making more space for kids to be who they are

in education totally

however I can't change that over overnight right

so one of the things that I really focus on

and I encourage parents to focus on

is see the boy in front of you

see your boy see who he is

and make space for him as he is in your home

welcome back to raising men today I'm

thrilled to welcome Jennifer Fink

a prolific writer

whose byline has appeared in myriad publications

and a mother of four boys

whose everyday life is obviously anything but quiet

her book which is Building Boys

Raising Great Guys in a world that misunderstands males

offers a powerful look at how to support boys

in today's complicated culture

and her background

writing for healthcare and education audiences

gives her a sharp lens on what really matters

Jennifer thank you so much for joining us

welcome and I can't think of a better

more suited topic than your book

Building Boys I am so glad you're

here thank you so much

you know they

they say write the book that you need

that's basically what I did

I wrote the book that I wished that I had had

probably 20 years previously

well thank you so much for

for doing it and I am so excited to talk with you today

now you've been writing since 1998

and you're raising four boys

and I uh

I can imagine what that's like

my mom was in the same situation although uh

we're we're

we're limited to two and it's

and it's a boy and a girl

tell us a little bit about your journey

and what drew you into writing about boys

and parenting

and how becoming a mother of four shaped your voice

um my oldest son was born in 1997

I started writing in 1998

those two things are intrinsically linked

I can imagine intrinsically linked

my background is in nursing

so that's what my actual degree is in

and that's what I was doing when he was born

but I had always enjoyed writing

and I didn't know until afterwards that uh

most nurses when they graduate and they start working

they don't miss writing papers

that is not normal for most nurses

I kind of miss that aspect

interesting yeah

I kind of miss that and then um

as you know

as anybody who has children knows

especially that first year

you spend a lot of time just trying to keep them busy

trying to fill the hours

trying to not go crazy with boredom

and so uh

one particular day I had him in the stroller

we had walked to the library

something to do

and I'm looking at the books on the shelves

and there was this book Handbook of Freelance Writing

which I'd never heard of I picked it up

I'm looking at it

and this book talked about what this career was

how to do it

and it was written by a guy who was a registered nurse

from rural Wisconsin

same as me who made that transition

I'm like huh

so that was really the start

that was the start and the other part of it

where it's intrinsically linked to being a parent

I think this is true for a lot of parents

it was definitely true for me

once I became a parent

I became brave in a way I wasn't before

you

you realize that you can do things

and you are willing to take a stand on things

in a way that

I didn't have that kind of strength before

and so it was I'm doing this for my kid

maybe I can do this for myself too

and that was how I started writing

I initially started writing for uh

nursing magazines you know

write what you know that's where I was in the world

yeah and how the writing about boys came about is

I was trying to survive and understand my

own world I I had four brothers

I have four brothers I have four brothers

I have a sister but

being one of the children is not the same

as trying to parent these boys

when I'm like I do not even know why they are doing

what they are doing yeah

and that's where it started

yeah that really echoes my own journey and really um

I I I never missed I never missed writing I

I uh uh

but I really did miss interactions like this

like having discussions with people like you

and my career used to

I used to do this all the time and then it

it kind of waned away and and I

and I started to miss it and then I have my boy

and I watch my boy and I watch my girl

and I'm not too worried that my girl

is gonna be able to navigate the world

um yeah

she's she's fierce and she's powerful

and she's graduating into a world that is gonna

welcome her but my boy is wired differently

and he's not wired differently from other boys

he's wired differently

than the world would prefer that he's wired

and I realized that I needed to make a study of this

and I might as well do it in public

right and

and that's

that's why you and I are here having this discussion

and that is why the subtitle of my book is

a World That Misunderstands males yeah

because that is one of the major themes that I saw

as I was raising these boys

and trying to support them in being who they are

in a world that wasn't necessarily

very welcoming of that sometimes

and anybody who is raising children right now

you uh

minor now young adults

but we can talk about systemic issues

we can talk about changes that we need to make

at a cultural level yeah

I can't wait for all of that to happen

my kids are growing up right now

I need an answer tomorrow

that's exactly right exactly exactly

yeah I

I think that yeah

you I mean

you're right

that boys are misunderstood in a lot of ways

what do you think are some of the biggest things that

that people like parents and educators

what are what are the things that

people consistently get wrong about boys

and how did your experience and research show you that

that was a problem

one of the biggest things that I have Learned

through doing research so talking to other smart people

um interviewing them for articles that I was working on

and then on our podcast

we had on Boys podcast for 7 years

yeah um

I Learned that developmentally

male and female development

have different and unique paces

so broadly speaking

and I'll just put out this generality right now

there are certainly

lots of familiarities between males and females

um we have and share many

of the same capabilities but on the whole

males are born at birth

