How can I help my boys grow up to be healthier happier feminist men?

August 19, 2015 9:45 PM

Inspired by the EL thread and the askme on it after following this moving thread about male socialization, what can I do as a parent (specifically a mother) do to help my sons grow up to be happier and healthier feminist men in a toxic patriarchy? What resources and strategies can I add to my parenting toolbox?
posted by dorothyisunderwood to Human Relations (29 answers total)

Steve Biddulph's Raising Boys is a fave amongst my friends with sons.
posted by Thella at 10:32 PM on August 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

What is your immediate family dynamic like?


I'm female and 45. I won't link to it here because the story is too depressing, but long story short is that my 2 years younger brother is very effed up towards women underneath, primarily because my maternal grandmother and our mother were Narcissistic Personality Disordered and Boderline Personality Disordered, respectively. Overtly he seems OK with women, underneath he has effed up views.

This is understandable. It's still not OK.

I'm pretty sure my grandmother on my mom's side was a horrible person because she was incredibly intelligent, talented, and abused by her family and husband suffering from PTSD as a result of WW1 and WW2, respectively. She and her husband (my maternal grandfather) passed that on to my mother.

So many negative female stereotypes are a result of trauma. Women act out because they were/are abused. Even in little ways. Every day. Because that's how it is.

I have a son that is 4 1/2 years old. Your question resonates with me. My son has only seen me as an emotionally healthy person that curates a collection of folks around us (his father/my husband, our friends, associates, other families, etc.,) that treat everyone in the system well and are not dysfunctional.

It's definitely a "lead by example" type of thing.

I have to make small adjustments from time-to-time.

I used to be someone prone to anger towards bad drivers (I live in LA and we're in the car a lot.) WHOOPS! Now I stop complaining about how other drivers are rude or dangerous, because my son starts talking about that from the backseat and it is totally negative and he doesn't really know what he's talking about! And I'm just being judgey! Because I'm from NYC, and complaining is my culture!

---

In short, if you want to impart appropriate gender politics to your offspring, there is SO MUCH NUANCECD SELF-WORK you have to do. And you should do that!!

You teach by teaching yourself. My poor brother only advanced as much as our mom. She was kinda a wreck. Do better than whatever your default family dynamic is. This is my advice.
posted by jbenben at 1:03 AM on August 20, 2015 [14 favorites]

My mom had a great approach with this stuff.

Essentially, i was reminded that something was Just Something People Do(like the card thing) the first few times, and then unless i grossly fucked up i was just left to do it. I was, essentially, given a cookie if i did, but doing The Thing was mostly left up to me. Even at a pretty young age.

In combination with that, there was no "womens work". I took turns doing all the cleaning, and was taught to cook from the middle of elementary school. I was encouraged to cook and praised even if i did a crappy job, and then given pointers.

I didn't even realize how much i had lapped a lot of my peers until i moved out on my own around college time and perpetually ended up with a bunch of dudes who couldn't even load a goddamn washing machine, never washed the dishes, and couldn't cook anything fancier than toast and a sausage.

I'm really not trying to toot my own horn, i think just these two things made an ENORMOUS difference. Just knocking out that subconscious but-why-should-i-have-to and learned helplessness from a young age cuts down on 80% of the internal resistance to doing your share of the work.
posted by emptythought at 2:29 AM on August 20, 2015 [25 favorites]

We're early on this journey with a 2-year old, but trying to lift any perceived gender limitations. Everyone can have/wear all the colors, clothes, and hairstyles they like, play with all kinds of toys, have all kinds of emotions, all kinds of chores or hobbies or jobs. Superman can bake a cake, Barbie can repair a car. Toy trucks can be used to transport glitzy jewellery. (Latter examples inspired by a Swedish book on giving your child 100 possibilities instead of 2.) Talking about it when gender stereotypes come up. And of course trying to model equality as parents, which is a process.
posted by meijusa at 3:01 AM on August 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

My 17-year old son was raised in a house of three women with very little male influence and he's very much a feminist/humanist and aware of his white male privilege. Don't get me wrong; he can be an absolute pain in the ass kid sometimes.

