Over the past few years I’ve really started to see and understand that boyhood and men are really struggling with the way they are treated by society. How can we as Moms support boys better?
**I would like to make this a space for men to give their experience. Moms with advice I’ll be making a thread on Ask/women with the same question. Thank you**
** please ignore the capital M in mother. I have no idea how to fix it**😬
25 comments
Just speaking from my situation, I’m 57 and still have issues from they way my mother raised me. She was constantly worried I would do something “wrong” and mess up my life. The problem is her definition of “right” was impossible to live up to: no sex, no booze, no drugs, no jerking off, no porn, no ……
I wish instead she would have taught me the tools to deal with set backs in life and also encouraged me to enjoy life, enjoy the good in the world, and experience all life has to offer.
Guide me but trust my judgement instead of judging me….
Well if you understand the struggle then that’s half of the solution. Now you just have to protect him from any harmful stereotype or physical harm he might be exposed to. It’s stressful but that’s what parenthood is. Also if you’re a single mother, understand that the boy needs positive male figures in their lives. I hear all this cries from Men about not having male figures in their lives and they sound miserable. Masculinity is a part of him and he needs to accept it and understand it.
Find ways to introduce them to girls their age in casual situations.
I grew up with two brothers. All my friends were boys.
Girls were basically some other species.
Mothers are the only women who can be honest to a boy about how to interact with girls and women. They cannot be afraid to give boys advice that might cast women in a negative light.
My mom always told me to never fight. That it’s better to walk away. I was bullied for years and didn’t know how to defend or stand up myself. I wish I had learned more about self-confidence.
Always remember that you’re raising a BOY. Not a defective girl.
Boys do certain things and behave in certain ways. It’s not your job to change his nature. It’s your job to raise him to be a good man.
get men in his life. let him fall down and get hurt, literally and figuratively. get him into jiu jitsu so he can be strong and trained to defend the weak, while getting out some aggression.
Knock before you enter his room 😏
I would recommend reading the book “The myth of male power” written by Dr. Warren Farrell. You can read it for free on archive .org (without the space between .org)
He served on the board of the National Organization of Women (N.O.W.) and advocated for women’s rights during the 1960s. It was around that time he started to notice the beginning of the problems facing men. He spoke about them, but they were largely ignored and have now festered into the problems we see today. He has written many books on the subject and he is a veritable wealth of knowledge.
I think the biggest thing is that girls seem to have a level of perceived preciousness, at least in childhood, that boys do not.
Even though boy babies and children, really up into puberty, have no better way of defending themselves or navigating the world than girls do.
We ascribe a level of stoic independence to anybody born male from birth that does not really make much sense.
When you’re kid, whatever your gender is takes a backseat to the simple fact that you’re learning how to human.
Letting boys be kids too and seeing them as precious too, I think, would solve a lot of problems.
Think through how to help them process their emotions.
When a young girl is going through something they often cry. Parents hug them, talk through the problem, provide practical support, etc. As such young girls are taught how to deal with their emotions and seek support.
When a young boy is going through something they often shout, hit things, etc. Parents tell them to stop and go to their room. As such young boys have their emotions suppressed and never learn how to deal with things in a healthy manner.
Supporting young boys involves acknowledging anger as legitimate. It involves understanding what they need support wise. That might be an outlet, say a hobby (boxing, gym, music, gaming, etc.). It might be space and privacy. Or it might just be allowing them to vent in an angry way without being judged or told to express themselves in a more gentle tone.
Don’t prevent them from doing risky physical activities like climbing trees and skateboarding. They don’t grow and expand if they can’t stretch their horizons. I know you will be scared they will hurt themselves, and they WILL hurt themselves, but its the only way for them to develop true confidence instead of false confidence.
Also be honest to them about women, don’t try to sugar coat things. Also, never lie to them.
You are doing amazing!
The kind of person who is looking around for advice on how to do better is the kind of mom we all need/needed.
We faceless, numberless, entities of the internet could spout out millions of things. But please, just take a minute and appreciate yourself and all you do.
Ask him daily how his day went, listen to them. We boys have only our mother with whom we can share our feelings, cry, etc. She is only one in our life with whom we can be yourself and we know that she will never judge us or leave us.
Teach him how to behave with women, periods, etc.
Most important thing that my mom did during my growing up period us to build a habit in me to share my feelings with her. Talk with her daily and my said it is the best thing she did as she was able to find what was disturbing me and then was able to help me.
Listen to them. Be open and be someone they WANT to come to to discuss what’s going on with their lives. “That’s not what boys do” or “Man up!” is a sure-fire way to get them to alienate you and end up with a lad who ‘only spends his time in his room’. Well, you created that, where else is he meant to feel safe? They’re human, they have feelings and if you keep up the narrative that boys are only after one thing, then that’s what you’ve trained them to do. Who cares if he plays with dolls when he’s younger, it’s just play and imagination, and possibly training him to be an attentive father eventually. Otherwise it’s just play, doesn’t mean anything.