they are less mature physically

cognitively than females

and then that pace of development is different

as they are growing so broadly speaking

the parts of the brain for instance

that handle you know

language and impulse control

mature more quickly in girls than in boys

by adulthood we get to relatively the same places

but when we're talking about by adulthood

we're really talking about

you know mid to late twenties right

and your path is pretty much defined by then

I mean it's been defined

by the way that your teachers have interacted with you

and how well you did in college

and how well you did in high school

how well you did in elementary school

and that's scary so when you are looking at

you know a four year old boy and a four year old girl

a five year old boy and a five year old girl

think about preschool think about kindergarten

there are distinct differences that are developmental

and yes some boys are ahead

some girls are behind

but asking them to do the same things

and expecting the same outcomes isn't really fair

and if

if educators and if parents don't understand that

then it's very easy for the boy to become the problem

right and when boys start getting the message

that there's something wrong with them

that they are the problem really

really easy to check out it's really easy to think no

this place is not for me right

right and

and as they get older it's really

really easy for them to seek out affirming

yes you know

some sort of maladaptive affirming

um

kind of ecological niches where

you know that might not be

that's not necessarily healthy either

if the only places that are telling them

that they are good and wanted and

and that they can be themselves

are places that aren't healthy

well guess what

they're gonna go to unhealthy places yes

yes one of the other things where I see a

a misunderstanding and it

I personally

think that it is born out of good intention

over the time that I've been raising boys

so my my oldest

I said was born in 97 the youngest was born in 2006

I was actively raising teenagers and twins during

you know the me too era

yeah

crucial time in our history collectively

a really important time to look at hey

we've let some behaviors go that we shouldn't have

this is harmful this is not okay

so parents became really really concerned

appropriately so I want to raise good guys

great excellent

but then in practice

sometimes that means we're freaking out about things

I don't think we need to freak out about

because when a little boy acts violently

when he picks up a stick

when he turns something into a toy gun

this does not by definition mean he's

on the path to being a mass shooter

that's right when he says something stupid and sexist

and uses language that we're like

oh you got that from the manosphere

you're going to be a bad it's not necessarily true

right we tend to overreact sometimes

based on what little boys are doing

because we're afraid

they're gonna become big men doing that

and that path is not clear

that doing this as a boy

does not mean you are going to become this as a man

and Sean

you can probably talk to that even better than I can

because you were a boy yeah

not only that I was very

I was very experimental as a boy

I tried all sorts of crazy shit that

you know frankly that I am not proud that I did

and I want I

I I remember thinking oh

I'm gonna try this and see what happens

and I can see that happening in my boy

and I want him to I want him to feel free to do that

but I also want him to understand that um

that he needs so I'll

I'll give you a I'll give you a story

yeah um

that happened about about a year and a half ago

he was in um

he was in school pre pre K OK

and he had a buddy

and he and this buddy

would just get up to all sorts of mischief in school

and one day I heard from the teacher

she said something very concerning happened today

and I said what happened

we have to pause right there Shawn

yeah parents

if you have a boy

you are going to have multiple phone calls

and emails that start with that phrase

something concerning happened

it felt like it was weekly during

when he was in pre K

he had a very difficult time like adjusting

and yes

I felt like I was in the principal's office once a week

and and so

this is one of these cases and

and the teacher said to me

she said

lake was slapping himself in the face

hard enough to leave a Mark today

and that was very concerning to me

and I picked him up from school and we were walking we

we we live close enough to our school to walk in

so it's the

it's a nice little time that we have together

yeah we were walking home that day

and I said to him I said hey

I heard from your teacher

that you were slapping yourself in the face

really hard today hard enough to leave a Mark

and he goes

he kind of laughs he goes yeah

yeah he says

he says me and Dennis

we were frustrated at ourselves

for not getting the spelling words right

and so we thought

this is a way to punish ourselves for getting it wrong

and so we just slap ourselves in the face whenever we

got it wrong

and I was like OK

OK I

I and I thought for a minute

I couldn't

I I

I really admired the ingenuity of this approach

and you know

frankly and I said you know

here's the thing

it's your body

you can do whatever you want with it

I don't want to see you hurt yourself

but it's your body

I said but I need you to understand

that slapping yourself in the face

like that freaks people out

perfect and they get the wrong idea

perfect so just think about that

and he goes huh

OK I'll just do it at home then

as far as I know he never did it again and

but it really threw me for a loop

I was like how do I reinforce the overall

strategy yeah

while also giving him the boundaries of understanding

the way the rest of the world

your brain

is not working the way the rest of the world

wants it to work yeah

and that's actually a really good thing

but you also need to understand

you need to be a rational consumer

of what other people expect

so that you can do

if you wanna do the wrong thing

you're doing it on purpose and that's fine

