How Not to Raise a ‘Toxic’ Male

Being a parent, a mental health therapist, and an advocate to place kids from foster care into permanent adoptive homes has provided me insight that has been instrumental in each of my roles.

Although some of this is aspirational, none of the following is impossible;

The Great Observers

First, the foundation. Kids watch everything their parents do, even when you believe they are oblivious. So how do you fight? Every couple does. Does it deteriorate into profanities and name-calling or even physical abuse? What do your kids witness?

I’ll preface this by saying my husband and I both had the fortune to be raised in loving, unbroken homes. Never once did I so much as hear an unkind word shared between my parents despite whatever disagreements they had.

My husband and I fight, get angry, we even let things stew and simmer for a few days before resolving, which isn’t ideal, but never once has either of us used a derogatory term towards one another. I’m guessing there a few choice words he would have liked to say to me in the heat of the moment, as I have thought a few about him myself, but my kids have never witnessed child-like rage on either of our parts, never a raised hand or an uttered threat.

Like I said, aspirational, not impossible, but neither should people beat themselves up if their arguments devolve into something ugly. Kids are resilient and if parents work to improve their behavior and communicate honestly with them that sometimes parents need a ‘time-out,’ they get it.

Gender Role Conditioning

Having two daughters and a son gave me a wonderful opportunity to promote egalitarian values. My son did not sit while my daughters cleared the dinner table. On the contrary, he was expected to be just as self-sufficient when it came to learning basic meal prep, doing his own laundry, keeping his room clean. He was never waited on hand and foot. According to a 2019 article by Jarryd Bartle, The Scientific Reasons why Men are More Violent Than Women “…it has been well-documented that certain patterns of male violence, particularly against women and gender non-conforming men, are strongly correlated with a belief in strict gender roles.” Disabuse your son of this early and repeatedly.

Bartle’s article asserts, “The American Psychological Association recently issued guidelines that caution against the impact of ‘traditional masculinity ideology’ on mental well-being. This ideology was defined as ‘upholding the values of anti-femininity, achievement, avoidance of the appearance of weakness, adventure, risk and violence’…Some of these values are not inherently harmful but can be when not properly balanced or when given undue emphasis in the daily lives of men.” This is where parents can intervene.

Messaging

Kids are naturally competitive, comparing themselves with their peers to see how they measure up and boys especially are socially rewarded to be the fastest, the strongest, the toughest. Sports provide a wonderful forum for kids to develop their physical skills and to learn the value of being part of a team, but ultimately boys need to learn the only competition that ever really matters is themselves. If our sons enjoy the accolades of being the goal scorer or winning the race, they need to learn they are equally valuable as human beings when they don’t score or they come in third. Very few will be a Tom Brady and even Tom Brady suffers losses.

So, no, I’m not advocating the participation trophy mentality. If they put in little effort, then they own that. My son did the soccer and lacrosse things, but ultimately as a teen found his niche with skateboarding. He put in endless hours mastering the half-pipe, flipping his board and other stunts I am grateful not to have witnessed, but he did internalize the message through consistent hard effort he can better himself and that can never be taken away from him. A sense of self-worth cannot hinge on the accolades of others or other extrinsic, arbitrary measurements; self-efficacy is far more powerful.

Listen, Listen, and Listen some More

I cannot stress this enough. Boys need to be heard and they must be encouraged to express their feelings. This does not mean a daily interrogation as kids can sniff out parental nosiness a mile away. What it does mean is being present and attentive to allow for opportunities to unfold naturally.

Driving them to a friend’s house, kicking a ball around together in the yard, baking cookies side by side, reading them stories at bedtime all allow for your son to feel free to express himself.

So put your phone down. Nothing aggravates kids more than a parent being on their phone or they ask the parent a question only for the phone to ding with a text and the parent’s attention is diverted. Unless you are a neurosurgeon, you do not need to have your phone in your hands 24/7. I cannot tell you how many times I have counseled teens and this refrain comes up again and again. You have just effectively cut off communication and not only that, message received in terms of how valued they feel.

And Talk…

A home where debate and dialogue on pertinent topics will augment your son’s natural curiosity about the world, but also challenge him to think critically about matters. All the subjects you avoid in polite company are precisely on the table with your kids; sex, religion, and politics.

Leading up to the 2016 presidential election, my son was a voracious consumer of newspapers, Op-eds, NPR, educating himself and debating with others. On election night when the writing was on the wall, my son called me from his dorm room after midnight, admitting he was ready to punch a wall but called me instead. There was little consolation we could offer one another, but I was proud that my son educated himself to recognize who truly was the superior, more qualified candidate. He didn’t dismiss one out of hand as somehow deficient based simply on her gender.

Girls are people, too

My son benefited greatly from having an older and a younger sister. In childhood he was the typical brother in many ways, teasing the younger and irritating the older, but there was always a level of respect. As young adults, their relationships are strong and supportive and he has been one of their best cheerleaders with their academic and career pursuits over the years.

