Last week, my 4yo daughter and I had a discussion about how we can get her needs met without having to go through a universally-hated tantrum first, and I've been so proud of us: she agreed (and has been following through!) to specifically ask for parental attention before she makes a request for some assistance/thing so we have a chance to refocus attention to her, and/or let her know what we need to wrap up before giving her attention/when she could expect it. The past week has been virtually tantrum-free as she has discovered asking for attention works with more peace and effectiveness than her previous strategies...but now I'm wondering why I had to teach her to ask for attention, and that this was such a novel thing for us to implement when she has an 8 year old brother. Or maybe her needing this to be taught meant she's assuming she has all our attention all the time (a very 4 year old assumption, right?) and there's some power in knowing how to ask for it. (I'm going to go overthink this for a while now)
First off, CONGRATULATIONS on such a productive conversation about tantrums with a four year old, holy cow! I also love your overthinking-- I feel for myself that when I go down these rabbit holes (the "wait, where does the societal caste structure end and where does "this is just my kid, being [insert age] begin" I rarely have a clean answer, but I feel like my brain hurts in a good way).
But mostly, you're a four year old magician holy cow.
It is always amazing when you find the hook that resonates! And the positive reinforcement happening right now every time I hear: "Mom. I need your attention!" We are laying it on THICK!
Oh jeez do I ever enjoy a good thickly lacquered chunk of parental positive encouragement. "Kjersti, guess who SLEPT IN THEIR BED THE WHOLE NIGHT LAST NIGHT!!!"
Sometimes I think the thing that's so threatening for a certain kind of cis-gendered man (and some cis women, too) about trans folks is their deep insight into the performance of gender. That it is, in fact, a performance, rather than an inalienable, fixed reality, and like any performance it can be changed or transformed. The trans men I know who "pass", and so are privy to so many ways that men, particularly white men, perform for each other to prove their manhood, are the most insightful people I know about masculinity and how it can be performed in a way that shares space rather than dominating it. It's not that it's rocket science, really. It simply requires really deeply understanding all of the choices involved, which cis-men and boys aren't taught are choices.
And part of why my trans son, who doesn't pass at all, gets so much flack is because he is daring to perform aspects of masculinity that some cis-men want to protect as their inalienable right when they're really just play-acting.
If transphobic folks of both genders could get over themselves they really could learn so much about how to make social spaces truly gender inclusive from exactly the people they fear and despise.
Really insightful comment, Asha, and it takes me back to something I've been thinking about since my Tony Hinchcliffe pieces-- most of the spaces that young cis men in particular have with each other... kind of suck... but you can't admit it. And they suck because of the performance. And so yes, the insight that many trans men have as to what is silly/obvious/notable about that performance IS a potential amazing window into "it doesn't hav to be exactly like this; we all could be getting so much more out of our relationships to each other."
Not to MENTION the things trans men could potentially teach them about actually helping the women they involve themselves with intimately to be happy and *ahem* satisfied.
Reading this has basically derailed my morning in a good way (and omg, you're daughter's portrait); the daily boys report sort of slayed me. This is one of the clearest articulations about the space that boys (men) take up I've read -- it's such a subtle thing, I talk with so many women about how impossible it feels to make men understand that part: the lack of friction, how that translates to a kind of blindness; the outsize space and the labor it demands of others to replicate ease.
I have three younger brothers and three older cousins who are like older brothers, I kind of got a ph'd in boys and the space they take...I grew up in a family that allows men take up wild amounts of space: sometimes angry and violent space. The women (not as many of us) mostly hold and tend that space. This is *so* not a unique dynamic, but in the context of a progressive political framework and culture, it's confusing, and like you're saying, maybe makes it harder to see? Or makes it harder for men to be in relationships of accountability.
I agree with Lee on emphasis on centering vs de-centering, the need for everyone to show up in an active voice. Because it's really accountability, right? Relationships are where accountability happens, as I've gotten older and learned to stop tending so much space, the thing that continues to vex me in the "how do we build the world we want?" is how to create relationships of accountability amidst the conundrum of masculinity.