I think you handled that so beautifully

and this is part of the fun of raising boys

if you are open to it

if you can let yourself be open to it

because I gotta tell you

as somebody who grew up as a girl

yeah that never occurred to me as a study technique

right ever ever ever

ever like

the boy brain and the things that come up

are just endlessly fascinating to me

yeah and the fact that

it made perfect sense to him and his friend

yeah and hidden behind all that already in

in pre K or you know

transitional kindergarten

they knew well

we can't hit other people

right they knew that we can't do it to each other right

yeah we can't do it to each other

we have to do it to ourselves

so this makes sense

yeah and I think you handled it so beautifully because

thank you you know

you had this input from the teacher

and you didn't bring it up in an accusatory way

in a you're doing something wrong way

it was hey

I heard this from your teacher

what is this all about yeah

tell me about it yeah

and and I've Learned over time

that the teacher's word isn't gospel

she's got you know

20 kids running around it's chaos in there

she doesn't necessarily see what's going on

and the boy does I mean

he knows he knows what the deal is

and so if I just give him the space to tell me and I

and I you know

I want him to feel comfortable coming to me and being

and sharing anything and so that's another thing

we try and cultivate yeah

and but you know you'll get

I'll get a story from the teacher

and then I'll get a story from the boy and it's

they're not reconcilable and then I'll ask him I'll say

well this is what your teacher said

can you help me get to the bottom of it yeah

yeah

it's also such a good example of one of those things

he's young yet

you're gonna get more and more

and more of these stories

where the teacher tells you that

and as a parent aren't you kind of like

what am I supposed to do about that like I

I don't know

what I'm supposed to do with that information

it sort of sounds like a self

it sounds like a self limiting problem right

he's not gonna hurt

himself hard enough to really cause harm

so yeah yeah

that's right and so

you know there's no permanent damage here and right

but you stop doing it and so there you go

and and we have had we did have circumstances too where

you know there are things that happen at school

and then you hear his perspective and like yeah

that's important and sometimes

a lot of times it for it ends up coming down to

yeah that's not really something you can or should do

at school yeah

school is not the place school is not the place

and sometimes it is there was more going on than maybe

the teacher saw at that moment

I mean I had

I had a son that got in trouble

and I think he was probably in about 7th grade

at this point

cause he hauled off and he hit another kid

okay that is clearly against the rules of school

it is also like yeah

this is

this is not the kind of behavior that I'm teaching

or condoning either

like there are other ways to solve problems

we work on these things

but then as you get into it

the backstory was like this kid had been

you know kind of doing some constant harassing

and picking on the hat of another kid

you know and knocking this hat off all the time and

and just this pick pick pick

pick and anybody who's ever been in school knows

this stuff goes on right

absolutely and that day

my kid decided he had enough of it

and he hit the other kid

not good consequence at school

we talked about it uh

I didn't have a problem with the school

having a consequence for it

because this is a clear rule

but at the same time I'm not gonna double down on it

right because I think you already know this

it was done then for those

those boys it was done

it didn't turn into anything else

it didn't linger on everybody ended up

they all played on the same uh

baseball team together yeah

and it was a more functional relationship after that

I am not saying that hitting people should be

how we solve our problems right

but that if a 7th grade boy does that

it's part of him low

it's part of him growing and learning

I don't know yeah

I I would also point out that your son's

instinct to be a protector

right in that moment is a good thing

right and that that is actually masculinity

you know that's healthy

and that is something we want to cultivate

and so the game there the tension is

how do we cultivate your instinct to be a provider

or sorry

your instinct to be a protector in that circumstance

with the fact that it is forbidden to hit people

right so what do you do

how do you manage that

and that I mean

that's a real tough needle to thread

I mean just going to the adults

hey this kid is knocking this other kid's hat off

isn't gonna work and so

you know it's

that is a really really

really tough situation to deal with yeah

um I'm curious

what would you have done do you think

now you're not this far in your parenting right

you haven't had all those stages up to it

but I'm curious what your instincts are

you know I had another

a similar situation well

it's not actually kind of the opposite situation where

um

my boy was at the park and he

and his his

friends were playing a game

and there were some girls that were kind of

messing with them and not like

they were actually probably flirting

in a sort of way

that was not really recognizable as that right

and my boy kind of menaced this girl

and my boy is very big he's 6 years old

but he's probably the size of a nine year old

he's he's very big

and so he like

looked at this girl and gave her this face

and menaced her just like

and growled at her and she

she cried and she went she

she went to her dad and cried

and I flipped my top and I called out to him

and I brought him I

I told him to come to me and he came to me and I said

listen you

I saw you menace that girl and we do not menace people

I said you are a protector

your role is to make people feel safe

and that girl did not feel safe

and she did not feel safe because of you

that is not we do not do that

we are the opposite of that and um