This belief translated to romantic relationships as well. My son intuitively recognized that girls are first and foremost human beings as he witnessed his mom being respected by his dad and his sisters valued as individuals. When interested in a girl, he understood the best way to initiate a relationship was to get to know her, not to engage in some superficial means of impressing her, which really would make it all about himself and his ego. And if she was not interested, he might be disappointed, but he would respect that. He would not hold all women accountable in childish wrath because he couldn’t get a date with one particular girl.

Caregiving

An unfortunate by-product of gender role expectations is that women still tend to handle the bulk of caregiving, from infancy to caring for elders. Boys learn early on to associate caregiving with being more ‘feminine,’ which denies them a critical aspect of higher functioning, that of self-sacrifice and deferring your needs to that of another.

It’s difficult to harbor hatred in your heart when you extend care to others quite different from yourself. My son saved his money from a part time job and during a college break, spent two months volunteering at a hospital in Ghana. He literally carried people in from the street suffering from malaria, malnutrition, other horrific illnesses, providing what care he could do while they waited for the one doctor. He wrapped the arm of a man whose cut would be vulnerable to infection only to see him back two weeks later and told his arm would have to be amputated. The man explained he had to remove the wrap or he would not be hired for construction work. He gambled with that risk and lost; my son saw the sacrifice that man was willing to make to feed his family. Caring for others changed him irrevocably, in a good way.

Teach them that they are not an island unto themselves

That whole provider thing-economic, protector, being expected to know how to fix the plumbing or willing to kill the spider, all of this leads to unfair expectations of what it is to be a man. Men are not born with a wrench in their hands nor with a cape bearing the letter S. Boys should be taught to recognize the value of collaboration along with competition. If they feel the pressure to aspire to be the top, the best, the one with the most toys, they will perceive most others as competition and not as allies. And if they associate weakness as ‘feminine,’ they will have nothing but derision for women in general and view them with hostility. All to preserve a sense of maximal strength they do not possess.

Men need friends, men need to be heard about their fears, their worries, their perceived deficiencies without the anxiety of being judged as less than a man. They need to know not being all powerful doesn’t make them weak; it makes them human.

Therapy is one way. As a therapist, I have yet to meet a person that led me to exclaim, “There’s someone who doesn’t need therapy!” We can all benefit from being able to confide in an unbiased individual who can simply encourage us to face our feelings and be okay with what we see. Far better to process emotions proactively than in a rage against their partner’s face.

As Bartle’s article goes on to assert, “…some features of masculinity — stoicism, toughness and self-sufficiency — can be a barrier for men with mental health issues or troubles with aggression seeking treatment.”

When my son’s first serious relationship floundered and his grades at college tanked, I knew it would take more than my supportive ear. Despite some serious initial hesitancy, he finally agreed to speak to a therapist. Months later, he began to emerge from under that dark cloud and with it had cultivated helpful coping tools. Ultimately it is courage to seek support, not weakness.

Speaking of coping…

We all have aggressive impulses, but testosterone does add a little more fuel to the fire. Because men are often still loathe to verbalize their more difficult emotions, physical catharsis-discharging tension from the central nervous system-can help defuse the expression of overt violence.

After college, my son took up boxing, going to a gym that produced a few Golden Glove boxers. He has invested much time and energy into this sport which not only channels some of his aggressive impulses, but also teaches him to respect its power. Now in grad school in Ireland, he has a community of fellow boxers; Irish, Scottish, Austrian, Japanese, all of them friends engaged in a disciplined and supervised outlet.

Men do not need to punch each other to feel better, but boxing does convey important messages; you don’t fight someone smaller than you, you don’t hit a guy when he’s down, and you stop immediately when you hear that ding. Good messages that domestic abusers obviously missed out on.

So start when your sons are young. Do not allow your son to sit for hours in front of video games or their computer screens, especially if it’s pornography which feeds the unhealthy narrative that women are less than human. Boys sitting passively for prolonged periods of time in which the central nervous system is overstimulated desperately need physical catharsis. This is not to say that either of these passive endeavors lead to violence, but it erodes boys’ visceral connection to the world in healthy, meaningful ways that bolsters their sense of self.

Aspirational, not Impossible

We speak about women’s liberation, but that has to occur in tandem with men’s liberation, the liberation from damaging messages of masculinity that harms us all. What makes for healthy men is the same for healthy women; to imbue the qualities of compassion, collaboration, self-acceptance, resilience, and self-efficacy. It may seem daunting to alter deeply-ingrained beliefs of what it means to be a man and it can be an uphill battle for parents to fight against the tide of greater societal messages, but do recognize the power to challenge a faulty narrative truly starts at home.

https://nypost.com/2019/01/16/the-scientific-reasons-why-men-are-more-violent-than-women/

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Previously Published on Medium

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