Isn't it interesting how it IS both a subtle thing and yet (as you articulate so well in your own family story), it's immediately recognizable in every mixed gender space-- families, schools, workplaces-- subtle not because it's hidden, but because of its sheer omnipresence.
This comment was a real gift, so thanks for welcoming us into your deralled morning. It is about community and accountability-- the former meaning a space where we can all be, the latter meaning that we recognize that, across lines of power in particular, community doesn't mean "a space I get to be without thought and awareness."
Ohhh that last line is so helpful. A brilliant woman I know speaks of how whiteness is embodied in a deep resistance to discomfort, in more than simply a white fragility way, but in the sense that the most progressive among us might be limited to dreaming that everyone could feel the frictionlessness and unearned comfort of white men. When instead we need to dream that everyone has close enough relationships to feel trusted not despite, but through, accountability. (Separately - I adore your daughter’s planets dress!)
I appreciate you drawing out the emphasis on “centering” and “de-centering," it's a really good question to ask what work that framing is doing, and I agree that it's not one that's especially well-equipped to lead us towards solidarity and community and coalition-building.
Yeah, it's something I'm thinking about more and more, but probably still on the cusp of articulating-- if we don't know how to build the communities we're dreaming, that strikes m that we're going to need something active from everybody, rather than something passive from some and active from others.
I urge everyone who may see this to support your local Girls Rock! There are so few spaces where young femme and queer identities can exist without the shadow of boys, and Girls Rock camps/workshops/events are a seriously fun and affirming place for that! I am a long time volunteer and serve on the board of a Girls Rock organization, so I am biased :), but I put a lot of energy into it for good reason.
This is a very good pitch! I've admired Girls Rock from a distance but I think you put its value really succinctly and beautifully here "there are so few spaces where young femme and queer identities can exist without the shadow of boys."
"But what is the United States of America in 2024 if not the sum total of a million spaces that get to be defined by and for the boys?" — Wow, this gave me chills.
It's worth reading the whole thing, but here's a taste:
"One thing I will certainly give Joe credit for is that he built his audience. He started in the early days of podcasting, way before there was money to be made. But Joe also did that in a country that prioritizes white, male voices and punishes and throttles all other voices. So when I hear the want for a 'leftist Joe Rogan,' what I am hearing is that the Left wants to prioritize whiteness and specifically white maleness even more than this country already does."
I'm a person whose middle name is Jane too! She's my strong sensible determined self, and I love her a lot.
Also, as a white woman, I am learning so much about the patriarchy affects me, and how much I've been supporting it because that benefits me. It's been painful to realize I need to change, to be more aware.
But you post about your daughter hit me where it glows: my nieces and your kids and all our kids can grow up to raise up those who don't have their privilege because we took those first steps.
The world is awful, and we save it by saving those we love. Thanks for the reminder.
That's such. beautiful way to put it-- we build a better world because there are people we love so much.
Also: yay to a middle name Jane! Ida has two cousins who are also middle name Janes (you will not be surprised to learn that my mother's name is Jane and she's pretty darn great).
Also I'm not surprised at all that university creative writing classes may have some of the same dynamics as second grade ones, but I am bummed about it.
Garrett, This post was a doozy. I read it this morning and have been sitting with it all day.
My wife and I are parenting two wonderful young women (17 and 20). I, too, was raised by feminists (and Methodists! So many ists!). I grew up knowing about my privilege and how much space I take up in the world and trying (mostly successfully mainly because I’m bad at sports and kind of dorky) not to participate in the male social rituals. We have tried to raise confident, self assured, and capable daughters who are ready to take on the world. If it’s ok, I’d like to share three stories that kept running through my mind today after I read your post.
