ROFL- you are right you know. So if I love it you'll just have to go get the darned book and if I hate it you probably shouldn't waste your time.
I also ordered a book called "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys"
Dan J. Kindlon Michael Thompson Teresa Barker
Here's some interesting stuff from it:
FROM THE BOOK
Excerpt
It is essential for a guy to get respect from others.
A guy will lose respect if he talks about his problems.
A young man should be physically tough even if he's not big.
A husband should not have to do housework.
The survey results showed that the more boys agreed with the masculinity ideology statements, the more
those statements corresponded to the boys' own views, the more likely they were to drink beer, smoke
pot, have unprotected sex, get suspended from school, and "trick" or force someone into having sex. In
fact, the most significant risk factor for a boy's involvement in unprotected sex was his belief in this set of
"hypermasculine" traditional male attitudes. This mind-set spelled trouble for boys whether they were
black or white, rich or poor, city kid or suburbanite.
Popular culture is a destructive element in our boys' lives, but the emotional miseducation of boys begins
much earlier and much closer to home. Most parents, relatives, teachers, and others who work or live
with boys set out to teach them how to get along in the world and with one another. In the process of
teaching them one thing, however, we often teach them another, quite different thing that ultimately
works against their emotional potential. Traditional gender stereotypes are embedded in the way we
respond to boys and teach them to respond to others. Whether unintentionally or deliberately, we tend to
discourage emotional awareness in boys. Scientists who study the way parents shape their children's
emotional responses find that parents tend to have preconceived stereotypic gender notions even about
infants11 (like the father we know who bragged to us that his son didn't cry when he was circumcised).
Because of this, parents provide a different emotional education for sons as opposed to daughters.
This has been shown to be true in a variety of contexts.12 Mothers speak about sadness and distress
more with their daughters and about anger more with sons. And it shows. A study observing the talk of
preschool-aged children found that girls were six times more likely to use the word love, twice as likely to
use the word sad, but equally likely to use the word mad. We know that mothers who explain their
emotional reactions to their preschool children and who do not react negatively to a child's vivid display of
sadness, fear, or anger will have children who have a greater understanding of emotions.13 Research
indicates that fathers tend to be even more rigid than mothers in steering their sons along traditional lines.
Even older siblings, in an imitation of their parents, talk about feelings more frequently with their
two-year-old sisters than with their two-year-old brothers.
Here's how this gender socialization can look in its mildest, most ordinary form: Brad is four years old and
has a question about everything. His mother fields most of these questions because she's with him more
often than his dad, and even when the whole family is together, she typically is the more verbally
responsive of the two. She tries to give all questions equal attention, but what she doesn't fully realize is
that she, like any parent, subtly shapes the kinds of questions her child asks.
"Mommy, why do I have to sit in a car seat if you don't?" he asks. She responds with a discussion of the
safety advantages, and explains how it is against the law for children to ride in a car unless they ride in a
car seat. Because of her thoughtful answer, Brad feels rewarded for asking about how things work and is
thereby encouraged to do it again sometime.
But in the park, when Brad points to a small boy who is crying and asks his mother why, she gives a
much shorter and less animated answer. "I don't know, Brad, he just is. Come on, let's go. It's not polite to
stare."
The truth is, Brad's mother may not know why the little boy is crying, and she is teaching her son good
manners when she tells him not to stare. But her short answer is less engaging, less informative, and less
rewarding for her son. It subtly discourages him from thinking any further about why someone cries or
what might have moved this particular child to tears. Her quick closure on the inquiry also may convey
her own discomfort with the subject--a message that boys frequently "hear" when fathers give short shrift
to questions or observations about emotions.
Studies of parent interactions with both boys and girls suggest that, when a girl asks a question about
emotions, her mother will give longer explanations. She's more likely to speculate with her daughter about
the reasons behind the emotion or to validate or amplify her daughter's observation: "Yes, honey, he does
look very sad. Maybe he's got a little hurt or he's lost his toy.... What do you think?" The message the
daughter gets is that it's okay to be concerned about another's feelings; her natural concern and empathy
are reinforced.
Boys experience this kind of emotional steering constantly.
When six-year-old Jack and his family moved into their new house, one of the three children had to take
the downstairs bedroom, separate from the others on the second floor. It was not his eight-year-old sister,
Kate, who got the assignment, or his four-year-old sister, Amy. It was Jack. When Jack expressed a little
uneasiness at sleeping alone on the first floor, his father said to him, "Oh, you're a big guy; you can handle
it. Your sisters are scared to sleep alone."
