” process was in their own childhood.

  TRUTH #2: THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO BE

  A BOY—THE DIVERSITY OF MASCULINITY

  The truth is that the Boy Code is based on a stereotype unique to our culture and time. There is no one correct pathway to healthy masculinity. Boys have been defined very differently in other countries, other cultures, and other eras. For example, in one country crying may be expected of boys and men, whereas in another it may be expressly forbidden. Many parents today feel terribly ill at ease and struggle with the myths of boyhood, knowing in their hearts that they do not truly reflect the true nature of their own boys. Others, who have taken the time to fully examine the validity of the myths, refuse to accept the Boy Code and actively seek to break free of it. Often these parents are able, in turn, to help their sons break free of the code.

  When they feel comfortable that they will not be humiliated by girls or other boys for doing so, many boys derive tremendous joy from participating in a full range of playful, expressive, and creative activities—which was how a young man called Kip was able to create a wonderful life for himself. In high school Kip had spent every waking hour—when he wasn’t doing schoolwork or helping out at his father’s small business—practicing, living, and breathing basketball. He dreamed of being the next Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, or Shaquille O’Neal. He was good enough to make the all-state team and received a basketball scholarship to Duke University. During his first game of the season, Kip’s career aspirations came to an abrupt end. An elbow to the ribs caused a hard fall to the parquet and a serious knee injury. That night the Duke doctors told him the bad news: his knee could not be repaired. He would have to forget about a career in the NBA. Kip spent months moping and feeling sorry for himself; he relived the moment when he took the hit, wondering if he could have turned away from that fateful elbow or fallen differently to avoid the injury. Finally, he faced up to the fact that he would not be the next Larry Bird. He decided that he would have to “reinvent” himself. But, because he was a mediocre student, Kip figured that he would not be accepted into business schoo
l and that a business career was not an option for him.

  One day he had an inspiration. He had another skill besides basketball, although he had never taken it very seriously. He was an inventive cook. He had grown up in a close and loving Italian family and had often helped his mother in the kitchen. She had always said that he had culinary talent, and she loved to tell her friends about his skill with bruschetta and fresh pasta and osso bucco. Kip wondered if he could make a career as a chef. He also wondered if it would be an acceptable career for an ex-basketball player, a jock.

  Kip mentioned the idea to his father and hinted at his reservations. “Hey, Kip, there’s nothing wrong with wearing an apron,” his father responded. “It’s a uniform, just like wearing basketball shorts. Maybe even better. Anybody who thinks you can’t be a man and be a chef has never tasted a really great fettucine Alfredo.”

  The next month Kip enrolled at the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. Five years later Kip was one of the most celebrated chefs in Denver and had employment offers from three restaurants in New York City. A well-known food-and-wine magazine hailed him as one of the stars of American cuisine. If you had told Kip when he was ten that he would become a chef, he probably would have scoffed at the idea. But he came to understand that his ability to be effective with the big round ball was not so different from his ability to be creative in the art of cooking.

  “I’m not doing what I expected to do when I was a kid,” Kip concluded. “But I think I had a very limited view of what a man should do with his life. Now I don’t think there’s anything less masculine about being a chef than being a forward.”

  There is no single path to a healthy and mature masculinity. A good school or home environment will send the message that activities like sports, acting in a school play, and volunteering at the local nursing home all provide equally good ways to succeed in the journey from boyhood into manhood.

  When I am advising parents about boys, I encourage them to follow their own instincts about their sons’ need for love and nurturing. Mothers and fathers need to feel secure that there is no such thing as giving their son too much love. Within appropriate limits you will never spoil a boy by showing him affection or by providing him with the freedom to follow his own path.

  The Reverend Tony Jarvis, headmaster of one of Boston’s most prestigious independent schools for boys, ends many a private interview with a troubled high school senior—perhaps a six-foot 250-pound fullback—with “You know I love you.” We can all set up this kind of caring environment in which thoughts and feelings can be freely expressed and encourage boys to experience childhood in an entirely natural way. By doing so, we allow our sons to talk, mourn, and grieve openly about the shame they may feel when they fail to live up to the Boy Code. By doing so, we show boys that we love them for who they really are.

  MYTH #3: BOYS ARE TOXIC—THE ANTI-BOY

  A third myth of boyhood follows from the first two, but it can be even more devastating. Not only does society see boys as prisoners of their biological makeup (“boys will be boys”), and as properly confined by the gender straighjacket (“boys should be boys”), but we also tend to believe that there is something inherently dangerous or toxic about boys—that they are psychologically unaware, emotionally unsocialized creatures. This myth adds a potentially damaging element to the social environment.

  Karen decided to send her daughter, Alison, to an all-girls school, but kept her son in a coeducational environment. The reason, she explained, was that her daughter needed to learn that “all roles in society are open to women.” Her son, on the other hand, needed to learn in the company of girls because they would help to make him more “sensitive and polished.” She was saying, in other words, that the presence of boys might have a toxic effect on her daughter, while girls could help mitigate the noxious dispostion of her son. Barbara, another parent, put the same anti-boy sentiment a little more directly when she said, “Girls have a civilizing effect.”

