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There are life skills that all of our children need, regardless of gender. Many of these skills are taught to little girls, but toxic masculinity often prevents little boys from learning the same skill set. While it may seem innocent enough at the age of five to gloss over a number of skills related to cooking or housework, it may become a problem at 25 or even 35 when those skills still haven’t been acquired, because we’ve taught our male children that it’s not just something they have to do. And it’s not limited to rudimentary household skills either. Our culture has encouraged girls toward independence while teaching boys learned helplessness.
I’m a single mother, raising both a girl and a boy. It’s not a responsibility that I take lightly. While they have a father who’s involved in their lives, the major responsibility for learning values and life skills falls to me as the full-time custodial parent. As a “woke” human who wants to raise my children without the interference of toxic masculinity, I have to examine how I was raised and how I want my children to be raised.
Perhaps it seems like a waste of time to examine how we were raised. In my experience, however, most of our behaviors are learned. If we grow up in a household where yelling and violence are how problems are addressed, we’re more likely to act out in similar ways when it comes to raising our own children.
Clearly, not everything we learned will be ideal, as our parents and caregivers were human, too. We can decide which aspects of our own upbringing we want to pass on, and also decide which ones we’d like to change. For those of us who grew up in a culture saturated with strict gender norms and double standards, we may want to do a few things differently.
Here are 15 things that I’d like to teach my son—and that I wish someone had taught my partner.
1. How to clean a house.
This is #1 on my list simply because housework is just a basic part of living. If we live somewhere, we should know how to care for it. In the interest of full disclosure, I am not one of those neat freaks who keeps everything spotless. Far from it! But I do know how to clean and regularly do so to maintain my home.
I’d like my son to learn how to clean a house. In past relationships, I’ve noticed that a man might do the dishes or wash a load of laundry and consider the house to be cleaned. Other tasks seem to be a mystery. Washing dishes isn’t actually synonymous with cleaning houses. One also has to wipe down counters and sinks, sweep and mop the floor, clean out the stove and microwave, etc. Bathrooms don’t just involve cleaning the toilet and calling it a day. There are a number of tasks in each room, and I’d like my son to have a working familiarity of them so that he can be an independent adult and also a good partner one day.
2. How to cook a meal.
Hey, I love lazy pizza night, too. Having a few take-out places on speed dial is great, but I want to teach my son to cook. He even owns an apron for when I let him help me make cookies or pizza—and he’s three. I think having a basic set of cooking skills is one of those things that every child should learn—yes, that includes boys. Even packing a lunch.
I can’t count how many men I know personally or have heard tell of who are incapable of packing their own lunch for the workday and rely instead on some female to fill this role. Feeding ourselves is a basic survival skill, and we should all learn how to meal plan, shop, and cook something to eat.
3. How to express an emotion other than anger.
This is a big one. Toxic masculinity is when we tell boys not to cry. I want my son to learn a full range of emotions that he can express as needed. Instead of funneling his sadness or disappointment into rage, he can feel free to express those feelings, too. And he can learn how anger should have an outlet of expression that doesn’t involve violence. I know that many friends have lamented that the men in their lives automatically get angry, even when what they are feeling is something more like sadness. When the anger isn’t expressed in healthy ways, it can be corrosive to relationships.
4. How to communicate effectively.
Unfortunately, our culture encourages boys (and later, men) to ignore the voices of women and to silence them. Talking over female colleagues and not listening to one’s wife are just a couple of examples of how this manifests in adulthood. But it can stem from childhood when children witness fathers talking over mothers, disregarding their instructions, and generally acting like listening is not an essential part of communication.
Still further, many boys don’t learn how to observe nonverbal forms of communication. Learning this is helpful later when they learn about consent. Communication involves listening, observing body language, and being able to open up and talk about issues.
5. What consent is and what it’s not.
We need to be teaching consent from a young age. We should never force our children to hug or kiss relatives or friends. We should, instead, teach them that their bodies are their own, and if they don’t feel comfortable being touched, that’s okay. As parents, this also means that we don’t tickle or touch a child who has asked us to stop.
As they get older, we begin to discuss how no always means no, in every circumstance. This is a great time to remind our boys that they should not touch anyone without their consent. But it’s also important to teach that when they hear a “no”, it’s important to stop—even when touching isn’t involved. Rejection shouldn’t be met with persistence; that’s called harassment.
6. Healthy sexuality.
I want my son to learn to look at human sexuality as something that’s healthy. Toxic masculinity would teach him that his desires are innate while girls have lesser desires. It would also teach him that his desires are somehow more important than hers, and more aggressive. I hope that I can teach my son that every person is worthy of respect and how they choose to express their sexuality is, frankly, none of his business.
But the double standard often infiltrates our conversations so we need to pay attention to how we talk about, and judge, other people based on the way they dress and the choices they make. Our children are listening. As our boys get older, we can even talk to them about how a sexual encounter should never focus solely on their own pleasure.
7. How to nurture others.
While we’re dismantling the toxic culture of masculinity, it’s important that we encourage our boys to care for themselves and others. Instead of smacking the baby doll out of their hands, we can realize that a nurturing child may later become a loving partner. Teaching children to be generous with their affection and capable of empathizing with another person isn’t somehow making them weak; it makes them a better human and one capable of sustaining a relationship.
I could probably spend all day listing the qualities that I want my son to learn so that he can be a happy, healthy adult capable of living independently. Those same qualities also cross over into what I’d love to see in a partner. So often, we focus on raising our kids to be good kids rather than seeing the bigger picture that one day they’ll be adults who need to live independently of us. I hope I’m raising both of my children to be able to make that transition with ease, and if they choose to be in a relationship, I hope they can be effective partners because they have those skill sets.
I have sat around with my girlfriends as we’ve all lamented about the partners we’ve had over the years and how they were set up for failure by not having a few basic skills. But do we, as parents, then turn around and teach our boys those skills or do we coddle them and help them feel entitled to grow into those kinds of men? I wonder about that as I watch my daughter cleaning up her toys while her brother continues to play and make messes. I realize that I, too, need to do better.
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This post was originally published on medium.com, and is republished here with the author’s permission.
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Photo credit: Getty Images