The first happened shortly after the birth of our oldest. I received a call from my wife’s grandfather. He was a figure who loomed (looms, really) large in her family. He lived a long, successful life by any measure and, though he had his quirks (who doesn’t?), he was very kind, loved kids, and immediately accepted me into the family. He was also the father of three girls. When he called he said something to the effect of, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you should be disappointed about not having a boy. People said that to me all the time. I told them that I wouldn’t trade being the father of girls for anything.” As you may imagine, I was not in any way disappointed about having a daughter. I was just gonna love whatever kid we were blessed with, but this comment from him opened my eyes to the potential cruelty of the world toward women and also the cruelty and pain he had endured and wanted to prepare me for. It also gave me a tinge of hopefulness that this 80 something year old man was fighting against it the way he knew how. That moment is burned in my memory.
We are friends with a family who have two girls very similar in age to ours. One afternoon we were with them hanging out and me and the other dad were chatting. I don’t remember why it came up, but he said to me, “If I had known earlier in life how hard the world is for girls, I’d have been a much better person when I was younger”. He’s not a great orator, but what I always thought he was saying is, “Boys take up a lot of space and it’s really hard for girls to squeeze in there. We all need to be better.”
Lastly, when my oldest was playing golf on her high school team, my wife and I had the opportunity to overhear some members of the boys golf team talking to each other at a tournament. They were talking about how the last hole had gone badly and blaming the ball, their clubs, the wind, their shoes, their coach, anyone but themselves. My daughters have the ability to make anything their own fault, even when it clearly isn’t. I believe that those boys have that internal voice also (because I do too!), but the male performance doesn’t permit them to be that vulnerable. I also think maybe society expects girls to take on that blame and scapegoats boys.
I’m not sure what to make of these three specific stories being the ones that played on repeat all day after reading your piece, but I felt like maybe I should share them?
Regardless, thank you for being you, for thinking these things through, and for building a place where we can all collaborate and learn and build together.
Nathaniel, thank you, sincerely, for this gift. I'm just realizing how refreshing (and helpful) to hear reflections like this from another dad, particularly a dad who has gotten to see his daughters grow into young adulthood. That last story about the golf guys is especially insightful, and something we don't talk about enough. Appreciate you so much.
One of my favorite things about your newsletters is how often they articulate an idea that is percolating somewhere in the experimental labs portion of my brain. I can tell you that as the daughter of a father who, 40 years ago, made choices after a similar realization himself - it really does make a difference. It took until well into my adult life to recognize and appreciate his conscious choice to parent differently than his father did and many of the girl dads he knew did. We haven't yet reached the critcal mass number of men who think as you do, but it is growing and the number is enough that those who profit from the status quo are becoming alarmed enough to push back.
Thank you for this piece. I don’t have children, so reading this was extremely informational. As you know, I work with young people a lot, and although I mentor young women, I don’t do it often, and this piece helped me realize why I haven’t had as much success. I couldn’t see the world through their eyes. This isn’t a road to Damascus event, but it will start the process I hope. This piece will help me look more critically at situations, particularly when the balance between boys and girls (or more likely young women and young men) favors males and I will be able to see the impacts, now that I know where to look.
Ted, I always love hearing you reflect on your students and your relationships with them. I love all the ways you show your care for them, including the way you push yourself to learn and grow. It's honestly really touching, because as a parent that's exactly the kind of educator I hope they encounter through their entire educational career.
I love your point about accountability and building community. I'm a Unitarian Universalist and we are in the process of building a beloved community. Some people are having trouble with the concept of accountability because they see it in a punitive rather than cooperative light. The UUA voted this year to have Love as our foundational value, surrounded by Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence and Generosity.
Isn't that so interesting? The fact that we view accountability in that way! I'm curious as to what meaning you make of it; the thing it makes me think is of how few of us have gotten to benefit from relationships and communities that expect that much from us!
This piece brought me back to Susan Raffo's essay "Helping White Men Lose Control", it's in her collection of essay, Liberated to the Bone, one of my touchstone texts), but I found the original version on her blog: https://www.susanraffo.com/blog/helping-white-men-lose-control (it's been updated for the book, worth reading there!)...
she gets in to the somatics of power and control, reading through the comments here, her thoughts speak to a lot of what we've been writing about here together. Especially the contradiction of decentering vs giving men the space to heal, participate, repair.