and he was very upset he

he gets very

very upset when I get crossways with him like that

and um and it and I kind of ruined the day really

but I felt it was really really important to to

to nail that down and in the case of what you

were talking about like

I I suspect that I'm gonna have to deal with this

he does view himself as he

he recognizes that he's bigger than all the other kids

and he recognizes that he has a role to play there

and I think that in that circumstance

I might have sat him down and I might have said

you know what what happened here

and he would tell me his side of it and I would say

you know what could you have done

what do you think you could have done in the

in the fullness and in retrospect

what do you think you could have done

to solve that problem in a way that didn't involve

actually hitting this other kid

yeah my guess is he would say nothing

it was the only choice so like well

that's something we need to think about

and the fact is there are circumstances where

if that's the only choice

maybe that's what you have to do but frankly

it's really never okay to hit people first

and if you're defending yourself

or you're defending somebody else

from actual bodily harm

then it's appropriate to use force like that

but I mean

he was just messing with the kid and knocking his his

the the kid's hat off

and that's and that's approaching the line

but it's not over the line

I don't think so you know

that's something we need to think about but man

I don't you know in my heart of hearts

I feel like your son did the right thing

and that's where the tricky part comes sometimes right

so you you have the conversations

and that after reflection and sharing of your values

I think is so important yeah

and parents you know listen

we are doing this all in real time right

yeah our kids are acting in real time

we are acting in in real time

you did not expect ever

that you were ever gonna have to say to your son

you know uh

hitting yourself in the face freaks people out

you're not prepared for this ever

we are we're all doing it in real time

but when you can have those conversations

and reflect on it

without demonizing what they have done

you can share your values

you can share your family rules

school rules community rules

I love how you are defining for your son already that

you know

your protector role is to make people feel safe

yeah that is such a a boy friendly

easy to understand language

that can be applied in lots of different ways

so all of our kids are going to do stupid shit

all of them

doesn't mean they're a bad boy

doesn't mean they're gonna become a bad man

it means that we have

we have these opportunities for these discussions

and over time we continue to share our values

our expectations of them help them think about what are

some other ways we could handle this

and most people most people

even if we are not having these conversations

with our sons I think we should

but even if we're not

most people are not going to be handling things at 45

the same way they did when they were eleven

I know

that is actually a really difficult thing to get

into our heads for me

for me especially I

I tend to see two points

and then I draw a line across those two points

and then

I behave as if we're at that extension into infinity

and it's so like I don't

do things the same way that I did when I was 10

no I've Learned so much since then it

it and it

I think from this perspective now

having young adult children

and having done so much of that worrying

and forwarding projecting

it's one of the most harmful things that we

as parents do to ourselves

yeah and then ultimately to our kids

because when I am reacting to a seventh grader

or a five year old

based on what I think this behavior might look like

when he's 25 or 45 ignoring the fact that

there's a lot of brain maturation

that's going on in between

that's not helpful for him

and it's really really not helpful for me

because it puts just all of this pressure on it

and yeah because I have four children and I got to see

them go through these developmental stages

at a certain point after the first one

I'm like oh

so like 13 to 15 is just kind of a really crappy time

yeah and things get better and sure

some of that is parenting

but some of it is they just grow up

yeah I

I think you know

I mean it feels like

it feels like we can control them

and it feels like we're

we're sculpting them but we're not

we're tending to a garden

and they're gonna grow how they're gonna grow

and I have to remind myself that of that all the time

and I just have to make sure that the right water's

there and the right

you know fertilizer is there and and that's

and that you know

the garden is contained

and there's no predators in there and

and and all of that stuff

but that's really all you can do is

is create the environment

it's terrifying

because we all want to think as parents

that if we do the right things

we will get these good outcomes yeah

we want to think that

but we also know people who did all the right things

and guess what stuff still happened yeah

you can be a great parent

and you can still have a kid

who makes a really bad choice

you can be a great parent

and still have a kid who struggles with addiction

all of these things are true and it's

terrifying to realize that

and we kind of do have to push it aside a little bit

I think to get through our day to day lives

because if you dwell on that

well that can feel pretty hopeless too

and that's not helpful either

yeah

I feel like your sons

you know were coming of age at a time that was

where the pendulum was was really

really far over in in

in one direction

in a way that probably felt really excluding to them

and I think that the

I think that there's a lot more awareness now that that

that that's not that that's not healthy

that we need to have a holistic vision that that um

wanting to be there and and help women and girls

is not mutually exclusive with helping men

it's not it's not they're

we're not opposed to each other

it's it's about making

it's about cultivating kids