I really only was purposeful in one way raising him, and it was that I never phrased job/chore requests in a way to imply that he was helping ME and thereby doing me some kind of favor.

Team Kinetic is a Team. We do things we don't want to because it makes the entire team run smoothly, not because I have an unreasonable sense of order that I'm inflicting upon them by telling them to unload the dishwasher.

My kids have jobs in the home. The expectation is that they DO these jobs because that's what teams do by definition.

I've never phrased chores as, "Hey, it would really help me out if you (mowed the lawn, took out the garbage, cleaned the counters, etc.)." It's just, "This is what you do. This is what I do."

We all do these somewhat unpleasant things WITHOUT COMPLAINING (if they complain, it counts as not doing the chore) for the increased comfort of the team.

It's not a perfect system and I will whisper confidentially to you that there's something to be said for biology and boys REALLY don't know to brush their teeth, but the end result is that none of my kids ask for a pat on the head for taking out the trash.*

*Conversely, my two adult daughters are in relationships where they DEMAND equal treatment from their partners.
posted by kinetic at 5:14 AM on August 20, 2015 [31 favorites]

If I were parenting a boy, these are the concrete things I would definitely want to do:

- teach them and expect them to do laundry when age-appropriate
- teach them to cook simple meals, maybe expect them to plan/make dinner one night a week as teenagers

It is boggling to me how many grown-ass men don't know anything about laundry or cooking, and it's not just a shame feminist-wise, it's a shame for them to be 20 years old and not know basic self care.

Also: teach them to pick out and give gifts, even if when they're younger you have to give them a bit of money to spend. It's not a Grave World Injustice, but I started getting small Christmas gifts for my family, out of my own allowance money, probably around 13 or so, and then when I got a job. My brother is 19 and has never given anyone a gift on his own, even though he's got a job now. And no one has ever trained him to even notice that that's a disparity.
posted by nakedmolerats at 5:19 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Before my boys could read, I would regularly swap gender pronouns in their books. I also just assumed or made at least half the inanimate objects they played with or saw in kids shows (trains, trucks, dolls, stuffed animals) into girls or women. Even when they named their stuffed animals, I never assumed they were boys. (With a name like Dog Food, how can you tell?)

As they got older, and would run around the playground with snacks and books bags and sticks, I’d always give them a very calm stink eye when they ran up to me and just held out their stuff or a piece of trash expecting me to take it. No, I’m not the trash can nor a magician who can teleport herself faster than you can to that recycling bin ten feet directly behind you. And I’m actually happy to carry treasures if you ask me directly and politely.

The books I suggest they read or we read aloud are likely to have female protagonists: my 6yo loves the Little House on the Prairie series and my 10yo loved A Natural History of Dragons. Now that they are older and exposed to more media and values and messages from different friends and families, I’m always wondering aloud, for instance, why Nia is the only girl ninja in Ninjago and everyone else is male and I just wonder aloud at the math of it: how is it possible in a world 50% female that there is only one female character with a name in Ninjago? And I start conversations about the stereotypical roles of Wyld Style in the Lego Movie and Hope Pym in Ant Man: ‘Huh, why on earth didn’t Wyld Style get the piece?’ ‘Wow, I’d be batshit pissed too, if I were Hope Pym.’ Etc.

We also have a chore system at home that makes all the chores concrete and obvious, not just the 'easy' ones for them. When we divvy up the stack of cards they can see all the jobs I do, and are encouraged to take on any job. My only requirements are that I give them an overview of how to do a new job (say, laundry), that we agree on what constitutes completion of the job, and that they are up to any safety challenges associated with the job (e.g. must wash hands after changing the cat litter). They get decent praise for a job well done, but I also let the kid know that his cooperation contributes to a happy functioning family, and is a way to show love for me and his brother, not just a path to praise, screen time, or money.