This is such a rich exploration! I have boys who are very kind and don’t tend to dominate the scenes they are in. But also they struggle to know how to embrace their maleness in the current world they live in. Redefining Maleness is perhaps part of what’s happening right now on a wild spectrum from toxic to gender neutral. An experience my women friends and I discuss is the way in which we as women are responsive to cues with our partners and people
In general and expect the same. So if we say for example, I’m not really enjoying this tv show we are expecting our partner to be ready to move on rather than trying to convince us that we could enjoy it, to take a prosaic example. My experience of being with a male partner is that until we have a therapeutic process around it, my boundaries are crossed a lot and I have to fiercely advocate for what I want or need. My fiends and I sometimes find ourselves saying, I’m not a man, please don’t debate with me, you need to speak to me differently. I do wonder about how our brains have formed due to our roles over millennia. There is a way in which men seem like arrows to me and women, circles in how we approach life and each other. There’s a lot that seems to be about acting upon the environment versus being receptive to it.
I think that's a really trenchant (and resonant analysis, especially your last sentence. I think one of the (many) things you don't learn how to do when you don't have to be cognizant of whether a space will be welcoming/safe/adaptive to you etc. (which as a man I generally don't, as there's a default assumption I have that all that will be true) is the skill in being fully aware of what everyone around you is signaling about what they need/want/could contribute/are feeling, etc.
Yes it makes sense! I think we all have a lot to learn. Being with my male partner has taught me to be much more forthright and learn to know and say what I want.
Garrett I'm thinking so much about this piece, and specifically about, "what systems do we all swim in that reinforce this behavior?" What you're describing of your kiddo's schooling experience sounds just so typical! And not to fault of the I'm sure incredible, hard-working staff at the school, but more the system design itself. I've been asking: okay are these systems actually just uphold and reinforce the status quo? Or to challenge it? In this case: is the system designed to reinforce or challenge patriarchy (but also white supremacy and capitalism)? Are a bunch of good folks within the system pushing for incremental change enough shift a system designed to reinforce and feed our wider systems upholding of white supremacy/capitalism/patriarchy? And even with all our counter-messaging at home, how much louder are the systems we feed our kids and ourselves into?
I think these are all great questions. One thing I'll say-- one of the things I'm immensely grateful for about our school is that while it's by no means a space that has transcended broader systems, it's a space that we (a wide variety of 'we's') share... all four of us have learned so much from a community that is alive both with all of the challenges of the current system and many many people's dreams of something different.
Thank you for this. We have 3 boys in our family, late school aged to tween and I am trying so so so hard to teach them to listen to others and to not be so loud all the time—and just talking about it with them isn’t enough.
"Just talking about it with them isn't enough"-- that really resonates (and also, thank you for parenting so intentionally!). What do you think you've learned (or are in the process of learning) about what he talking isn't enough?
I absolutely would love to pick your brain on this.
My son is 6 now and takes up a lot of space in his friend group. Talking through it isn't working and the only thing that has really seemed to impact him was when a friend of his got angry and wouldn't play with him for an afternoon. He listened then, but it took a tremendous amount of bravery from that friend to stand his ground in a healthy way. That is something that cannot expected from kids, I just feel at the end of my rope for strategies to slow my kid down in order for him to really listen to other people (at an appropriate level for a 6-year old, whatever that is!).
Hey Kevin, thanks for welcoming us into this puzzle. No need to respond if you don't have time, but I had two questions from this;
[this one may seem obvious, but I'm still curious]-- what about the friend getting angry had an impact on him? what were his reflections like about that experience?
In the conversations you've had about why he likes playing with his friends like this, what's he been able to identify about what might be driving that?