  Such views must be seen as discriminatory to boys, but they are seldom challenged by other parents or by teachers because of the prevalent myth that boys are in fact toxic. This myth manifests itself in both subtle and dramatic ways. When a seven-year-old boy impulsively plants a kiss on a somewhat unwilling female playmate, he is branded a sexual delinquent and suspended from school. A fifth-grade boy coming directly from a “sex education” class jokes with a girl that her sagging belt looks like a penis and gets accused of “sexual harassment.” It is as if we are in the midst of an irrational society-wide backlash against boys and young men.

  Put aside for the moment the obvious double standard of how teenage girls who joke about the “bulge” in football players’ pants are unlikely to be branded as sexual harassers, and ask why we have confused boys’ childish exploratory play with adult predatory behavior. No doubt some components of boys’ and girls’ play go beyond the bounds of acceptability and are deserving of redirection or even reprimand. Yet, when it is a boy involved, we seem to forget his need to play, experiment, and fail in order to grow. Instead, we respond as though he is a full-fledged aggressor.

  TRUTH #3: BOYS ARE EMPATHIC

  Although empathy is considered to be one of the strongest attributes of girls, there is ample evidence that boys are highly empathic as well. An interesting study was conducted of boys raised in a two-parent household in which the father was the primary emotionally nurturing parent. In addition to all the other typical traits of well-adjusted male children—self-confidence, exuberance, action-orientation—these boys also showed a greater flexibility of personality and a positive attitude toward girls and the ability to connect with them. In other words, men are capable of raising their boy children to have empathy in all their relationships. Even when raised without a predominant female presence, boys can learn to be sensitive and to care deeply about other people, including girls, and their feelings.

  Seth’s friends were just such boys.

  Seth was a slight sixteen-year-old who excelled at soccer. In his junior year in high school he was elected cocaptain of the varsity soccer team. Not only was he respected by his teammates, but he was a model student and high achiever. But Seth had a sadness in his eyes, and an uncertainty in his bearing that seemed at odds with his popular and physically confident self. However, it was not difficult to see why he seemed to be bearing a burden. His mother, a warm and active woman named Cindy, had been diagnosed with a severe and rapidly growing form of breast cancer.

  The entire family—Seth, his thirteen-year-old sister, Amy; his father; and Cindy herself—had met with Cindy’s oncologist. Seth talked about that meeting with great emotion. His father, who owned an insurance business, had broken the ice by asking the doctor for some straight answers about Cindy’s condition and her chances. “There’s no good way to tell you this,” said the doctor. “Your wife has a very serious form of breast cancer. We’re going to do everything we can, but the average life expectancy from tumors like this is less than five years.”

  The family rallied around Cindy as best they could. Seth seemed particularly able to provide her with special comfort and support. He was aided in his efforts by an unexpected source—the members of his soccer team. The boys pitched in, helping with the formidable day-to-day tasks of caring for a seriously ill person. They hosted a bake sale to raise funds for the hospital, donating the proceeds in her name. Perhaps most important, Seth’s buddies offered him their shoulders to cry on. And cry on them he did. When his mother’s hair fell out from chemotherapy, when radiation treatments didn’t work, Seth wept openly, at lunch hour, at study hall, or on his way to soccer practice in the afternoons. By his side were one or two, sometimes three or four, of his friends—tears streaming down their cheeks, as well.

  His mother died four years later, when Seth was a sophomore at Yale. Although the news came as no surprise, it still hit him like a fist in the chest. He remembers doubling up with pain, worrying that he couldn’t make it through the funeral. That night he called his
best buddy from high school, Bill, a student at Stanford.

  “Don’t worry, Seth,” Bill assured him. “We’ll be there for you.”

  Seth assumed that Bill meant that his friends would be thinking of him, there for him in spirit. But on the day of the funeral almost all of the twenty-five young men who had composed Seth’s soccer team showed up at the church to attend the funeral. Outside the church, they joined together in a circle of shared love and grief, poured out their sadness to one another, and gave Bill the strength he needed to get through the service.

  The priest remarked to me that he had never seen anything like this. “I’m struck not only by their open affection and caring,” he told me, “but by the fact that this is coming from boys.”

  “They’re men now, Father,” I replied, “real men.”

  This is just one example of the kind of caring, deeply supportive, empathic behavior that boys can show for their loved ones—their parents, their friends, their families—and that I have seen boys display in a wide variety of situations and circumstances.

  — 4 —

  ACTION LOVE:

  HOW BOYS RELATE

  We’re really not so different from girls,” an adolescent boy,

  Tim, said. “We just do things a little differently.”

  THE LOVE AND YEARNINGS OF REAL BOYS

  Boys are immensely loving and they yearn for relationships far more than we have ever recognized.

  There are two reasons boys’ inherent loving nature and their yearning for relationships go largely unnoticed by society. First, when boys relate in ways that are considered traditionally “feminine”—when they’re tender and affectionate, when they are emotionally expressive, when they talk sensitively about difficult friendships—society often does not support them because it sees them as violating the Boy Code of masculine toughness and independence. Second, boys often relate in ways that many of us simply don’t recognize as a means for expressing love. Boys approach friendships and express love differently from the way girls do, and too often we just don’t get it, because we’re so used to assuming that love can be expressed only through the traditional “female” models. And so we don’t fully understand that boys are reaching out for human relationships when they actually are.