I’m also verbal and honest about my feelings, within developmentally appropriate ranges. I happen to be a logical, unemotive woman, and I have a bunch of traditionally ‘masculine’ interests and hobbies. When something upsets me I can seem like one of the guys or super chill but I make it a point to report out on my feelings and say, ‘I want to let you know I’m now really angry about X and this is the last chance you’ll have to deal with me on this issue before I get fed up,’ or ‘Ugh, a driver on her phone almost hit me when I was riding my bike. I never know what to do with my fury when that happens,’ or ‘Yes, this is me being sad that dad and I no longer love each other or want to be married to each other.’ Women naming and experiencing their emotions calmly is still a radical act and undermines all the ridiculous messages out there that women are predestined to be psychologically hysterical. And as kids and men they will continue to get messages that women’s feelings are open for reinterpretation, so as a single mom and female authority figure to them I’m creating at least one space where no one is minimizing or defining my feelings for me. And three, I want them as full, complex, human beings to have access to identifying and naming their own feelings and having a safe place to express them and models for how to express them in a way that maintains relationships with the ones you love and care about. I’m also always asking them to be attentive to the actual words and body language of their friends, especially female friends because those friends are getting weird messages about what’s ok to express. ‘Be the kind of friend whose friends know it’s safe to be themselves around you!’

Moderate praise and awareness-building about the feminist acts of other men in their lives is helpful, too: ‘I like that Mark’s dad is really up on Mark’s school forms because he’s the one who takes him for his check-ups.’ As is making sure you include the Dads in your conversations about scheduling playdates or potlucks or classroom needs.

Keeping myself up to date on the recent strands and infighting of feminist groups also helps because it keeps the conversation active for me, and gives me other notions and behaviors against which I can gauge my own values.
posted by cocoagirl at 5:43 AM on August 20, 2015 [35 favorites]

The best way to raise a strong, healthy child is to love and accept the child for who he or she is. If your boy wants to play rough and climb trees, accept him and love him for it. Children who feel good about themselves stand up for what is right and love and accept others without tearing them down.
posted by myselfasme at 6:18 AM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

My son is only 3, so I am definitely no expert. But this is what we're doing and I hope it bears fruit:

1. lots of non-gender-specific household tasks. My husband is really good about getting us all to clean up inside, and I am good at and sort of like yardwork, so we do stuff like that. My husband and I split the cooking (and both my kids love to help), we both do dishes, etc.

2. lots of talk about how being a boy or being a girl doesn't mean you can only play with certain toys or like certain colors (does help that I also have a 6-year-old daughter, so they both enjoy playing with the various "boy" and "girl" toys we get from well-intended relatives. It's not unusual to find them playing trains together both wearing princess gowns)

3. TALKING ABOUT FEELINGS. This is the MOST important to me. Every man in my life, nearly, has problems talking about his feelings and it is extremely detrimental to their own self development and their relationships with others. We never ever ever tell him to "man up" or anything like that (and yes, I've heard people say that to their toddler). We encourage him to use his words and tell us what he's feeling. So a lot of times this results in, "MAMA, I AM VEWWY ANGWY WITH YOU" when I have dared to put him to bed, but I like it. I like that he tells me what he's feeling and I hope that he always will. My husband was raised in a pretty "traditional" household and even though he's a liberal, progressive guy, he has trouble talking about his feelings, and it's harmful to our relationship. It's something that's gotten better as time has gone on, but I don't want my son to be in an adult relationship with somebody else, be that male or female, and be unable to express his feelings - either negative or positive - with his partner. I aim for my kids to be physically healthy, and I want them to be emotionally healthy, too.