When boys express ordinary levels of anger or aggression, or they turn surly and silent, their behavior is
accepted as normal. If, however, they express normal levels of fear, anxiety, or sadness--emotions most
often seen as feminine--the adults around them typically treat them in ways that suggest that such
emotions aren't normal for a boy.
The Story of Cain: Could There Have Been a Different Ending?
The biblical story of Cain and Abel, in which a jealous Cain kills his brother, endures as a parable of
sibling rivalry, but it offers much more than that.14 We see in Cain's story a reflection of the emotional
life of boys today--a boy's desire to be loved and respected, and his propensity to respond to humiliation
and shame with anger and violence rather than reflection and communication.
This short tale in the Book of Genesis opens simply enough. The brothers, both eager to please the Lord,
each make an offering, Cain from the fruits of his labor in the fields and Abel a prized lamb from his
flock. The Lord expresses pleasure with Abel's offering but pays no heed to Cain's. The Scripture doesn't
explain why the Lord responded so differently to each boy's gift, but Cain feels humiliated. In the story,
Cain is visibly distressed--"his countenance fell"--and yet he utters no words to express his feelings.
"Why are you so distressed, and why is your face fallen?" is the Lord's sharp response to Cain in the
biblical script. In other words, "Get over it!" And he gives Cain a stern lecture admonishing Cain to do
right and be uplifted. Cain remains silent, though surely he must be hurting at the rebuke and seething with
anger as he draws his brother out to the field and slays him. When the Lord, well aware of Cain's
murderous act, asks Cain what has become of Abel, Cain replies, "I do not know. Am I my brother's
keeper?" The Lord confronts him with his lie and banishes Cain to the Land of Nod, away from his family
and any future he might have envisioned. When confronted with the unalterable consequences of his
action, Cain cries out with self-pitying remorse, "My punishment is too great to bear!" Although the Lord
places a mark upon Cain to protect him from harm in exile, with his family shattered and his brother dead,
Cain is burdened for life.
Conspicuously absent from the story are the boy's biological parents, Adam and Eve, with whom Cain
might have talked or from whom he might have received calming counsel. As Elie Wiesel asks in
Messengers of God, "Could they not have reasoned with [the two brothers], explained to them calmly but
firmly what life, particularly collective life, was all about?"
Cain's story describes every boy's desire to please--especially to please his father--and the sequence of
ill-managed emotional reactions that lead to a tragic ending. We see a reflection of boys today in Cain's
disappointment and shame at his heavenly father's rejection, his anger at feeling disrespected, his silenced
voice in the turmoil of feeling, the absence of empathy or emotional reflection, and his impulsive act of
anger.
For us, Cain's story resonates in the lives of boys today when we see them distanced from their own
feelings and insensitive to the feelings of others, so clearly suffering the consequences of an impoverished
emotional life.
Before Cain kills his brother, God reminds him: "Sin couches at the door; its urge is toward you. Yet you
can be its master." How different Cain's story might have been had he been able to draw upon inner
resources, emotional awareness, empathy, and moral courage, for instance, to master the moment. But
this emotional education was missing for Cain, and it continues to be the missing piece in the lives of most
boys today.
Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys
In our work as therapists, we have seen boys suffer terrible losses--the death of a parent or sibling, a
serious injury or catastrophic illness--and yet struggle successfully to reclaim a life and a future for
themselves. We've seen others snap under the pressure of what could only be termed a bad day. The
difference between boys who overcome adversity and those who surrender to it always comes down to
the emotional resources they bring to the challenge.
Boys often find an emotional mentor in a favorite teacher or coach, but parents have a unique and
powerful influence on a boy's view of himself and on his willingness to engage in learning emotional
language and literacy. Parents can model emotional connectedness and empathy. They can listen to boys'
feelings without judging them, hear their problems without dictating solutions. We have to come to grips
with the fact that every boy has an inner life, that their hearts are full. Every boy is sensitive, and every
boy suffers. This is a scary idea for many adults, who, consciously or unconsciously, don't want to
acknowledge a boy's emotional vulnerability. But when we do acknowledge it, and we use this
understanding to advance our own emotional education as parents and teachers of boys, we can help
them meet the shadows in their lives with a more meaningful light.
If we teach our sons to honor and value their emotional lives, if we can give boys an emotional
vocabulary and the encouragement to use it, they will unclench their hearts. |