and I I think there's a lot more awareness now but

but when you were dealing with it

I don't think there was

how do you feel like society is changing and and

and I mean do you think that it's getting better or

or or worse and how

I feel like there is much

much more acknowledgment of the issue right now

at least now we are collectively having conversations

and bringing to the forefront hey

um boys

broadly speaking

are not doing as well in school as girls

and haven't been for a long time and this is a problem

and when it was a problem for girls

we took some action and look

we had these great outcomes

maybe we should think about that

we are talking about the fact that the vast majority

of suicides across all ages are male

that's a problem

we are starting to talk about these things

and so I think that that is good

because that's the first step

like the awareness is there

I think we still have a lot of work to do in terms of

filtering that down into our

daily interactions with boys

into figuring out how to create environments

that help boys thrive and it is 100% possible

to create environments where boys

and girls and non binary children can thrive

it is possible

but we the grown UPS often get stuck on um

our own stuff and part of this it is

we say it's not a zero sum game and it's not

but when it comes to funding

it kind of is a zero sum game

and I think that's where some of the grown up arguments

end up breaking out

because there's only X number of dollars

and how are we going to spend them

and where are we going to spend them

um for most of us as parents

it's not helpful to get caught into that

yeah I think that um

there still needs to be so much more education

for parents and especially for

those going into education

you know yeah

male development and talking to and listening to boys

and because

there are a lot of people who have um

great intentions but they've never really interacted

yeah with a with a little boy

and when boys start getting messages

that what they are doing is wrong

we already talked about how that can be really harmful

and and just snowball as they go through

so I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done

on the ground yet yeah

I I would actually slightly modify

the way that you framed that

when boys get the messages

not that what they're doing is wrong

but that who they are is wrong right

and so yes

it's not okay to disrupt the class right

it's not okay to go around and

and and hassle people

while everybody's supposed to be working

that is something you did it

it's not now

your urge to do that is part of who you are

and there's you're right there are healthy

ways to let that out and healthy times to let that out

and that's

that's the thing that's the

the nuance that we need to somehow communicate to them

you know one of the things that it's really easy to get

to fall into the trap of feeling like oh

this is a societal problem

and there are societal problems

and we face cultural headwinds

and tailwinds all the time

but the fact is that I can't

I can influence that slightly

but I cannot fix whatever society decides to do

if society decides to have a really extreme

me too movement when my kid is 18 years old

and I am in the situation where you're in

then that's just the deal

and I'm gonna have to figure out how

to train my boy to get the best result out of his life

in that

environment yes

and that's the challenge so

you know it's fun to talk about that philosophy

it's fun to kind of go down into it

and all these are the problems and

and this is all the stuff

and there needs to be more male role models

and male teachers in elementary school

well I'm not gonna affect that

but I can affect the way my son looks at the world

and I can affect the way that I interact with him

and so what I'm really really interested in

are the tactics that I can do

to help give him a healthy sense of masculinity

and a healthy sense of who he is

and all of that and so

one of the things that I did

because like you

I can't single handedly change the school

or the society right

so there were definitely times when my boys

you know they were getting the message

who they are and what they wanted

it was just wrong there was no room for it

and Sean it's everything

from I got a call from school because my kid

I think he was in kindergarten

maybe first grade

they were drawing giraffes in art class

right and he drew a pile of poop at the back end of his

and I mean

that went over as well as he thought it would right

like his friends all thought that was great

guess what his teacher didn't

so he got in trouble then he felt terrible

then I got called to the school

I mean it was this whole thing right wow

there's literally a book called everybody poops

like there are other ways we could have handled this

and I absolutely

think that we should be working towards um

making more space for kids to be who they are

in education totally however

I can't change that over overnight right

so one of the things that I really focus on

I encourage parents to focus on

is see the boy in front of you

see your boy see who he is

and make space for him as he is in your home

and in your lives

and find ways to facilitate his interest

and let those things be okay right

so yeah we had the talk about

you can't draw poop

when you're working on art projects

at school but yeah

they poop and at home 100% fine

hundred percent yeah

um it

it it

it was things like um

making room for them to do riskier things at

home that they could do other places

like I tolerated bike ramps off of all kinds of things

I had to close my eyes and not look sometimes yeah

my youngest son took over a third of our garage

and I prioritized his garage time

more than I prioritized his homework sometimes

yeah because for him

he was a very hands on experiential learner

so for him tinkering with a machine

that was important to who he was in his soul

in his being

and he didn't have any other outlet for that

he didn't have an outlet

they don't do that in 5th grade at school right

so if that was something he needed