4. Our goal for both our children is that they will leave our house with the ability to make 3-4 healthy, tasty dinners, do their own laundry, balance their own budget and clean their living space. I want both my kids to have functional, healthy adult relationships with others (be that partners, roommates, etc). When I was in college I had no patience for people who were completely helpless and couldn't do their own laundry or make their own dinner (mostly guys, but plenty of women were like this, too).
posted by sutel at 6:29 AM on August 20, 2015 [13 favorites]

I read somewhere that a study found that little girls are regularly asked how they're feeling -- like, multiple times a day -- and little boys get asked maybe once per day.

So ask your son how he feels regularly. Make it casual, make it as common as any other question.
posted by gsh at 6:52 AM on August 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

Good role modeling, especially from men. In terms of walking the walk and not just talking the talk, my partner is the most feminist man I've ever been with. It's no coincidence that his mom is a high-powered professional, a groundbreaker in her field—and his dad has been a supportive partner who prioritized her career and did his share of child-rearing.
posted by the_blizz at 7:16 AM on August 20, 2015

Coming in for just one sliver of the conversation - consent, consent, consent - which is all about healthy boundaries (for their bodies and souls and other people's) - which is more than sex, but also related to sex! Teach your little ones about it. And this involves role modeling as well. I like this list a lot as a starting point. And this is important for their feminist core no matter whom they eventually want to kiss and touch. Thank you for what you are doing - I think parenting is social justice in action in many ways.
posted by anya32 at 7:47 AM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I remember this young lady having a pretty profound influence on me as a kid...


As recently as the mid-1990s, a Swedish social commentator argued that the ‘Pippi cult’ had had a highly detrimental effect on both school children and pre-school children in Sweden. ‘Pippi-worship has turned everything upside down, in schools, in family life and in terms of normal behaviour’, the commentator wrote in a leading Swedish daily.
posted by Huck500 at 8:00 AM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Something that I think is more available to kids in general today than when most of us were kids, but should be extended to home instruction as well, is how to have and manage and articulate feelings. Emotional intelligence is not just for girls.

On a similar note, there are a number of kid- and teen-oriented workbooks that teach the 101 of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is a great thing for any human to have in their toolbox for dealing with new/scary things, confrontation, disappointment, excitement, and other general feelings. I feel like those same tools are what make good leaders, too, and we definitely want the well-rounded thoughtful ones setting examples for the others.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:13 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Hey thanks for asking this question! I was about to ask the same.

So far I've done as Mejusa has with encouraging my sons (2 and 4) to wear anything/do anything and I change the pronouns in books like cocoagirl does. It's hard though because any activity they are in, even if it's progressive, is going to have different messaging. For example, when my oldest was 2 I had him in a dance class. The girls were in pink tutus and he was in black shorts and a white top. I know other classes where the kids all wear shorts, but none where all genders get to wear tutus or sparkles. One day he did decide to wear his own tutu to class and the teachers were all super supportive so that was great. Similarly he recently chose lilac coloured running shoes. The salesperson didn't say anything and neither did I but I do worry that he will be picked on when he goes to preschool. My husband and I decided that if he comes home and is upset because he is teased about his shoes, we can offer his other plainer shoes. [Of course we would expect that his preschool would teach that boys can wear whatever they want, but kids come with preconceived ideas from their own home.] I was inspired by a mum-friend from long before I had kids who told her preschool son that she loved the way he dressed but that some days he would be brave and would wear what he wanted and ignore teasing, and other days he would choose to just 'fit in' and that is fine too.

My kids have cousins near the same age and especially with one of their female cousins they are all very rough and tumble. Our overall message is to not hurt anyone but I never say things like, "Be gentle with [female cousin]" On the other hand we do say to be more gentle with the baby and that if *anyone* is not having fun in a game then it's not a fun game and needs to be altered. I want them to know that they can say a game is too rough, too scary for them and that girls can like taking risks as well.

Very interested in tips in this thread.