Last week, my 4yo daughter and I had a discussion about how we can get her needs met without having to go through a universally-hated tantrum first, and I've been so proud of us: she agreed (and has been following through!) to specifically ask for parental attention before she makes a request for some assistance/thing so we have a chance to refocus attention to her, and/or let her know what we need to wrap up before giving her attention/when she could expect it. The past week has been virtually tantrum-free as she has discovered asking for attention works with more peace and effectiveness than her previous strategies...but now I'm wondering why I had to teach her to ask for attention, and that this was such a novel thing for us to implement when she has an 8 year old brother. Or maybe her needing this to be taught meant she's assuming she has all our attention all the time (a very 4 year old assumption, right?) and there's some power in knowing how to ask for it. (I'm going to go overthink this for a while now)
First off, CONGRATULATIONS on such a productive conversation about tantrums with a four year old, holy cow! I also love your overthinking-- I feel for myself that when I go down these rabbit holes (the "wait, where does the societal caste structure end and where does "this is just my kid, being [insert age] begin" I rarely have a clean answer, but I feel like my brain hurts in a good way).
But mostly, you're a four year old magician holy cow.
It is always amazing when you find the hook that resonates! And the positive reinforcement happening right now every time I hear: "Mom. I need your attention!" We are laying it on THICK!
Oh jeez do I ever enjoy a good thickly lacquered chunk of parental positive encouragement. "Kjersti, guess who SLEPT IN THEIR BED THE WHOLE NIGHT LAST NIGHT!!!"
Sometimes I think the thing that's so threatening for a certain kind of cis-gendered man (and some cis women, too) about trans folks is their deep insight into the performance of gender. That it is, in fact, a performance, rather than an inalienable, fixed reality, and like any performance it can be changed or transformed. The trans men I know who "pass", and so are privy to so many ways that men, particularly white men, perform for each other to prove their manhood, are the most insightful people I know about masculinity and how it can be performed in a way that shares space rather than dominating it. It's not that it's rocket science, really. It simply requires really deeply understanding all of the choices involved, which cis-men and boys aren't taught are choices.
And part of why my trans son, who doesn't pass at all, gets so much flack is because he is daring to perform aspects of masculinity that some cis-men want to protect as their inalienable right when they're really just play-acting.
If transphobic folks of both genders could get over themselves they really could learn so much about how to make social spaces truly gender inclusive from exactly the people they fear and despise.
Really insightful comment, Asha, and it takes me back to something I've been thinking about since my Tony Hinchcliffe pieces-- most of the spaces that young cis men in particular have with each other... kind of suck... but you can't admit it. And they suck because of the performance. And so yes, the insight that many trans men have as to what is silly/obvious/notable about that performance IS a potential amazing window into "it doesn't hav to be exactly like this; we all could be getting so much more out of our relationships to each other."
Not to MENTION the things trans men could potentially teach them about actually helping the women they involve themselves with intimately to be happy and *ahem* satisfied.
Reading this has basically derailed my morning in a good way (and omg, you're daughter's portrait); the daily boys report sort of slayed me. This is one of the clearest articulations about the space that boys (men) take up I've read -- it's such a subtle thing, I talk with so many women about how impossible it feels to make men understand that part: the lack of friction, how that translates to a kind of blindness; the outsize space and the labor it demands of others to replicate ease.
I have three younger brothers and three older cousins who are like older brothers, I kind of got a ph'd in boys and the space they take...I grew up in a family that allows men take up wild amounts of space: sometimes angry and violent space. The women (not as many of us) mostly hold and tend that space. This is *so* not a unique dynamic, but in the context of a progressive political framework and culture, it's confusing, and like you're saying, maybe makes it harder to see? Or makes it harder for men to be in relationships of accountability.
I agree with Lee on emphasis on centering vs de-centering, the need for everyone to show up in an active voice. Because it's really accountability, right? Relationships are where accountability happens, as I've gotten older and learned to stop tending so much space, the thing that continues to vex me in the "how do we build the world we want?" is how to create relationships of accountability amidst the conundrum of masculinity.
Isn't it interesting how it IS both a subtle thing and yet (as you articulate so well in your own family story), it's immediately recognizable in every mixed gender space-- families, schools, workplaces-- subtle not because it's hidden, but because of its sheer omnipresence.
This comment was a real gift, so thanks for welcoming us into your deralled morning. It is about community and accountability-- the former meaning a space where we can all be, the latter meaning that we recognize that, across lines of power in particular, community doesn't mean "a space I get to be without thought and awareness."