then that was important

and something I prioritized for him

yeah I had a um

I had an experience along those lines yesterday where

so my boy's been having a little bit of a tough time

at his after school care and um

and this week

I happen to have a lot of time off in the afternoons

and so I've been getting him early

and yesterday he's been talking about getting into golf

and so I took him to the driving range and uh

we just went to the driving range together and I'm

I'm terrible at golf

and I started off the whole process by

like showing him how to hold the club

and showing him how to stand

and showing him how to swing and all of this stuff

and I I

started to get this kind of resistance from him

and it was it was starting to go in a direction

that it wasn't gonna be fun

okay and I finally just shut up and I said

you know here's how to be safe

and here's how not to hurt anybody

just start hitting balls he wanted to figure it out

and he got so much enjoyment

out of just swinging away at that stupid ball

and every time the ball went 10 feet in the air

he was like dad

look I hit it in the air and look

I hit it past that puddle and he can not

and I was sitting there

and I was hitting balls 200 yards all in the air

and some of them were going straight

and some were going sideways

and some were just shanks off the ground

and some were all over the place

and I was I had this tremendous amount of frustration

I was I had a miserable experience

because I was sucking at golf from

from my point of view

and yet the ball was going crazy

and he was banging balls all over the place

some rolled in the grass

some bounced off that like went all over the place

and he had more fun

then I did way more fun yeah

and it's just cause he was

he was just doing his thing

and I had to let go

and I had to like just completely not

worry about the outcome here for him

and now he's got a passion for it

oh my gosh what a great story

and I'm sorry that it was unpleasant for you

in the moment it was hard

it was hard to let go of him

it was hard not to try and get him to get the result

and and then

but golf is just a miserable experience for me

because in fact

but there's so much that like

we as adults think we know how to do

and yeah

we do know how to do a lot more than our kids do

just by virtue of being in the world longer right

it's hard when they wanna try and figure something out

and we're like yeah but I just let me

I love that you recognized that you recognized okay

this is becoming stressful

and it's threatening to go sideways

so I'm gonna just step back for a little

and it was hard yeah

it was hard

and but then you're also able

he got so much more enjoyment out of it

if we done the other thing

and you know what maybe he'll get the

maybe he'll get the fever and he'll love playing golf

and it'll be amazing or maybe he won't

and it'll fizzle out

and he'll find out that it's pretty hard

yeah and he won't like it

well that's fine yes

yes and he will

either through his own motivation and his experience

decide he wants to go further

and you know what after he messes around a while

he might be like hey

hey dad

how do you hit it so far yeah

he might ask he might not

you know and you can follow his lead

yeah it

many of us weren't parented that way

following their lead watching them for cues

but I think it is um

much more effective and more pleasant

when we stay attuned

and we're kind of watching them for

for clues think of it as a dance right

how you watch one another and adjust

yeah yeah

and I'll tell you

that does not come naturally to me at all

I really have to struggle to do it

I have to remind myself to do it and

but when I do it's

it's a really great experience

and when I put him to bed that night he

he said

he said that today was one of the best days of his life

and that's you know

I mean what else do you want right

I have a story this was from a number of years ago

I live in a small town small town

rural Wisconsin and it is um

as picturesque as you think sometimes yeah

we have this fourth of July tradition where

you know the fireworks are up at the ballpark first

the Legion team plays ball

you know the teenage kids play ball right

and then um

the lights go down and there's fireworks

then after the fireworks the lights come up

and all the kids like run on the bases

like it's just ma'am and it's fantastic

yeah and this was um

my youngest son was probably

9 ish at the time maybe and

you know there are lots and lots of kids of all ages

going from maybe 3 4 up until

you know early teens running the bases

and I look

and my son is army crawling between the bases

I'm talking down there on his belly dragging himself

I'm like yeah

what is he like I'm worried he's gonna get stepped on

all of these things uh

also I'm fully aware

that I have to take this dirty child home

and then you know

get him in the tub and all these things before bed

but I just kept watching and he rounded first

and then he rounded second and he's still going

and other kids are just running around him

it is amazing how other kids

you know do this

and once he rounded third

it dawned on me

he is trying to get all the way around this way

I have no clue why

like why would a person try and do this

it makes no sense but he did it

he rounded home

and one of his friends was there and they celebrated

like this kid just won the Olympics right

like it clearly meant something to him

and he came over and he is

as filthy as you can imagine

I mean we're talking ground in dirt everywhere and um

you know I let the whole thing happen

and we get home later

and I have a blog post about this that I wrote

which is part of why I remember it

and I can share it with you

um if you want to share it with your listeners

yeah let's

I'll put the link in the show notes

yeah and um

you know

I kind of asked him about it and he felt so proud

and he talked about it later in his bath too

and he said something to the effect of how again

something like best day and a great experience

and that'll be a good memory

yeah and he even reflected on

