Shaun (00:01.132)
Welcome back to Raising Men. I'm Sean Dawson. Now, the questions that we face as fathers, they're not technical parenting problems that are solved with a quick tip or a generic trick. They're often deep personal growth challenges that force us to look closely at our own behaviors and our habits. So today, we're dipping back into the mailbag to

Address two specific questions we'll draw from the collective insights that we've built with our guests and raising men. So let's jump straight into the first question. My son is only three, but he's acting tough around other boys. How early do these cultural scripts start sinking in? Now, this conditioning happens much earlier.

Than most parents realize. And in general, it's not something that you necessarily have to get your dander up about. Cultural expectations, they don't wait until a boy is old enough to read books or to scroll through social media to start setting in. Research and developmental psychology shows that boys actually arrive in this world deeply emotional.

Now, as infants, they often show a wider, more intense range of emotional expression than infant girls do. We've talked about that a lot on the show. But the cultural machinery around them might start correcting that behavior from the very beginning. And that's where things get a little bit screwy. By the time the boy turns three years old, he's already absorbing.

Some of the strict boundaries of what Tony Tony Porter formerly conceptualized as the man box. And this, you know, it it it's not necessarily unhealthy, but it's not necessarily healthy either. And like many things, there's attention, and like many things, it's important to go into it with your eyes wide open. So let's talk about Tony Porter's framework. He presented his widely recognized work on male socialization.

Shaun (02:27.306)
And he demonstrated how our communities systematically strip boys of their emotional flexibility. It teaches boys that in order to be respected, accepted by their peers, and considered a real man, so to speak, they must restrict their emotional vocabulary entire to anger or stoic indifference. So when you see a three-year-old,

Acting tough around his peers on the playground, you know, puffing out his chest or refusing to show vulnerability when he gets hurt. You're not witnessing a biological mandate to dominate his environment. What you're witnessing is the cultural forces in effect. And again, there's this tension here. You're witnessing a toddler who's reading the room. He's

Starts he's restricting his emotional expressions because he senses that softness or sensitivity leads to a loss of status among his peers. You're you're witnessing somebody who doesn't feel safe being emotionally vulnerable, and that actually is a problem. And that pattern connects directly to the structural analysis of male archetypes outlined by

Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette in their book, King Warrior, Magician Lover. It's a great book. Traditional parenting styles around and playground cultures heavily favor this warrior archetype. And that's this i it's it's very it's kind of a shallow archetype. And we praise boys when they stand their ground and when they refuse to cry after taking a hard fall. We might shame them.

For doing those things. And we can still consistently ignore or we actively suppress the lover archetype. Now, the lover archetype is the source of empathy, of deep connection, of physical affection. So when a one young boy senses that his family or his peer group only eva only values the aggressive attributes of the warrior.

Shaun (04:46.438)
And then he la then he lacks the lover archetype. Sorry, he locks the lover archetype away in the dark. He he refuses to develop that part. And part of being a modern masculine man and part of having a healthy masculinity is really having a well-rounded vision of those archetypes.

And so, you know, if if if you lock the lover archetype away, he's gonna start acting tough because he believes that toughness is the only valid option for survival in a male group. And maybe that used to be true. but it's not anymore. So as fathers, we need to recognize that our kids learn from who we are, as opposed to what we tell them to do.

We need to first model the behavior and then later we can come back with words and explain what actually happened. So to the extent you want to break the rigid conditioning in boys before it permanently solidifies, you need to actively expand the ex mo emotional and the emotional permissions in your household. You need to be more emotionally present and emotionally expressive. And that might mean and you need to kind of overcompensate.

For what the culture isn't doing. you can do this by practicing emotional literacy every day. When your when your three-year-old acts tough or hides his distress, you can call attention to it. You can you can step in, you can ask him to name his feelings, which he's not gonna be good at until he practices it sometimes. You can connect those feelings to

The actual sensations that he has in his physical body. You could say things like, I noticed that your hands were tightening up as you got frustrated, or that your face was kind of turning into a scowl. And you could say things like, It's completely fine to feel scared when that thing happened. Or and you can give him the descriptive words that he needs to understand his emotional state.

Shaun (07:06.13)
Not just out loud to you, but also internally to himself. And then that will help prevent him from defaulting to aggression. Real resilience comes from a secure base at home where a boy can drop his armor completely and just feel what he needs to feel. On several occasions, I

have told a story about the way that I deal with difficult things is to often deflect with humor. Obviously that's something that a lot of people do. And this is a reflex of mine. And and one of the things that I did was when my boy started to get emotional or he started to get very upset, I would start joking around. I would start trying to make him laugh to to to lessen the impact of what he was feeling because

Really, yeah, I didn't like to see him upset. And I also kind of felt like maybe I'm a failure as a dad a little bit if if if he ends up in that state. So I try to short circuit it. And I'll try to make him laugh. And at one point in time he taught me this lesson. He just got so he was laughing and he got so frustrated with me. He says, Stop it, Dad. Stop it. I just want to feel what I feel. Just let me feel what I feel. And

It it took me aback. He's he's he's a wise little kid. Question two is about bridging the intimacy divide. Father writes, I want my son to know that I love him, but I love you feels forced because I never really heard it when I was younger. How do I bridge that gap?

