Boys and the Expression of Emotions

I am a boy mom - he’s my oldest and is about to turn 8. He has not yet hit puberty and is in the early stages of creating what I hope will be lasting friendships. As a middle school counselor, half of the population I work with, obviously, are boys. They are awkward, unique, amazing, weird and fun! I have a father, a brother, and a husband - all of whom I interact with daily or at least weekly. Having been more interested in sports and games as a kid than dolls and dresses, many of my closest friends were boys growing up. Despite the necessity of needing to understand boys, I am not a boy, I don’t have the first-hand experience of what it’s like to be a boy. So often this frustrates me because I believe that right now, as a society and as a culture, we need to do more to understand the boy experience. I believe that boys and males today are living in a unique time, one where I think (hope, guess?) that we are on the cusp of changing what it means to be male in our society. I think about it a lot in my work and try to understand it so that I might contribute positively to raising socially and emotionally capable men, not only in my home but in my community.

I listened to an excellent National Public Radio podcast from the Hidden Brain this morning. It was entitled, Guys, We Have A Problem: How American Masculinity Creates Lonely Men. It was a piece hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Rhaina Cohen and Tara Boyle. It did an excellent job articulating many of the wonderings I have about working with and raising boys. It’s about a 50-minute broadcast, but I would highly recommend it if you live with, work with, or are raising boys and men. It focuses on how as a culture, we raise boys to value toughness, and independence, at the expense of emotional vulnerability which has the effect of leaving many men lonely and bereft of friendships as they age. When raising girls we value emotional literacy, thus generally ensuring that social connections are easily made and can last or be formed well into adulthood.

In much the same way that our culture does not first value independence and single-mindedness in girls, the struggle for boys is tied into the cultural ideals of masculinity where we don’t value vulnerability and sensitivity in boys. While there is still certainly much work to be done, over the past twenty years women have begun to break these barriers, rising to the top more often in academia and the workforce. It is not unusual in this day and age for women to ascribe to more masculine cultural stereotypes. It is still, however, frowned upon when boys, at a young age, show a preference for more feminine attributes. For boys softer emotions and personality traits quickly can become tangled with a perceived sexual preference, which does not correlate. Unfortunately, it still makes many people uncomfortable to think that their son might be gay, and therefore uncomfortable when those same sons show vulnerability or become emotional. These mindsets then trickle down to our boys who internalize two incorrect assumptions - one, that femininity or feminine characteristics are bad or less desirable and two, that sexual identity which runs counter to the preferred norm is also bad.

The reality is that as human beings - whether male or female, we need human companionship and connection to others for our successful survival. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theorizes that one of the three most basic needs is friendship and love. Without it, we can not reach fulfillment or self-actualization. The Hidden Brain podcast makes connections between adult males and their lack of meaningful companionship and a rise in the suicide rate for men in this age group. We can theorize and potentially prove, with further research, that the rates of domestic violence and gun violence perpetrated, generally, by adult men might be connected here as well. They may be a result of the described loneliness and frustration men experience when not able to express emotion.

So what does all this research about middle age men and their levels of personal satisfaction with their relationships have to do with our middle school boys? It should be obvious that the skills men need to be happy healthy adults should be taught now, both in our homes and in schools. We need to make it more acceptable for boys to be vulnerable, for boys to show emotion, for boys to tell each other that they value and care for each other - that they mean something to each other. Affording boys this opportunity will have wider positive outcomes, such as better performance in school, more meaningful relationships with parents and family, and in the long term, better physical health outcomes over the length of their lives.

At home we need to talk to our boys about their emotions, we need to allow them time and safe spaces to express their emotions. Fathers and male guardians have to model the expression of emotions and be willing to share expressions of love and tenderness towards their sons. At school, we need to encourage acceptance when boys become vulnerable and allow them to explore emotions beyond anger and indifference. Just like we need to change the way we view women in today’s culture, we also need to change the way we view men. Doing so will allow for greater acceptance of individuals and the creation of a more emotionally and physically stable society as a whole.

Resources:

The only two emotions men are allowed to feel and why it's a problem.
Brené Brown: Why Human Connection Will Bring Us Closer Together
Why We Should Help Boys Embrace All Their Feelings
Women Are Better At Expressing Emotions, Right? Why It's Not That Simple