The recent and unfortunately recurring mass shootings by mostly white males is not, to me, an issue of gun control, but rather a sign that we have to take a more serious look at how we, as parents, teachers, and society, raise men.
Boys are taught that to take on the “man” role, they are not supposed to show their feelings, that they are not supposed to cry. To do so would bring on shame, as a boy who is emotional is weak — a baby, a sissy, and, heaven forbid, “a girl.” Boys are stuck in limited behavioral and emotional repertoires in becoming a man.
But repressing feelings is pretty dangerous. Think of the body as a box — the box, like the body, has a shape and size. We put things — feelings — inside it, and things also come out — expressing emotions. But if the box is expected to continually hold emotions inside, at some point, the box can’t contain them anymore, and it explodes. That’s what happens to our boys. We all have our limits, and for boys, it’s pretty toxic.
The issue of shame is a huge one here. When a man cries, we hear, “He broke down and cried.” I remember how ridiculed Dan Rather was when he expressed feelings when 9-11 broke. This whole concept has to change — crying is a breakthrough, not a breakdown. Guilt is feeling bad about something you did (a good thing) and is correctable. Shame is a sense that there is something wrong with you and is not correctable — which means there is no hope.
I can’t tell you how many boys I have worked with — in my job as a social worker — who acted out in school out of frustration that they couldn’t do their work and felt hopeless, and out of shame, got themselves out of those situations. Show me an oppositionally defiant kid, I will show you a shame-based one.
We keep hearing about men blaming women for their behavior and why they acted out. (A perfect example of this was the recent hearings on Planned Parenthood where the committeemen bullied Cecile Richards.) A huge part of it is about power, control, and men struggling with their own “unacceptable” feelings. Several things happen to boys here: the inability to control the girls’ behavior connects to the sense of male entitlement (an issue we see in spousal abuse). Another issue for the young boy is how a wider range of feelings are allowed in girls. They can cry, and it is accepted, they will even get nurtured for it (though thinking of all girls as overly emotional can hurt just as much). But as teachers and parents comfort girls when they cry, boys crave the same nurturing attention, and when they don’t get it, they are further hurt. By not being taught how to deal with his emotions and shame, the boy expresses his rage at — guess who? — the girl who rejected him and “made him do it.”
Shame becomes blame — and that is dangerous, as we’ve been seeing. We need to make it a part of our parenting, schooling, and culture to validate and accept a wider range of feelings in our boys, making sure we do not let the “box” fill up. I do have some sense of hope. The New York Mets’ Wilmer Flores became a sports folk hero when he showed tears upon thinking that he had been traded from the only home he’s had since age 16. Our hearts went out to him — to me he was the most-valuable player in baseball.
We need to do the same for all of our boys.
Stewart J. Frimer has been a clinical social worker for more than 40 years, working in child welfare, education, and in the prevention of child abuse and neglect using role theory and role play in his work.
