“BoyMom” Author Looks at Raising Sons in an Age of “Impossible Masculinity”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And now, we turn to the issue of modern boyhood, which is the subject of author Ruth Whippman’s new book, “BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity.” Michel Martin sat down with Whippman to discuss her surprising findings after multiple conversations with dozens of boys that actually reshaped her

views of parenting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Ruth Whippman, thank you so much for talking with us.

RUTH WHIPPMAN, AUTHOR, “BOYMOM”: Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: You know Toni Morrison once said that she wrote “The Bluest Eye,” which is her kind of first, you know, seminal work because she wrote the book she wanted to read. And it sounds like that is true of you too, that you wrote the book that you wanted to read. Is that right?

WHIPPMAN: Yes, I mean, my third son was born right as the MeToo movement was going crazy. I was suddenly, you know, a feminist, a mother of three boys, I was conflicted, and everything on the market with books seemed to be either just had this kind of certainty that I just didn’t really feel. So, either they were saying, it’s a parenting book, here’s the five tips to raise the exact feminist son that you want, or it was kind of, you know, or they were written by men, and they didn’t really explore the mother experience, or they just weren’t really — I felt like they weren’t being fully honest about the conflicted feelings involved. So, I just — I — yes, I absolutely — I needed this book. So, I was like, OK, I think I need to write it.

MARTIN: What was your initial inquiry?

WHIPPMAN: Yes, I think that it was a couple of things. It was what was going on in the wider cultural conversation because, obviously, you know, my third son was born right as the MeToo Movement was going crazy. It just seemed to be this like absolute horror show of bad news about men. I was in labor looking at my phone, and it would just be one tweet after another with yet another man being exposed as a sexual predator or a school shooter or something terrible. So, I wanted to dig into that, like, where are we going wrong on a cultural and systemic level? And meanwhile, I was very invested in this from a personal point of view, because my own boys were going completely crazy. And, you know, I was parenting these wild rambunctious boys in the shadow of this whole conversation about toxic masculinity. So, it’s really easy to think, you know, if they want a nerf gun, does that mean that they’re going to be on track to be a school shooter, or if they love to wrestle all the time, does that mean that, you know, there’s something toxic or wrong going on, or I’m doing something wrong? So, I wanted to put all those pieces in context and look at the personal and the political.

MARTIN: It seems like what you have found out in — both in your book and in an excerpt that has appeared in “The Times” that has gotten a lot of attention is that boys are hurting. Sort of describe kind of like the top line surprise for you about just how much boys and young men are hurting.

WHIPPMAN: Well, what — yes. So, I interviewed many boys of different backgrounds, you know, economically, racially, geographically. And the theme that kept coming up over and over again that really surprised me was just how lonely they were. And partly, that was to do with like actual isolation, and that’s showing up in a lot of data as well about boys spending a lot of time on screens and replacing that kind of real-life socializing with screen-based socializing. So, boys are becoming materially more isolated. But also, even the ones who did have a lot of friends, who did hang out with them, felt that they couldn’t really find that kind of intimate connection. They couldn’t talk to their friends about those intimate, personal, sort of more — you know, more vulnerable things. And those were kind of the old scripts of masculinity that were very much still in circulation. So, I think the top line was kind of learning this, but also, I think these boys felt very shut down. You know, they felt shut down from the old system of masculinity, which was like, man up, be tough, don’t show your feelings, but also, from this new kind of more progressive voices, where it was like, you know, you’re a man, you’re privileged, it’s not your turn to speak, you need to be quiet and let somebody else have a turn. So, they kind of just really didn’t know how to be — how to express themselves.

MARTIN: Tell me some about some of the boys that you met.

WHIPPMAN: There is a really, really wide range, not just in terms of, you know, economic and social and racial backgrounds, but also just in the kind of type of kids that we’re talking about, or young men, you know, some of them were very sort of isolated and slightly socially awkward. Some of them were, you know, these popular cool kids. But what was really interesting was more of the similarities in what they were saying than the differences. I think they all felt quite hemmed in and quite oppressed by these ideas of masculinity that were being forced on them. So, they all felt that it was very hard for them to like express their emotions and even for them to kind of name their own emotions to themselves. So, it wasn’t even — they found it really hard even to get to the point where they could figure out what they were feeling, let alone tell their friends about it. So, that was one thing. They felt kind of isolated. They felt like they couldn’t talk to their friends. A lot of them used the same expression. You know, kids from very different backgrounds used the same expression with me, which is, you can never let your guard down. They used the exact same phrase to describe what it was like to be a boy amongst male peers. You know, that you were always on the verge of, like, getting knocked down, or saying the wrong thing, or saying something that would, like, emasculate you in some way.

MARTIN: So, is there a particular age group that you found to be sort of most in distress?