Overall I do think myselfasme's message to accept your child as they are is key.
posted by biggreenplant at 8:36 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

My mom is physically disabled, which meant that with her part-time employment, my dad's full-time employment (including frequent travel), and her disability our house just didn't work unless we kids were doing lots of chores. I did my own laundry from a relatively young age, cleaned my room, made meals, cleaned the bathroom (the bathtub was my weekly responsibility starting when I was 5), swept, dusted, etc. Now that I'm grown up, I've realized that was a real blessing in disguise. I just never had that idea growing up that men weren't supposed to do household chores or were incapable of doing them. I remember thinking the other guys in my dorm at college were real idiots about the laundry. (There were instructions written on both the machine and the laundry detergent, which should have been enough guidance for anyone let alone guys with such high SAT scores. Their supposed inability to correctly do laundry was pathetic.)

Other good things my parents did:

- We read lots of books that girls traditionally read like Pippi, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables, etc. (I remember some old MetaFilter comment about there being this entire world of books that boys don't read growing up. I was surprised because I had read those books as a kid.) My parents didn't make a big thing about reading this or that book because it was about a girl. They were just good books that we read.

- My mom constantly tried to talk to me about my feelings. At times, this went a bit far. (I really wanted some distance and privacy as a teen.)

- My mom and dad discussed feminist issues with us using family history to make things concrete. I grew up with stories about my Aunt not getting listed on patents despite having been a key part of the team, my mom's experiences in the workplace, my grandma's experiences serving in WWII (both how empowering it was and some negative things that happened to her), etc.

- Lots of Free to Be You and Me messages about it being okay to cry, that I could have a doll if I wanted to, etc. (Mom was a little heavy-handed with this stuff. It started to feel like I was supposed to want a doll even though I actually didn't. Also, I cried so easily at school that I made other kids uncomfortable and was becoming socially isolated. I needed help on managing and expressing my emotions, and not just to be told they were okay.)

- The way my dad treated my mom (including all the support for her interests and her professional life) and my sister might have been the most important thing.
posted by Area Man at 8:52 AM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]

My parents talked a lot about how they divided chores equally. But in practice my mom did the lion's share of it, and they divided it in a very gender-typical way.

And looking back, this affected me in an interesting way. I didn't end up thinking they were hypocrites or anything like that. What actually happened was, I ended up with an inflated impression of the value of "men's" work. "Well, Mom does all the shopping, cooks every night, and keeps the kitchen clean and organized; and Dad washes dishes and occasionally makes spaghetti when Mom is away. And they say they share things equally. Okay, cool! So if I wash dishes and fill in on cooking once in a blue moon, I'm doing my fair share. Got it."

I wish my mom had owned the reality of the situation: "Yeah, I get stuck with most of the work around the house, because Dad never learned how to cook and clean. And I get really frustrated about that sometimes. That's why we're teaching you to do all sorts of different things, so you can do your fair share when you live with other people." I mean, ideally my dad would have learned to cook and clean. But if that wasn't going to happen (and in our particular family there were some good reasons why it didn't happen, along with the not–so–good reasons) then honesty would have been the next–best thing.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:00 AM on August 20, 2015 [12 favorites]

Whether it's cooking, cleaning, keeping up relationships with the people in their lives or caring for the little details in life that make people around them feel more comfortable, there is nothing that they, by default, "don't have to do" simply because they are men. Normalize those kinds of activities early on as something every individual needs to do to construct a comfortable, happy life, and you'll raise men who will pull their weight in a relationship.
posted by theraflu at 9:04 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