if you had been something like another kind of mom

that that wouldn't have happened

like I could have shut that whole thing down

sure get up

what do you think you're doing

you're all dirty that's it

shut it down

absolutely I could have shut that down

but I let it happen because I could see in that moment

I didn't understand it

but I knew it was important to him for some reason

so if it's important to him

yeah he's getting something out of it

and whether it was you know

he was testing his tolerance or his ability

or whether he could do this

it was a moment where he felt really good about

himself and what he had accomplished

alright so his clothes were dirty

guess what they were gonna be dirty coming home anyway

like that was not a big deal right

so I kind of use that as a guiding memory

even if we don't understand

what they're trying to accomplish

and it looks foolish to us yeah

if they are really into it

they're getting something out of it

yeah I think part of what's going on there is

you know

especially the our boys have this tension between

between connection and in and independence yeah

and so they they wanna feel that connection

but then they wanna assert their independence

and it seems to me like

what he was trying to do was assert his independence

from the whole crowd

the crowd is doing this running thing

and I'm gonna do this crawling thing

and part of what felt so good to him is he succeeded

he is he did something unique

like truly unique in all the world

he did something truly unique

and it's actually really tough to find things

to find places where that's true for any of us yeah

I really appreciate that framing

that's not

that's not a perspective I've had on it before

but I do see you know

he's now 19 yeah

he has been more comfortable than a lot of people

I know

blazing his own path going his own way yeah

going his own way and here's the ugly truth

about it is you could force him into a track

and it might even work

he might do the track that you want him to do

but then he's gonna figure out another way

a maladaptive way yeah

to assert his independence

and that is really what you don't want right

you'd much rather have him do it that way in the

in this kind of healthy

out front and talking about it way

as opposed to getting into gambling or porn or some

something that you don't even know about right

absolute and all of those things are so ubiquitous

and easy to access right now

and so much more now and it's terrifying

it's terrifying yes

yes I mean

our generation and those before us

you had to really really try

that's right if you wanted to gamble

or if you wanted to look at porn

that took some effort that took some doing

uh and now they're not even necessarily looking for it

and it just shows up there on their phone

wired into your brain practically

it is just out there on the phone

yeah and it's

it is that is not

it is a scary thing and so

and whereas we used to be able to rely on the

kind of gatekeepers to keep them out

you now have to instill that discipline

before they even have a prefrontal cortex

you have to somehow instill the discipline about

you know this is what's healthy and

this is what's not healthy

it's a real challenge that we face in this modern world

that just did not exist before

and there's gonna be a lot of heartache

while people try and figure it out yes

yes because um

the forces aligned against us have really

really really deep pockets

and there's a lot of profit to be made

they make a lot of money they make a lot of money

sports gambling and they're not trying to

you know they're

it's not like they're out to try to mess up your kids

it's just a side effect that they don't care about

they don't they don't care right right

I don't have any greater easy answers

but I do know that it is on all of us

as parents and concerned adults yeah

we have to have these conversations with our kids

earlier than we want to and more times than we want to

because this is the world that we're all living in

that's so true that's so true

Jennifer before we wrap up

I'd like to ask every guest the same question

and that is

if you could distill everything we've talked about

or in your book into one guiding principle for

for parents raising boys

and maybe it's something you try to live by yourself

and it doesn't have to

we don't have to distill everything

all of your wisdom down to one

but give me one operating principle that you might that

that that you think about

or that you've tried to live by yourself

or that you would like to share with the audience

I really think it can be as simple as

look at the boy in front of you

look at the boy in front of you

and facilitate his interest

look at the boy in front of you and

and facilitate him in growing

I we think that is over perfect sentiment

we overcomplicate things so much

and yes there's all these things

I have to pay attention to

porn and think about gambling

and think about how he acts at school

look at the boy in front of you and respond to that boy

yeah

yeah I think one of the

one of the things that it's a temptation that

that I think fathers have is

we almost

want our boys to live the life that we would live

if they were we were them

we want them to have achievements that we wish we had

and you know

I think that that is maligned

as trying to live through our sons

and I'm sure that that happens

I feel that pull and I don't

I have a great life and I'm proud of it

and I don't feel like I have to live through my son

but there are things that I wish

that I had encountered earlier

or things that I wish that I'd figured out earlier

that would have been so much more powerful for

me and I could have been I look back and man

I wish I done this and I wish I done that

and I want him to not have to go through that

and not have to have those experiences

and the negative side of those experiences

but the fact is that

the negative side of those experiences

is just as formative as the positive

maybe even more right

and so

you need him to you need him to go through

you need him to figure it out himself

cause figuring out for him doesn't exercise the muscle