WHIPPMAN: Yes. So, I think what I was looking at was this kind of micro generation of boys that were really hitting puberty, right, as MeToo happened. And then, went through the COVID pandemic, which obviously accelerated a lot of these kinds of trends, but, you know, they were in evidence before. And that sort of micro generation is now of voting age, they are of college age, you know. So, if you were 11 when MeToo took off, you’re now 18. And I think that generation, we’re showing that they’re moving to the right politically. They’re becoming isolated. They’re becoming resentful. I think they don’t know their place in the world. They’re dropping out of college or not going to college in the same way that girls are. There’s this whole problem with failure to launch, that this is becoming increasingly serious, you know, that while kind of young women are doing things like finding partners and going to college and leaving their parents houses, young men are increasingly being left behind. So, it was that generation that I really wanted to look at and just see, you know, what’s it like to grow up in this moment, you know, this very complex and very fraught cultural moment.

MARTIN: One of the points that you make is, is that a lot of these constructs just don’t mean anything to kids that age.

WHIPPMAN: Right. So, I think this idea of privilege, you know, it’s a very real thing. And we need to educate our boys in the history of patriarchy, the history of privilege, the history of gendered violence, and all of these things. But they are children, you know, they’re not actually responsible for those things that happened. They didn’t do this stuff. And so, I think, you know, when they look at their female peers, the concept of privilege doesn’t really mean so much to them. They’re sort of like, where is all this power that we’re supposed to have? You know, this idea that you need to be quiet because you’re so privileged. And they’re looking at themselves, they’re high school kids, they have no economic capital. It doesn’t really mean so much to them that somebody on Wall Street, he’s male will get a better job or a better salary than somebody who’s female on Wall Street. You know, it’s just so remote to them. And I think that those very blunt, very sort of broad-brush ideas of like privilege and power and oppression don’t necessarily apply to teenagers in quite the same way.

MARTIN: You know, this is a quote that stood out to us when we read the book. You wrote that, for boys, vulnerability and privilege coexist in a complex relationship. Masculine norms and expectations confer countless advantages, but they also bring significant harm. The two come together in male socialization to create a contradictory and strangely destructive combination of indulgence and neglect. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Like, what do you mean by that? How do we see that?

WHIPPMAN: Yes. So, I think this is going back to the whole thing about privilege. So, obviously, there are real advantages to being male in this world, and we know that, but there are real harms to it too. So, the system of patriarchy that, you know, tells women to behave a certain way and oppresses women also oppresses men in certain ways, too, and cuts them off from their emotions, tells them that they have to be strong and masculine and, you know, makes people project masculine qualities onto boys right from birth. And so, in some ways, boys get very indulged. You know, there’s all this research that shows that they do less chores than girls and that they get paid more for them. And, you know, all of these things. So, parents do indulge boys in some bad behavior. They let them get away with things. They somehow sort of give them this idea that they’re kind of special and they don’t have to do these difficult things. But there are also ways that they really — you know, that they’re under cared for, they don’t get that engagement with emotions. They don’t get hurt. Their feelings don’t get heard in the same way that girls’ feelings do get hurt. You know, we spend a lot of time listening to boys and male opinions, but a far less time listening to their feelings. And I think that this sort of under nurture thing is where the neglect part comes in, you know, and there are very real harms to that. And we see that with adult men, we see that they’re lonely. We see that they’re disconnected. We see that they’re disconnected from their emotions. And so, you know, this is the same system. It is complex. It’s not simple. It’s not like being a man is all benefit and no downside, you know, there are very real harms built into the system.

MARTIN: Well, you point out that, you know, there really is a difference between sort of neurologically between male and female infants, how their brains develop and also, just the impact of exposure to stress and negative parenting, which I think was maybe a shock to me, was it a shock to you?

WHIPPMAN: It was a real shock to me, because when you sort of look at the science of sex differences, and, you know, people coopt this science quite a lot, it’s quite sketchy. So, there’s this idea that boy — you know, boys will be boys. So, boys are rambunctious, they’re tough, they’re sturdy, they’re angry, they’re badly behaved. But actually, when you look at the research, a baby boy is born about a month to six weeks behind a baby girl in terms of right brain development. So, that’s the part that governs emotions and attachment and emotional regulation. So, because their brains are more immature, they’re actually more emotionally vulnerable and sensitive. So, all of the kind of stereotypes, you know, really go against what a baby boy actually is. And a baby girl is born more resilient, more independent, more able to regulate her emotions. So, because of that brain fragility, it means that any kind of adverse circumstances. So, you know, poverty or neglect or poor circumstances has been shown to have a greater impact at a population level on boys than it does on girls. But because of our ideas of masculinity, you know, what we think a baby boy is, we tend to treat them with less kind of nurture and less of that intense emotional caregiving than we do with girls. So, it becomes this double whammy. They need more care, but they end up getting less in a sense, you know, we masculinize them. There’s all this research that shows that parents use a different vocabulary when they talk with girls, that they use more emotional language, they listen to their feelings more. Whereas with boys, it’s more of this like physical roughhousing and wrestling type play. And so, baby boys and boys all the way through childhood really kind of miss out on that emotional engagement. We don’t teach them the skills in that way.

MARTIN: Do you think this is a new feeling?