One result of the EL thread was that I started viewing my summer camp experience in a different way - we were all equally responsible for the chores and for EL, all trained in it, and women were empowered to as close to an equal level with men as our society offers. This was a Quaker camp, so the social values it pledged were lived, as well. I would say that beyond the family, it's important to give the boys opportunities to be in places where girls and women are empowered to that degree, and where they as boys are expected to take on EL and scut work to an equal degree. I can think of few better places than camps, which call on so many aspects of a person that it's hard not to see your opposite-sex peers as full humans and equals. Camps that value equality are places where girls/women occupy leadership positions, where EL is valued and expected as a norm for both men and women, and where feats of both caring and personal daring are de rigeur for all sexes, and being independent and away from the family reinforces that these are social, cultural, and personal norms, not just family norms.
posted by Miko at 9:22 AM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Back in the day, I was dedicated, along with all my other hippie friends, to raising Gender Equal children. (Does anyone listen to "Free To Be You and Me" anymore? Such great funny bits.) It didn't actually work out too well at the time. Son totally uninterested in playing house (even with his own ironing board!), outside as much as possible, dirty, loud, played exclusively with other loud, dirty little boys, until he was old enough to play with loud grubby boys in a garage band. Daughter loved pink, frilly, stuffed animals, staying inside and reading books, having girl friends over to talk, talk, talk, no interest in her collection (from Mom) of heavy duty trucks. They were, in fact, solid middle class citizens. The only F words in the house came from me.

Fast forward to now. Son's 47th birthday is today. Both he and my daughter have been high achievers, have each gone through some very rough times, and are now wonderful adults whose tolerance, understanding, and acceptance of The Other frequently puts me to shame. I'm proud of them, and I'm proud to be a CIS straight woman who helped a couple of great kids grow up. :-)

I'm posting this because it worries me that there seems to be a general attitude toward gender issues with kids that is very similar to what I grew up with in the '50's: there's right and there's wrong and if you go wrong the kid's life is ruined forever. I truly think the most important things you can give your kid is first, your own authentic reactions, and second, a loving acceptance of who and how your child is, especially when that child is not fitting into the way you'd like them to be. If you're authentic, then when the kid does something you really don't want (racist name-calling, for example) you set boundaries, because you don't like it, not because you're trying to raise a certain kind of kid. Love them, watch them and interact with them, but let them raise themselves.
posted by kestralwing at 11:35 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

We try to raise our daughter (5) sort of gender neutral in a world that's predominantly NOT gender neutral. So it's a bit of a lost cause from the start, but we try anyways. Things we do:

- Not have a television. TV is so full of gender stereotypes; you don't want to hypnotize your children with that.

- When we read her books, we favor books that are gender neutral or at least have a woman/girl in a leading role. When she was younger, books like Maisy (Lucy Cousins) would be preferred over your garden variety gender stereotyped children's book. Once you notice these things, you see the worst examples in children's literature. Women (even the animal ones) cook, clean and take care of children, where as the (animal) men have the cool jobs.

She's now starting to read, but we sometimes reverse genders when we read her a book and make sure the other parent knows about this and reads the book the same way.

- We occasionally watch children's programs on the iPad, but we carefully try to choose programs that are sort of gender neutral.

- We both drive, but I seem to enjoy it more than my wife. Nevertheless, we make sure our daughter sees a 50/50 image of who's doing the driving.

- She sees two working parents and a daddy (that's me) who does most of the cleaning and cooking.

- For birthdays we ask the other parents, friends and family to help with our endeavor to at least try and paint a gender neutral picture in terms of presents.

That said, it's still incredibly hard because of all the influences beyond our control.

Good luck!
posted by hz37 at 11:42 AM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

what can I do as a parent (specifically a mother)

Be a very caring parent so they learn what that looks like. But also:
Work on respecting yourself. Refuse to be their bitch. When they think you are supposed to be "nice" and put up with their shit because you are always nice, spell it out to them that your niceness is a personal choice and if they want to continue being horrible kids, it can dissappear.

Develop some long term goals of your own having nothing to do with the family. Get a hobby, one that isn't all about taking care of them. It is fine if you love to cook or sew, but make sure you don't handle it as just another way you slave yourself out for their benefit.

Let them express their feelings. You do not necessarily need to ask how they feel, but let them cry or be mad or be happy. Do not make their feelings taboo or act like it is some emotional burden for you or some means to manipulate you. Kids have big feels about things. Those big feels do not need to be either Fixed or suppressed. Mom can be sympathetic that they are crying about their broken toy without buying a new toy or herself getting upset. Not my toy. My feelings about it are different. No big.