Subtle, in the sense of oxygen (or maybe carbon monoxide is the better metaphor?)
100%
Ohhh that last line is so helpful. A brilliant woman I know speaks of how whiteness is embodied in a deep resistance to discomfort, in more than simply a white fragility way, but in the sense that the most progressive among us might be limited to dreaming that everyone could feel the frictionlessness and unearned comfort of white men. When instead we need to dream that everyone has close enough relationships to feel trusted not despite, but through, accountability. (Separately - I adore your daughter’s planets dress!)
I appreciate you drawing out the emphasis on “centering” and “de-centering," it's a really good question to ask what work that framing is doing, and I agree that it's not one that's especially well-equipped to lead us towards solidarity and community and coalition-building.
also, "15 glow and the dork stars" 🥺
Yeah, it's something I'm thinking about more and more, but probably still on the cusp of articulating-- if we don't know how to build the communities we're dreaming, that strikes m that we're going to need something active from everybody, rather than something passive from some and active from others.
Also tag yourself, I'm "dork stars."
I urge everyone who may see this to support your local Girls Rock! There are so few spaces where young femme and queer identities can exist without the shadow of boys, and Girls Rock camps/workshops/events are a seriously fun and affirming place for that! I am a long time volunteer and serve on the board of a Girls Rock organization, so I am biased :), but I put a lot of energy into it for good reason.
This is a very good pitch! I've admired Girls Rock from a distance but I think you put its value really succinctly and beautifully here "there are so few spaces where young femme and queer identities can exist without the shadow of boys."
Love Girls Rock!
"But what is the United States of America in 2024 if not the sum total of a million spaces that get to be defined by and for the boys?" — Wow, this gave me chills.
Also, re: the Joe Rogan discussion, I thought Kamau Bell had a really good take on it: https://wkamaubell.substack.com/p/okay-fine-ill-do-it
It's worth reading the whole thing, but here's a taste:
"One thing I will certainly give Joe credit for is that he built his audience. He started in the early days of podcasting, way before there was money to be made. But Joe also did that in a country that prioritizes white, male voices and punishes and throttles all other voices. So when I hear the want for a 'leftist Joe Rogan,' what I am hearing is that the Left wants to prioritize whiteness and specifically white maleness even more than this country already does."
good point (from Kamau!)
I'm a person whose middle name is Jane too! She's my strong sensible determined self, and I love her a lot.
Also, as a white woman, I am learning so much about the patriarchy affects me, and how much I've been supporting it because that benefits me. It's been painful to realize I need to change, to be more aware.
But you post about your daughter hit me where it glows: my nieces and your kids and all our kids can grow up to raise up those who don't have their privilege because we took those first steps.
The world is awful, and we save it by saving those we love. Thanks for the reminder.
That's such. beautiful way to put it-- we build a better world because there are people we love so much.
Also: yay to a middle name Jane! Ida has two cousins who are also middle name Janes (you will not be surprised to learn that my mother's name is Jane and she's pretty darn great).
Thanks for another thoughtful essay Garrett! As a public university teacher of creative writing, this resonates. I also thought of the short story "Boys" by Rick Moody when I read your daughter's litany: https://jerrywbrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Boys-Moody-Rick.pdf
Thank you Sybil-- I haven't read "Boys" before and am now grateful for it!
Also I'm not surprised at all that university creative writing classes may have some of the same dynamics as second grade ones, but I am bummed about it.
I'd never read this story, but I'm so glad I have now.
Garrett, This post was a doozy. I read it this morning and have been sitting with it all day.
My wife and I are parenting two wonderful young women (17 and 20). I, too, was raised by feminists (and Methodists! So many ists!). I grew up knowing about my privilege and how much space I take up in the world and trying (mostly successfully mainly because I’m bad at sports and kind of dorky) not to participate in the male social rituals. We have tried to raise confident, self assured, and capable daughters who are ready to take on the world. If it’s ok, I’d like to share three stories that kept running through my mind today after I read your post.
