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This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #112, November/December, 2000. Related articles
from this issue: |
Raising Boys: Not the Same
as Raising Girls by Dr. Wade Horn |
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Try as we might to wish it otherwise, boys and girls are different. Usually, boys are more physically active, more aggressive, and less compliant than girls. Boys are also less likely to express themselves verbally and are more easily distracted than girls. These differences show up again and again, in study after study, beginning at birth. Some differences even show up in utero. Given that boys and girls are different, we have to rear them differently, at least in some ways, if we are to rear boys successfully. The notion that if we treat boys and girls the same they will turn out the same is simply nonsense. I discovered this early in my own parenting. In graduate school I had been taught that almost all differences between males and females could be attributed to socialization. My wife and I were determined to rear our children with this progressive goal in mind. When our older daughter was two, we had friends who had a son who was also two. That particular Christmas, we decided, that we would give our friend’s son a doll as a present. They in turn would give our daughter a toy pickup truck. We watched in smug appreciation of our progressiveness as our two- year-olds opened their gifts with great glee. Within minutes, our smugness turned to horror as we watched our friends’ son twist the arms of the doll into the form of a machine gun and run through the house shooting all of us. As for our daughter, she had carefully laid some tissue paper in the bed of the pickup truck, magically transforming it into a crib. Maybe, I thought, there is something to biology after all. Well, there is something to biology. Little boys are different from little girls. If we are to successfully socialize our males, we will have to take these differences into account. That doesn’t mean we should be trying to feminize boys. Far from it. Trying to make little boys into little girls not only doesn’t work, it also enrages the little boys. Little wonder we are seeing an epidemic of conduct problems in elementary school. What it does mean is that we have to help boys find ways to appropriately channel, and not merely deny or suppress, their higher activity levels and aggressiveness. That’s one reason that sports are so important to boys. It provides them with outlets, under supervised and controlled conditions, for their higher energy levels and desire for conquest. Second, we have to work especially hard at giving boys clear, unequivocal rules and boundaries. And when they violate these rules and boundaries, they don’t need exercises to help them express their feelings. They need consequences. Third, we need to understand better the deep psychological need that males have for the heroic. Males want and need to have a sense that their lives have meaning. We can give them that meaning and a sense of the heroic through things like Boy Scouts, or they will find it in gangs of their own choosing. Finally, and most importantly, we have to regularly surround our young males with caring older males who do two things: demonstrate self-control and monitor their behaviour. Recently the National Fatherhood Initiative released a television public service announcement recounting the true story of the consequences that ensued when a group of young male elephants was transported from one wild game preserve in Africa to another without also transporting the older, “bull” elephants with them. Without the presence of older male elephants, this group of juvenile elephants began to do something that elephants just don’t do in the wild. They began marauding in bands, wantonly killing other animals. This pack of “wilding” juvenile elephants especially liked to harass white rhinos, chasing them over great distances, throw-ing sticks at them and finally stomping them to death. It was only after a group of adult male elephants were transported into the game preserve that this delinquent and violent behaviour stopped. How did this happen? Did the older bull elephants bring the younger male ele-phants together to express their feelings? No! They started to enforce the rules. In no uncertain terms, the older males began to disci-pline the younger elephants. Quickly the younger male elephants fell back into line. There hasn’t been a report of a single murderous elephant since. If we want to prevent future tragedies like the Littleton school massacre, we have to take a lesson from the elephants. Little boys, like juvenile elephants, need the presence of adult males around them who monitor their behaviour and enforce the rules. And in doing so, we also have to give them opportunities to express their maleness and desire for meaning in ways that don’t involve worship-ing Adolph Hitler or Marilyn Manson. Boys will be boys. Whether or not they will grow up to be well-socialized and decent men is up to us. Dr. Wade F. Horn is President of the National Fatherhood Initia-tive, a clinical child psychologist and co-author of several books on parenting. Send your questions about dads, children or father-hood to: The National Father-hood Initiative, 101 Lake Forest Blvd, Suite 360, Gaithersburg, MD 20877, or e-mail him at NFI1995@aol.com. This article used by permission. |
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