Insist they learn to feed themselves, not for gender equality but because it is a cornerstone of good health. You want them healthy, even if they never marry.
posted by Michele in California at 11:44 AM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]

Set a good example, but remember that the shitheads of the world will set bad examples, so also be ready to state things plainly: "There is no such things as women's work or men's work. We're all capable of anything, good or bad. We all need to pull our weight at home and at work. Throwing like a girl is not an insult." Etc.

But also get them mixed up with girls early. They need to hang around with girls, go biking with girls, climb trees with girls, play kickball with girls, go swimming with girls, and talk talk talk with girls. They should develop friendships with girls as little people just like themselves right from the start, not wait until girls are potential mates before they start seeking them out. Discourage self-segregation into boys and girls during playtime. They are all just children, not Team A and Team B.
posted by pracowity at 12:38 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Two years ago, my son started saying rotten things about women. They can't do this, they can't do that, they always freak out... He was getting this from observing his mom, who is very anxious but really good in a tight spot. I got problems with her but she is not one to trifle with in any way and she's my son's mom and deserves his respect cause she has done some amazing and difficult things.

So we'd be in bed in the dark talking about these things when it dawned on me that he needed a girl friend, not a girlfriend, a girl friend. I had a candidate in mind and her mom agreed.

I babysat when he was two and she was 15 months and they played really rough together and now he's nine and a yellow belt and she is eight and headed for Olympic gymnastics and they climb trees and explore caves and spar. It's funny to watch her push his head down and vault him. They've been teaching each other stuff and he can do a backflip and she can kick like a mule.

This sounds really violent, but they are friends. Competitive in a good way. Always willing to drop the contest and address wounds. When they can't see each other for a while, they call. And what they have to say is about much more than rough housing. They complain about school and both their mom's dates.

When I was five, alphabetical seating resulted in me sitting with the same 3 girls for the next 6 years. I was nice to them and they were nice to me. We got in trouble for talking, ate lunch together, and they said I'd make a nice girl because my eyelashes were so long. I think that was good for me.


Gosh OP, this is probably much easier with just one boy.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:43 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]

A couple of thoughts from a man - caveat that I don't have children but I remember being one and have done some reflecting on this topic over the years.

1) I want to echo a bit of Mr. Yuck's comment. I think the presence of close female friends, if it comes about, is an amazing opportunity for a young boy. One of my best friends as a child was a neighbor girl about a year older than me. We attended school together and during summers we spent long and varied hours together, discovering rap music on television, prank-calling radio stations, playing borderline-violent, always competitive one-on-one basketball, riding bikes, walking the neighborhood, learning to negotiate the more and less rough parts of the neighborhood, eventually giving one another counsel about romantic interests, etc. We're still friends - I celebrated her birthday with her this week. This was a very early model, starting around nine years old, of what friendship could be, of what female friendship could be, and of the basic sensibility of gender parity in all interactions and dimensions.

2) It is important for at least some of the central men in your sons' lives to model emotional depth and experience beyond anger and annoyance, which are the two major emotions that men are allowed to experience in the patriarchy. If there is a biological or adoptive father in your sons' lives, all the more important that he learn to model that diversity of emotional experience. It would have been tremendously useful to me as a boy - as a man today, even - if I had ever seen my father cry, for just one example.

3) If any of your children are less than, say, 12 or 13 years old, I would imagine that you still have some amount of influence over the art they consume, in terms of music, books, movies, etc. Fill their lives with art created by women, with women's faces and women's voices making cultural artifacts of varied types.