and he will resist it anyway

yeah you just Learned that with golf

because he's trying to assert his independence tiny

tiny little thing you've been waiting

to assert his independence in a way that is

that is healthy right

right um

I I've never been a father obviously

but that tension and that

wanting to spare them

some of the pain that we have gone through

yeah I've definitely felt that

and yeah they have a pretty

pretty soundly rejected those offers all the way along

they are bound and determined to

make their own mistakes and learn the hard way

and it can be crazy making

yes and at the same time

I have to remind myself I cannot expect them at twenty

to have the kind of wisdom

and perspective that I didn't have

until I was 35 or 40

that's right like there's not a shortcut to that

so you have to let things happen and yeah

and be there you mentioned connection

that the connection is is the most important thing

they're gonna screw up you're gonna screw up

you keep coming back you keep repairing

you keep loving you keep going on

and you end up in a beautiful place yeah

yeah I feel like that connection

the the

the metaphor that comes to mind for me is like this

this it's the strong base that they can launch from

yeah right

if they have that strong connection

they can feel comfortable going out in the world

and exploring and doing all of those things

and they know there's a place

there's a nest come back to anytime they need to

even if they never come back right

even if they never need it

they know it's there right

and uh

and so yeah that just

you know

a lot of it is just being present

I think and yes

strangely it's easier to do all of the other things

than it is just to sit down and be present

and listen to what they're trying to tell you

well because sometimes the

what they're trying to tell you seems so stupid

and dumb and irrelevant in the moment right

like if you've got a kid who's super into Minecraft

and he's trying to tell you all about his Minecraft

world like my brain just goes blank

I it's very hard for me to follow that

long this is every morning for me

he's watching Minecraft videos

I let him do it for an hour a day

and he would watch 18 hours of Minecraft videos

if I let him and

and my wife and I had a conversation about this

that very thing this morning

like she says to me

you someone needs to explain to me why

how is that that is remotely beneficial to him

and I said I don't have an answer for you

I I feel the same way about it

but the fact is

he finds it entertaining and he gets value from it

and I don't want to be judgmental about that

and we we actually don't know what we're gonna do

because he's spending a lot of time watching

these YouTube Minecraft videos

watching other people play video games

I would almost rather have him

just play the video game I know that

it was mystifying to me when the world happened

where like now

they're starting to watch other people

doing the things but they kind of learn by doing that

and it is feeding a part of their brain

and yes limits on it is important I mean yeah

and I mean this is probably

me trying to make way too direct of a line

but my youngest son you know

he he played a lot of Minecraft

he watched the videos he did that

I mean

he's laying blocks and building patios and walls for

people now you know

and it's not a direct he Learned that from Minecraft

but he engaged his passion

I'll guarantee you he engaged his passion and be

was able to recognize the passion

and that what a

what a yeah

that's such a powerful statement is

it was the beginning

it was the same thing for me when I was

when I was 13 years old I was so into video games

I loved video games

that LED me into a career in electrical engineering and

and programming for computers

and it's been it's been tremendous for me

and my father I think

that

just thought it was the stupidest thing in the world

I think that is so important to talk about video games

specifically

one of my brothers is a video game designer

yeah well

now he teaches video game design to high school

high schoolers nice

and certainly we were

you know the earliest iteration of video games

he loved two things growing up

he loved video games and he loved sports

and he was either outside

you know shooting hoops

or he was downstairs in the dark basement in summer

you know playing video games

playing video games playing

and it looks like a complete and total waste of time

that's right it does

but he was also subconsciously learning

how do these games work what makes a good game

what's the storytelling what's all the

the first video games he designed were sports video

games

yeah so

not every kid who plays video games

is going to have a career in video games

but there are a lot of applicable skills

and that this is something I've written about too

um when we write off our boys interest

and kind of let them know that we think it's stupid

that's hurting them uh huh

it's hurting them

and they already get enough messages that say

who you are and what you're interested in is

is wrong so

I think we have to do our best to try and see things

through their eyes I do

and even if we don't understand it

recognize that it's important to them for some reason

so how can I live with this

how can we make space for it

yeah well Jennifer

thank you so much for sharing your wisdom

and honesty about what it takes to raise healthy

masculine men I

I can't tell you how much

I appreciate you taking the time

I hope we can stay in contact and

and I'll be calling you for advice

I will be here right now

things are in a good place

that's great and me

for me too for me too

well for those who want to dive deeper

please check out Building Boys

and Jennifer's work at Jennifer L

W fink.com

the link is in the show notes

if this episode helped you see your sons differently

please like and subscribe

and definitely share with a friend

or another parent raising boys

this has been raising men

I'm Shawn Dawson and you are a great parent

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino