Enlisting the help of others
The years from fourteen until the early twenties are for moving into the adult world, for separating from parents. Parents carefully and watchfully ease back. This is the time when a son develops a life which is quite separate from the family. He has teachers you barely know, experiences you never hear about, and he faces challenges that you cannot help him with. Pretty scary stuff.
A fourteen- or sixteen-year-old is far from ready to just be ‘out there’. There have to be others to act as a bridge, and this is what mentors do. We should not leave youngsters in a peer group at this age without adult care. But a mentor is more than a teacher or a coach: a mentor is special to the child and the child is special to him. A sixteen-year-old will not always listen to his parents – his inclination is not to. But a mentor is different. This is the time for the youngster to make his ‘glorious mistakes’, and part of the mentor’s job is to make sure the mistakes are not fatal.
Parents have to ensure that mentoring happens – and they should have a big hand in choosing who does it. It really helps to belong to a strong social group – an active church, a family- minded sport, a community-oriented school, or a group of friends who really care about each other.
You need to have these kinds of friends to provide what uncles and aunts used to – someone who cares about and enjoys your kids. These friends can show an interest in your youngsters, and ask them about their views. Hopefully they will make your kids welcome in their homes, ‘kick their bum’ occasionally, and be a listening ear when things at home are a little tense. (Many a mother has experienced a big fight with her teenage daughter, who then runs off to tell her woes to her mum’s best friend down the road. This is what friends are for!)
You can do the same for their kids, too. Teenagers are quite enjoyable when they are not your own!
OVERCOMING BOYS’ TENDENCY TO ARROGANCE
It’s possible that boys are naturally prone to a certain degree of arrogance. Until recently, boys were often raised expecting to be waited on by women. In some cultures, boys are still treated like little gods. In today’s world, the result can be an obnoxious boy that no-one wants to be around.
It’s therefore very important that boys are taught humility – through experiences such as having to apologise, having to do work to help others, and always having to be respectful to others. Kids have to know their place in the world, or the world will most likely teach them a harsh lesson.
Whenever you are treated badly by youngsters – jostled in the street by a skateboarder, treated rudely by a young salesperson, or have your house burgled – you are dealing with youngsters who have not been helped to fit in and be useful.
Teenagers are naturally prone to be somewhat self-absorbed, to fit their morality to their own self-interest, and to be thoughtless of others. Our job as parents is to engage them in vigorous discussions about their obligations to others, fairness, and plain right and wrong. We must reinforce some basics – ‘Be responsible. Think things through. Consider others. Think of consequences’. Just loving your kids isn’t enough, some toughness is necessary. Mothers begin this, fathers reinforce it, and elders add their weight if it still hasn’t sunk in.
One good strategy is to have boys involved in service to others – the elderly, disabled people, or young children whom they help or teach. They learn the satisfaction of service, and they grow in self-worth at the same time.
What if there is no mentor available?
If there are no mentors around, then a young man will fall into a lot of potholes on the road to adulthood. He may fight needlessly with his parents in trying to establish himself as independent. He may just become withdrawn and depressed. Kids at this age have so many dilemmas and decisions – about sexuality, career choices, what to do about drugs and alcohol … If Mum and Dad keep spending time with him, and are in touch with his world, then he will keep talking to them about these things. But sometimes there will be a need to talk to other adults, too. In one study, it was shown that just one good adult friend outside the family was a significant preventative of juvenile crime (as long as the friend isn’t into crime!).
Young men will try their best to find structure and direction in their lives. They may choose born-again religion or an Eastern cult, disappear into the Internet, follow Emo or Goth music and fashion, play sport, join a gang or go surfing. These pursuits may be helpful or harmful. If we don’t have a community for kids to belong to, they will make their own. But a community made up only of the peer group is not enough – it may be just a group of lost souls, without the skills or knowledge to help each other. Many boys’ friendship circles are really just loose collections that offer very little sharing or emotional support.
The worst thing we can do with adolescents is leave them alone. This is why we need those really great schoolteachers, sport coaches, scout leaders, youth workers and many other sources of adult involvement at this age. We need enough so that there is someone special for every kid – a tall order.
Today we mostly get mothering right, and fathering is undergoing a great resurgence. Finding good mentors for the kids in our community is the next big hurdle.
IN A NUTSHELL
In the years between birth and six, boys need lots of affection so they can ‘learn to love’. Talking and teaching one-to-one helps them connect to the world. The mother is usually the best person to provide this, although a father can take this part.
At about the age of six, boys show a strong interest in maleness, and the father becomes the primary parent. His interest and time become critical. The mother’s part remains important, however: she shouldn’t ‘back off’ from her son just because he is older.
From about fourteen years of age, boys need mentors – other adults who care about them personally and who help them move gradually into the larger world. Old societies provided initiation to mark this stage, and mentors were much more available.
Single mothers can raise boys well, but must search carefully for good, safe, male role models and must devote some time to self-care (since they are doing the work of two).
Our ideas about gender differences have changed dramatically over the years. For many centuries, biological difference was used as a reason to keep women’s lives in narrow roles. The waste of talent and the frustration of life chances was horrendous: women were not allowed to vote, get equal pay, own property, and so on. They were not supposed to join the paid workforce, or if they did, it was as a nurse, never a doctor; a secretary, never a boss. Turning this on its head – affirming that women could do anything men could – was one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century.
Then, for about thirty years – from the 1960s to early 1990s – it was thought that boys and girls had no differences other than