The first happened shortly after the birth of our oldest. I received a call from my wife’s grandfather. He was a figure who loomed (looms, really) large in her family. He lived a long, successful life by any measure and, though he had his quirks (who doesn’t?), he was very kind, loved kids, and immediately accepted me into the family. He was also the father of three girls. When he called he said something to the effect of, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you should be disappointed about not having a boy. People said that to me all the time. I told them that I wouldn’t trade being the father of girls for anything.” As you may imagine, I was not in any way disappointed about having a daughter. I was just gonna love whatever kid we were blessed with, but this comment from him opened my eyes to the potential cruelty of the world toward women and also the cruelty and pain he had endured and wanted to prepare me for. It also gave me a tinge of hopefulness that this 80 something year old man was fighting against it the way he knew how. That moment is burned in my memory.
We are friends with a family who have two girls very similar in age to ours. One afternoon we were with them hanging out and me and the other dad were chatting. I don’t remember why it came up, but he said to me, “If I had known earlier in life how hard the world is for girls, I’d have been a much better person when I was younger”. He’s not a great orator, but what I always thought he was saying is, “Boys take up a lot of space and it’s really hard for girls to squeeze in there. We all need to be better.”
Lastly, when my oldest was playing golf on her high school team, my wife and I had the opportunity to overhear some members of the boys golf team talking to each other at a tournament. They were talking about how the last hole had gone badly and blaming the ball, their clubs, the wind, their shoes, their coach, anyone but themselves. My daughters have the ability to make anything their own fault, even when it clearly isn’t. I believe that those boys have that internal voice also (because I do too!), but the male performance doesn’t permit them to be that vulnerable. I also think maybe society expects girls to take on that blame and scapegoats boys.
I’m not sure what to make of these three specific stories being the ones that played on repeat all day after reading your piece, but I felt like maybe I should share them?
Regardless, thank you for being you, for thinking these things through, and for building a place where we can all collaborate and learn and build together.
Nathaniel, thank you, sincerely, for this gift. I'm just realizing how refreshing (and helpful) to hear reflections like this from another dad, particularly a dad who has gotten to see his daughters grow into young adulthood. That last story about the golf guys is especially insightful, and something we don't talk about enough. Appreciate you so much.
One of my favorite things about your newsletters is how often they articulate an idea that is percolating somewhere in the experimental labs portion of my brain. I can tell you that as the daughter of a father who, 40 years ago, made choices after a similar realization himself - it really does make a difference. It took until well into my adult life to recognize and appreciate his conscious choice to parent differently than his father did and many of the girl dads he knew did. We haven't yet reached the critcal mass number of men who think as you do, but it is growing and the number is enough that those who profit from the status quo are becoming alarmed enough to push back.
This made me smile so big, for you and your dad.
Thank you for this piece. I don’t have children, so reading this was extremely informational. As you know, I work with young people a lot, and although I mentor young women, I don’t do it often, and this piece helped me realize why I haven’t had as much success. I couldn’t see the world through their eyes. This isn’t a road to Damascus event, but it will start the process I hope. This piece will help me look more critically at situations, particularly when the balance between boys and girls (or more likely young women and young men) favors males and I will be able to see the impacts, now that I know where to look.
Ted, I always love hearing you reflect on your students and your relationships with them. I love all the ways you show your care for them, including the way you push yourself to learn and grow. It's honestly really touching, because as a parent that's exactly the kind of educator I hope they encounter through their entire educational career.
I love your point about accountability and building community. I'm a Unitarian Universalist and we are in the process of building a beloved community. Some people are having trouble with the concept of accountability because they see it in a punitive rather than cooperative light. The UUA voted this year to have Love as our foundational value, surrounded by Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence and Generosity.
Isn't that so interesting? The fact that we view accountability in that way! I'm curious as to what meaning you make of it; the thing it makes me think is of how few of us have gotten to benefit from relationships and communities that expect that much from us!