WHIPPMAN: This feeling of —

MARTIN: That being having to constantly be on your guard. Do you think that that’s new?

WHIPPMAN: I think that that is an old feeling. I think that comes from very old systems of masculinity. But I think what makes it more acute now, there are various sort of cultural forces that I think are making it harder to be a boy now. So, I think that they still have these — you know, those are old stories. Men always had to kind of man up and be tough and not be vulnerable, but I think that now there’s just so many different kinds of cultural forces. I think there’s this idea that it’s time for them to be quiet from the left. They’re feeling like people are talking about them as if they’re toxic and harmful. I think since MeToo — you know, quite rightly, there’s this whole conversation about consent, which is great. But I think it means that they’ve also feel, at the same time, that they have to be extremely cautious, that they can never overstep. So, at the same time, they’re kind of expected to be dominant and aggressive and to kind of make the first move and be, you know, the sort of masculine appearing one with girls. But at the same time, they also have to be extremely cautious and to never overstep. And otherwise, they’ll be seen as creepy. So, I think a lot of them were just feeling like, I don’t know how to be, I’d rather just be in my — on my own in my room and watch porn by myself.

MARTIN: Oh, gosh. So, what reaction are you getting? What reaction stands out to you?

WHIPPMAN: Well, I’ve been really surprised by actually how many men have got in touch with me and said, oh, I feel really seen and really heard by this. And they’ve actually read the book. You know, I thought the book — because it’s called “BoyMom” that it would appeal mainly to women. But — and lots and lots of women have been getting in touch with me as well. But also, I was surprised to see men saying, you know, this is exactly what my childhood was like, you know, all these pressures of masculinity. I feel very shut down. I don’t know how to be. Thank you for seeing this and hearing it. So, the response has been mostly extremely positive. I think some people are concerned that there’s like a little bit of both sides-ism, you know, in the sense of like centering boys and men somehow takes away from the work that we’re doing to support women and girls. And my view on that is that actually, you know, we’re all trapped in this system together. That, you know, raising emotionally healthy men and boys benefits everybody in society. You know, this is not a zero-sum game.

MARTIN: Given that you’ve described what a deep stem this has, what — how do we get out of it?

WHIPPMAN: We have to do things like in the home and in the wider culture, you know, the way that we talk about boys and men. So, I think in the home, it’s really about showing boys that nurture and emotional engagement that they need. So, really sort of naming the problem in terms of like they’re excluded from those emotional role models, from those kind of emotional conversations, and trying to kind of correct for that and to give them that kind of nurture, to talk to them about their feelings, to listen to them, you know, and to not just see them as these are like tough, uncomplicated sort of, you know. And I think we need to recognize male interiority and male emotions and to listen to them. And I think similarly, in the wider culture, when we talk about boys and men, rather than having this conversation, which is like, it’s a gender war, time to men to shut up, you know, I think we need to start listening to men’s feelings as well and making space for that. We spend a lot of time listening to men’s opinions, but a lot less time listening to their feelings.

MARTIN: Has the way you interact with your boys changed since you started doing this work?

WHIPPMAN: Yes, I think it really has. It’s subtle. You know, it’s actually — it’s not like I’ve done these five things differently. It’s more of a change in my orientation towards them in our relationship. So, I think it’s helped me to see them better and to see them as these complex emotional creatures rather than, you know, I think there’s a stereotype of boys. You know, I hear like boys are like dogs. All they need is food and exercise and discipline. And actually, I think seeing them as these creatures that are vulnerable and fragile and in need of more nurture rather than less has really helped me approach them in that way. And rather than trying to, you know, punish them or discipline them out of their bad behavior, to see the kind of emotions driving them and — you know, and to try to engage them with them in a more — you know, a more nurturing way.

MARTIN: It does make me wonder though, after a long period of basically not preserving all-women’s spaces thinking it was like retrograde like, oh, no, we don’t need women’s colleges, like, why do we have that? Then we become more intentional as a society about preserving sort of all-female spaces or a woman’s spaces or all spaces for people who present as women. I have to wonder after doing this work, whether you think that perhaps there need to be more all-male spaces.

WHIPPMAN: It’s such a great question. And I’ve been thinking about that. You know, I’ve been talking to experts in this field, you know, people who work with boys, and they say that sort of boys’ groups are really helpful for boys. You know, this feeling that — you know, that they can speak freely, that they don’t feel like they need to sort of be quiet and let somebody else speak, but they can talk about their emotions, especially when they’re led by really good facilitators. I think those all-male spaces are really helpful for boys and men. I think they have to be done in the right way. You know, all-male spaces can easily also go in the other direction and be quite toxic and awful. And, you know, I looked at some of those in the book, I go online and look at their sort of — the in-cell movement and some of those darker mana sphere type things, and I think they can go in a in a really worrying direction. But I think in person, all boys’ groups can be really helpful for boys.

MARTIN: Ruth Whippman, thanks so much for talking with us.

WHIPPMAN: Thank you so much for having me on the show.