You know, I I under this is this is an incredibly common struggle for men, I think. I think that many of us were raised by well meaning fathers who provided financial safety and and physical structure, you know, toughened us up, all that sort of stuff, but lacked emp the capacity for verbal emotional intimacy. It was considered, I don't know, nonmanly.

Shaun (09:25.688)
When you grow up in that environment, your kind of emotional vocabulary, so to speak, are isn't doesn't get developed. Trying to force yourself to say the words can feel like speaking a language that you don't actually know. And that performative feeling can make you feel inauthentic and it can make you pull back even further. Now

You don't have to change your entire vocabulary overnight to show your son that he matters. So, Todd Adams, one of our guests, one of our guests and the executive director of Men Living, shared a framework on our show called the 603010 Parenting Model. It clarifies exactly how your influence works. According to his philosophy, 60% of your impact as a parent comes.

From your modeled behavior. We've talked about that a lot. Sometimes it's 90%. Sometimes I say it's 90%. Sometimes I say it's it's it's 80%. But according to his philosophy, it's 60%. 30% comes from just how you show up in the room, your energy, and your emotional stability. And then the last 10% consists of the words that come out of your mouth. And I think the the real important lesson about that.

Is we often talk about modeling and we often talk about the words, but I but we don't really talk that often about the energy and how you show up in the room, and that's an important component, too. So you're talking about that 10%. You're saying that that that you're struggling, and that that 10% feels blocked because of your childhood history, but you can still focus your energy on the other 90%. So

Look closely at that 60%. How do you model it? Are you physically affectionate? Or is that rather stilted to? What can you do that would feel authentic? And do those things. Your son learns what love looks like by watching how you move through the world. You watch what you do, not only with him, but also with his mother. If you guys have that kind of relationship with his siblings, also how you handle daily conflicts and

Shaun (11:52.483)
And and how you treat the rest of the people in the environment. Todd pointed out that if you want your son to be kind, you just simply must be a kind person in front of him. You model a healthy partnership by taking total ownership of your share of the household responsibilities and that invisible emotional labor. That doesn't mean you have to do everything, but it means that.

As a healthy man, you take ownership of it. And that approach aligns really closely with Eve Rodsky's fair play system, which demonstrates that clear, equitable accountability in domestic roles provides a secure foundation for the entire family. Now, I have a number of quibbles with the fair play system. We've fiddled around with it in our family, and I think it can be a really, really great tool.

to communicate the responsibilities that that both people share and that might that go unhidden and unrecognized and unappreciated in the relationship in a partnership. But I've also seen it used as a cudgel and I've seen it used as a cudgel by women towards men and I've seen it used as a cudgel by men towards women.

And that's I I definitely while I agree with the philosophy of the system, I also worry that it's gotten misused somewhat and you know your results may vary, but the important thing is to take, you know, that you take responsibility of the things that that are your responsibility. You take full and total responsibility and that you get

credit for that too. And that, and the same is true for your partner. you give just as much and you give the credit that is due over there as well. So then you have that 30%. So that's the 60%. Then you have that 30%, which is how you show up emotionally. It's the energy you bring to the room. And that means something I really, really struggle with staying present in particular, but also staying regulated

Shaun (14:17.964)
When your son is having a hard time. Don't let it trigger you and turn you into somebody frenetic. It means, you know, putting the phone down. It means closing the laptop. It means giving your undivided attention. And when you stand next to your son and he can feel that you're completely there with him, you are communicating immense value without saying a single word. I'm gonna say that again because I need to hear it myself.

When you stand next to your son and he can feel that you're completely there with him, you are communicating immense value. That presence builds an unshakable sense of self-worth in the young boy. He feels like he is worth your attention. What more do you need to give him in moments like that?

So finally, we can address the remaining 10%, which is just the words. And just because I love you might feel forced, it doesn't mean that you can be completely silent. Are there ways that you can express that authentically? Can you build up your emotional vocabulary? Can you say things something like, I really appreciate how hard you worked on that block tower? Or I love watching you play in the yard, or I'm really glad we got to spend

time together today. Those things are just as true. And they're just as much saying I love you as actually saying the words. And they're not going to feel like performance because they're simply true observations. So as you you get comfortable using your words like that to validate him, you'll find that that space, that that gap that you're feeling is going to shrink.

And that allows you to grow into that place where you want to be. So that brings us to the end of our QA episode today. Fatherhood, like I always say, it's not about being flawless. It's not about having a performance. It's about just being present, have a willingness to stay in the room, and let our children teach us.

Shaun (16:46.442)
along the way of what they need and bring that to them. That's the lesson that I'm teaching myself. I'll tell you, I I really fall short in this. just last night we went to dinner as a family. I had a work project that I was working on. My wife was dealing with something. It turned out to be this just absolutely frenetic thing. Everyone was on their phones or playing with stuff or

Or and it and it was this really, really negative thing. And we missed not only did we miss an opportunity to have closeness as a family, we we also, you know, it ended up in kind of everybody got really snippy with each other later on in the day. And it ended up being a really negative experience. And you know, it wasn't all my fault, but I definitely contributed to it.

And I should have done a better job. And so if if we want our sons to live with purpose, to live with excellence, then we just need to find those qualities in our own daily actions. And so that's my commitment to myself that I will do better with presentness. Thanks for listening to raising men, and you are a great parent.