This piece brought me back to Susan Raffo's essay "Helping White Men Lose Control", it's in her collection of essay, Liberated to the Bone, one of my touchstone texts), but I found the original version on her blog: https://www.susanraffo.com/blog/helping-white-men-lose-control (it's been updated for the book, worth reading there!)...
she gets in to the somatics of power and control, reading through the comments here, her thoughts speak to a lot of what we've been writing about here together. Especially the contradiction of decentering vs giving men the space to heal, participate, repair.
what a powerful resource, thanks Kate!
Ooo, I wanna read that!
This is such a rich exploration! I have boys who are very kind and don’t tend to dominate the scenes they are in. But also they struggle to know how to embrace their maleness in the current world they live in. Redefining Maleness is perhaps part of what’s happening right now on a wild spectrum from toxic to gender neutral. An experience my women friends and I discuss is the way in which we as women are responsive to cues with our partners and people
In general and expect the same. So if we say for example, I’m not really enjoying this tv show we are expecting our partner to be ready to move on rather than trying to convince us that we could enjoy it, to take a prosaic example. My experience of being with a male partner is that until we have a therapeutic process around it, my boundaries are crossed a lot and I have to fiercely advocate for what I want or need. My fiends and I sometimes find ourselves saying, I’m not a man, please don’t debate with me, you need to speak to me differently. I do wonder about how our brains have formed due to our roles over millennia. There is a way in which men seem like arrows to me and women, circles in how we approach life and each other. There’s a lot that seems to be about acting upon the environment versus being receptive to it.
I think that's a really trenchant (and resonant analysis, especially your last sentence. I think one of the (many) things you don't learn how to do when you don't have to be cognizant of whether a space will be welcoming/safe/adaptive to you etc. (which as a man I generally don't, as there's a default assumption I have that all that will be true) is the skill in being fully aware of what everyone around you is signaling about what they need/want/could contribute/are feeling, etc.
Yes it makes sense! I think we all have a lot to learn. Being with my male partner has taught me to be much more forthright and learn to know and say what I want.
Garrett I'm thinking so much about this piece, and specifically about, "what systems do we all swim in that reinforce this behavior?" What you're describing of your kiddo's schooling experience sounds just so typical! And not to fault of the I'm sure incredible, hard-working staff at the school, but more the system design itself. I've been asking: okay are these systems actually just uphold and reinforce the status quo? Or to challenge it? In this case: is the system designed to reinforce or challenge patriarchy (but also white supremacy and capitalism)? Are a bunch of good folks within the system pushing for incremental change enough shift a system designed to reinforce and feed our wider systems upholding of white supremacy/capitalism/patriarchy? And even with all our counter-messaging at home, how much louder are the systems we feed our kids and ourselves into?
I think these are all great questions. One thing I'll say-- one of the things I'm immensely grateful for about our school is that while it's by no means a space that has transcended broader systems, it's a space that we (a wide variety of 'we's') share... all four of us have learned so much from a community that is alive both with all of the challenges of the current system and many many people's dreams of something different.
Thank you for this. We have 3 boys in our family, late school aged to tween and I am trying so so so hard to teach them to listen to others and to not be so loud all the time—and just talking about it with them isn’t enough.
"Just talking about it with them isn't enough"-- that really resonates (and also, thank you for parenting so intentionally!). What do you think you've learned (or are in the process of learning) about what he talking isn't enough?
I absolutely would love to pick your brain on this.
My son is 6 now and takes up a lot of space in his friend group. Talking through it isn't working and the only thing that has really seemed to impact him was when a friend of his got angry and wouldn't play with him for an afternoon. He listened then, but it took a tremendous amount of bravery from that friend to stand his ground in a healthy way. That is something that cannot expected from kids, I just feel at the end of my rope for strategies to slow my kid down in order for him to really listen to other people (at an appropriate level for a 6-year old, whatever that is!).
Hey Kevin, thanks for welcoming us into this puzzle. No need to respond if you don't have time, but I had two questions from this;
[this one may seem obvious, but I'm still curious]-- what about the friend getting angry had an impact on him? what were his reflections like about that experience?
In the conversations you've had about why he likes playing with his friends like this, what's he been able to identify about what might be driving that?