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When my oldest son was three, he picked out a pair of pink boots at a children’s store. The proprietor scooped the boots out of his hands. She whispered to me, “I’ll pretend we’re out of his size. I know you don’t want him wearing pink boots.”
Now my son is 12, and it remains one of his favorite tales. Suffice it to say that I told her it was fine with me if he wore pink boots and that they actually were his size. He proudly took them back and placed them in our bag. We won some kind of battle that day, but then went home where his dad asked, “Why did you let him pick out pink boots?” The reaction from my thoughtful husband in regard to his son’s pink boots was not from closed-mindedness but from a valid desire to protect his son from being teased.
Through the past decade of raising my sons, I’ve been shocked at the ways that the feminine brings up shame or is discouraged for boys, even by otherwise thoughtful people (including mothers). There’s more awareness about the negative aspects of genderizing in regard to girls, but the patterns around boys are equally destructive unless we meet them directly.
Because I’ve pioneered a Holistic Pelvic Care practice for women and write about female creative energy, people often think it’s ironic that I have three boys. But to me, it’s no accident. In order for boys to be seen, they need to be with people who have an intact feminine presence.
The nature of my work in the wordless realm of the physical and energetic patterns of the body has taught me to pay attention to subtleties: breath, presence, eye contact, body language. This is the realm of the feminine.
Boys and men are masters in the wordless realm. Because a touch or a gesture conveys more meaning to them than words, it’s my primary mode of communication with my sons. Perhaps it was their time out in the field as hunters that attuned males to the more physical and less verbal mediums of communication and interpersonal exchange. Though they’re adept in navigating without words, this skill is easily unrecognized because they don’t (or perhaps can’t) tell us what they’re experiencing.
What our sons need — and our daughters, too, of course — is to be seen. They need us to bear witness to their beauty so that they may trust and more deeply embody the essence of who they are.
To be seen requires our presence, an attention not of length but of depth — a soul-to-soul meeting that says, I see you. I know who you are. I’m glad you came. Recognition is a form of honoring, and recognition of our children’s true essence is one of the greatest gifts we can give them.
Because we are women, we often seek connection through the words we share. In attuning to words, we mothers may miss our sons’ need for presence and recognition. When one of my sons holds up a spaceship that he has built for me to see, he is saying, See what I can make! When he asks that I watch him ride up a steep hill or jump his skateboard, he’s saying, See what I can do! When he shares a battle creature or fighting technique, he’s saying, See how strong I am!
I may notice the exquisite details of what he’s sharing or I may be in the midst of mothering tasks, but I do my best to give my full presence. It may be brief, but it’s a meeting from my center to his that I give because I know that he needs me to bear witness to him. If I can reflect back to him the truth of his beauty, he grows in his own knowledge of himself as a whole, radiant being. In time, he owns what is rightfully his: the beauty of his own soul.
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Tami Lynn Kent is a women’s health physical therapist and the founder of Holistic Pelvic CareTM where she utilizes her ability to read energetic patterns of the body. Kent maintains a private practice and an international training program in Portland, Oregon. She has authored three previous books. Her latest, Wild Mothering: Finding Power, Spirit, and Joy in Birth and a Creative Motherhood (Atria Books, May 7, 2024), is a newly updated edition of her classic, Mothering from Your Center. Learn more at www.wildfeminine.com.