Privacy. Give them the room and privacy as much as possible. We have a part of our body that changes when we don’t expect it nor want it to. It’s embarrassing and instead of it being explained, we’re shushed for it. How else are we expected to learn about our own body than by experimenting and discovering on our own? If your kid is having wet dreams you discover when you change the sheets or do the laundry, don’t bring it up, just wash it. It’s normal, it’s healthy and if you’re too embarrassed to have ‘the talk’, then that’s your problem and just setting up for failure.
It’s 2023, there’s no such thing as ‘boys chores’ or ‘girls chores’. Putting the bins out, mowing the lawn etc. Split up the chores equally and rotate. He may be the next Gorden Ramsay, if he wants to help out in the kitchen, let him. What I’m coming down to is as a parent, it’s your responsibility to pick up on what they like to do and let them explore that. Goes for daughters too.
Don’t sign your boy up for all sorts of extra-curricular activities that you think he should be doing, let him choose what he wants to do. Giving your child a sense of self, is the best way to let them develop.
Don’t do everything for us.
My mom wad a great mom but she always did NY laundry, packed my lunch, did most of the cleanup after a meal. By doing so many things for me I never learned to do them for myself and it set me up for failure when I moved out.
Allow them to make mistakes, even costly ones. What they learn from recovering from failure is far more important than protecting them from failure.
Compliment their achievements sincerely, and teach them to compliment their own achievements too. Let them know that it’s okay to not have validation all of the time from other people, as long as they appreciate themselves.
Compliments and validation come rarely in my opinion especially to men!
Make sure they have some sort of positive male influence in their life. Some one they can go to for advice whether it be a father, grandfather, uncle, one of your adult friends etc
My Dad taught me to always defend myself, after having my nose broken several times I learned to pick my battles
I think the best advice I can give you is raise them the way people today are told to raise their daughters. Encourage his interest regardless of how they are traditionally gendered. Teach him to stand up for himself, but know when to walk away. Emphasize that he can be anything he wants, but that it takes a lot of hard work to get there. When he gets older teach him that a relationship is a partnership, with terms and boundaries to be negotiated with both parties, not a set of defined rolls and behaviors.
One thing that is sorely lacking and very rarely talked about is this:
We need to teach boys and men of all ages to *know their value*.
Not value as providers, not value as good little workers. Not as representativ of men. No, I’m talking about the value as a *person* that each and every boy.
You know the whole “Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them” mentality that is perfectly fine to have? Yeah, fuck that one. That whole “drinking make tears” bullshit? Or how about the “yes all men” crowd? That’s what I’m talking about.
We need to teach boys that they are perfectly fine the way they are.
1: No one gets to dictate who a boy might be. He isn’t anything by default. He isn’t a villan. He isn’t a protector. He isn’t a provider. He isn’t responsible for the behavior of anyone else. And most of all: He isn’t a *problem*.
2: A boy has value. Always. Boys aren’t less valuable than girls, and we shouldn’t treat them as such. Yet we do, and we keep *telling* them and *showing* them that they are. We tell them that their behavior is wrong, that their perfectly normal behavior doesn’t fit within certain boxes. We tell them that they can’t defend themselves, that they shouldn’t stand up for themselves. We tell them to sit down and shut up. And then we wonder why they struggle.
3: A boy needs to know that he is loved. And that he deserves love. We need to teach boys that they deserve love just as much as girls do. And that it’s okay to have preferences and okay to make demands. We teach boys right from the start that they are inferior when it comes to romance. They should chase, they should make themselves voulnerable. And If they ever struggle in their relationships? If they feel unloved, or If they are abused? We tell them to suck it up. Which leads me to my final point:
4: A boy has the right to say no and the right to walk away. If he is mistreated he must know that he can and should stand up for himself. If he is unhappy he should say so. And if he feels the need then he should walk away.
If we start treating boys like humans with emotion, wants, needs, desires and *value* then boys will have a better steppingstone to become happy and emotionally healthy. We aren’t currently doing that.
If you are his only example of woman, that will be a problem. The way we tend to separate boys and girls before they reach puberty means that soon enough women start looking like something between objects of desire and intelligent aliens- as opposed to humans with the same needs, fears, abilities and rights.
If he doesn’t have sisters, or even if he does, make sure that there are girls his age around, and not just in school. He needs to grow up and to socialize with girls and women around.
Don’t tell 6 year old boys to “man up”
Teach them about abuse.
Men get raped by women. I was, as a kid.
Men get abused verbally, emotionally, sexually, and financially. I was.
Men get sexual advances by bosses. I was, as a teen.
Men are told constantly that they are the abusers. Because of this, they are never taught the skills to see abuse for what it is, or the proper avenues to take action.
We need to teach boys and men that being abused is possible and never okay, no matter what gender.