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Soundbites from William
Pollack's Real Boys

January 2001

These soundbites from Real Boys tell in William Pollack's own words his feelings about boys in America. The headlines are by the staff of The Massachusetts News.

I firmly believe that as a society the time has come to encourage women to trust their instincts when it comes to mothering a boy.

For as society begins to put a premium on “emotionally intelligent,” verbally capable, empathic, loving men, there could probably be no better way to cultivate such “new men” than by starting to cultivate such “new boys.”

So if we’re beginning to officially revise the Boy Code so that it’s considered a plus for boys and men to have these special qualities, let us also revise this code so that it’s considered a real plus for boys to remain close to the people who are often best positioned to teach them these qualities - their mothers.

But how can this be done? How, you may wonder, can we simply revise the Boy Code? What happens when I teach my son to be sensitive and empathic and he comes home with a broken nose?

While it certainly is not easy, many mothers are indeed finding ways to fight back, buck the code, and foster sons who are both close to their mothers and successful within their contemporary peer culture.

Debt of Gratitude to Feminist Research
As the book itself will show, “real boys” have much in common with “real girls” - more than we often tend to believe - and scholars and writers in the new psychology of men and boys owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those researchers who went before us to create a “revolution” in women’s studies. Although my research derives from many years of work with boys and men, it is important to recognize the important influences that the “new” psychology of women has had on this entire field.

I would like to mention my particular appreciation of the seminal work of Carol Gilligan on girls’ “voices” whose influence is clearly noted in this work, and that of the core faculty of the Stone Center at Wellesley.

Boys Are In A ‘Gender Straitjacket’
I’ll discuss how and why society places boys in a “gender straitjacket.” Without being aware of doing so, society is judging the behavior of boys against outmoded ideas about masculinity and about what it takes for a boy to become a man. These models (many of which date from the nineteenth century) simply have no relevance to today’s world.

Yet if boys don’t conform to these ideas, society has ways of shaming them into compliance.

By placing a boy in this gender straitjacket, society is limiting his emotional range and his ability to think and behave as freely and openly as he could, to succeed in the ever-changing world in which we live.

Boys are pushed to separate from their mother prematurely. Mother is expected to “cut the apron strings” that tie the son to her and, indeed, that connect him to the entire family. As early as age five or six, many boys are pushed out of the family and expected to be independent - in school, camp, at all kinds of activities and situations they may or may not be ready to handle. We give our boys in early adolescence a second shove - into new schools, sports competitions, jobs, dating, travel, and more.

The problem is not that we introduce our boys to the world - that’s what parents should be doing - it’s how we do it. We expect them to step outside the family too abruptly, with too little preparation for what lies in store, too little emotional support, not enough opportunity to express their feelings, and often with no option of going back or changing course. We don’t tolerate any stalling or listen to any whining. That’s because we believe that disconnection is important, even essential, for a boy to “make the break” and become a man. We do not expect the same of our girls. In fact, if we forced our daughters to disconnect in the same manner as we do boys - with so little help and guidance - we would expect the outcome to be traumatic.

I believe that boys, feeling ashamed of their vulnerability, mask their emotions and ultimately their true selves. This unnecessary disconnection - from family and then from self - causes many boys to feel alone, helpless, and fearful. And yet society’s prevailing myths about boys do not leave room for such emotions, and so the boy feels he is not measuring up. He has no way to talk about his perceived failure; he feels ashamed, but he can’t talk about his shame, either. Over time, his sensitivity is submerged almost without thinking, until he loses touch with it himself. And so a boy has been “hardened,” just as society thinks he should be.

Astounding Research?
A recent poll taken of children as young as nine years old showed that only 40 percent of boys spent almost all weekend with their parents, as opposed to 50 percent of the girls.

Common Sense
How you treat a boy has a powerful impact on who he becomes.

Adult Pressure About Sex Causes Problems
On the one hand, the boy is becoming a man, with a man’s body and a man’s sexual appetites. He feels pressure, from society and his peers, to perform as a man - to make out, have a girlfriend, have sexual intercourse. On the other hand, we as parents and teachers encourage our boys to focus on the emotional bonds they can develop with girls and young women. We ask them to respect their female peers’ feelings about what sexual behavior feels appropriate, comfortable and right. As a result, adolescent boys wonder when and whether it is appropriate to begin having sex and how they should go about it. What will their peers think of them if they respect a girl’s wishes and “wait”? What will their parents think if both girl and boy agree to have sex?

“At school,” Ralph, sixteen, told me, “they teach us to respect girls. We’re supposed to treat them like women. They also teach us about AIDS, which is very scary. They say we shouldn’t rush into sex. But, if we do have intercourse, they tell us, make sure you wear a condom. Everybody listens very carefully, and agrees in class. But, then, a lot of guys go around bragging about how many girls they’ve done it with. Everybody wants to know if you’ve scored or not. There’s a lot of pressure to have sex with a girl.”

“How do you handle the pressure?” “Well, I think I want to wait, but I’m not really sure why. I feel pretty messed up about it.”

The decision of whether and when to have intercourse is perhaps the most daunting one, as regards sexuality, that a teenage boy may face. But his life is made up of a thousand other concerns and questions about how to behave in situations that involve girls and sexuality.

Pressure is on the Boys
All too often, girls are legitimately encouraged to explore their feelings and to communicate assertively. Boys, however, are lectured at and told that their job is to respect a girl when she says “No.” The attitude seems to be that boys don’t have their own confusion, as if they’re sexual machines, poised and ready to go at all times.

The Final Solution
[A]dolescents who shared dinners with their families five times a week were least likely to use drugs or be depressed, and most likely to excel at school and have a healthy social life.