4) Talk to them about your politics. Parents have a tremendous amount of influence over their childrens' political worldview. I still remember, as a young young child, my mother commenting negatively on our neighbor's pro-life bumper sticker. My mother is not even all that comfortable with abortion - she's pro-choice but we're Catholics - but I did learn from her that men in this case were trying, most likely hypocritically, to control women's bodies. That single conversation has really resonated with me throughout my life, and I can point to two or three other conversations with my mother that really shaped my own politics and guided me toward a more feminist worldview, even if she didn't necessarily think that's what she was doing in the moment. Ditto my father.
posted by kensington314 at 2:37 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

My guess is if you are writing a question here on this topic, you are fine and so are your sons. Being conscience of such a thing is progress. We have five sons aged 17 to 7. My advice is to at some point, maintain and own an identity outside of being a mother; fight for it if necessary, move through any guilt that might come up about it if necessary. Do whatever it takes to know and remember and develop who you are as a person. People respect that - kid people and adult people.
posted by Emor at 3:12 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've been thinking about it and realized that a lot of my parenting was based on thinking about Team Kinetic as a whole. I also went through a scary medical period (all better now) where I needed to face the possibility that my kids would be without a parent, so I wanted to ensure they could take care of each other. To that end, I also taught them:

* whenever someone is getting something from the kitchen, they've been trained to ask if anyone wants anything. Now it's natural for Thing 3 (male of the house) to make tea and ask if anyone else wants a cup;

* the kind of awesome inverse of doing this is that if someone is feeling extra lazy or needs to be pampered, they can ask someone to make them tea and it's not a big deal to do it because everyone knows in the long term we all help each other and it's not just one person who does everything;

* from a super early age, all of the kids had to help write the grocery list and prepare meals. Over the years, it's turned out that Thing 1 makes Quinoa Bake, Thing 2 invents salads and Thing 3 (male) makes Name Redacted Burritos and Tofu Stir Fry. They all have invented their own recipes with an eye on pleasing Team Kinetic;

* the rule is: You Cook It, You Clean It;

* everyone does everyone else's laundry, period.

* yard work and taking out the garbage has been everyone's job, not just Thing 3;

* even in our very small house, everyone has a dedicated alone space because survival of the Team requires private, recharging time;

* we ALL shop for each other's gifts because moms do not have a superpower that allows only us to buy things;

and lastly, when I had a fiance and it was clear that after moving in he was only going to detract from our lives, I made him leave, so they did see a relationship fail and how to deal with things that are not okay.
posted by kinetic at 4:46 AM on August 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

We're in the category of "starting early" (two boys under 5 years old), so it's lots of what others have said - flipping genders in (so many needlessly gendered) stories (seriously, they're all construction vehicles, or cartoon animals - why are they all male?), talking about gender identity and sexual preference in very soft ways (discussions of what people wear and do, who can marry who), and trying to break down gendered division of work in the home (I need to step up on this, as my wife is more productive and driven in home-care).

We have lots of little discussions about things our older boy says, because though he's young, he has some interesting views of gendered roles already, down to singing songs ("this is a boy's part, mom can't sing it / this is a girl's part, I can't sing it"). It's a process, and we keep at it.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:53 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Ensure he has a healthy male role model to emulate. By healthy, I mean emotionally healthy - a man who shows the full range of emotions, who isn't afraid to apologise, who is a feminist, etc. Mimicry is a really important but often overlooked thing in human beings. Consider how someone will change to become more like their friend group to "fit in". Unfortunately, we don't live in a gender neutral world, and if your son can see someone who is "like [himself]" behaving in a certain way, then he's likely to start aping that himself. Being around a man who behaves in a certain way will help him develop those skills too.

This person doesn't have to be his father, it could be a male relative or group leader of some kind. I still remember a guy who I met for literally only 5 minutes. I don't even know his name. I was forced to go to a Beavers group I didn't want to go to, and made it plain within about 2 minutes of arriving at the group that that was the case. This guy handled the situation superbly and managed to show way more interest and care in what I wanted than my mother did. He let me be angry, listened to what I wanted and then acted on that, rather than ignoring it. It's been over 20 years, but having a guy care about what I wanted and felt like and let me express those emotions, was transformative.
posted by Solomon at 12:39 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]