Dr. Judy Y. Chu is an educator whose research highlights boys’ relational strengths and how boys’ gender socialization can impact their development, relationships, and well being.
571: Going Beyond "Boys Will Be Boys": Fostering Sensitivity and Strength in Sons
Dr. Judy Y. Chu
Dr. Judy Y. Chu, educator and author of "When Boys Become Boys", joins Hunter Clarke-Fields to explore how boys develop emotionally, socially, and relationally in a culture that often limits their expression.
In this conversation, they discuss how societal expectations shape boys’ identities, the importance of relationships in their lives, and the ways boys can be supported to maintain empathy, emotional intelligence, and authentic connection. Dr. Chu shares research-based insights on fostering healthy resistance to rigid gender norms, nurturing emotional depth, and reimagining masculinity in ways that honor vulnerability, resilience, and caring relationships.
Ep 571- Chu
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
Hunter (00:00)
You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast episode #571. Today we are talking about going beyond “Boys will be boys”, fostering sensitivity and strength in sons with Dr. Judy Chu and this is part of the “What Boys Need” series.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting Course and Teacher Training. I'm the author of the international bestseller, “Raising Good Humans”, “Raising Good Humans Day”, and the “Raising Good Humans Guided Journal”.
Hey, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome back. If, you're a long-term listener, hope you are subscribed so you can be listening to this What Boys Need series, because this is our final installment of this three-part series. And today we are talking to Dr. Judy Chu, educator whose research highlights boys' relational strengths and how boys' gender socialization can impact their development relationships and well-being and she does some fascinating research with little kids that we will talk about. So, so interesting. She talks about her book, “When Boys Become Boys”, talking about how boys become socialized to be boys. So, so, so fascinating. So join me at the table as I talk to Dr. Judy Chu.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama Podcast. I'm so glad you're here.
Dr. Judy Chu:
Thank so much for having me. It's my pleasure to be here.
Hunter:
I was really excited to talk to you. I'm so excited about this conversation because I've always thought it was so fascinating to think about like when, you know, your book is when boys become boys, like when and how does that socialization happen? Because I've seen, you know, I've seen there's so many societal influences and there's always that big debate over nature and nurture. Tell the listener about the research study you did because I think it's so fascinating how you spent so much time with these boys.
Dr. Judy Chu:
Yeah, I guess to give a little bit of context on that, I actually didn't start with the younger boys. I actually started with adolescent boys. And that story happened when I was a first year doctoral student and I had been working with a woman named Carol Gilligan, who is a professor in the School of Education at Harvard in human development psychology. And her work really focused on girls and adolescent girls in particular and kind of all the things that they knew and could talk about, their kind of perceptiveness and their attunement to the relational world and all these things that they kind of brought into the literature on human development psychology that hadn't really been discussed before because a lot of the studies had focused on primarily boys and men, especially white middle-class boys and men. And so her work really kind of shed new light on our understanding of what it was like to grow up in this society, the kinds of conflicts that people came up against, the struggles and issues, and a lot of the things that they unearthed, for instance, the centrality of relationships, the importance of relationships in people's lives and how much that shaped who we are, how we see ourselves, how we engage with the world, how important that was. so it really kind of brought, it shifted the conversation that was kind of prevalent in the literature on human development psychology and said, “What does development look like if we start with the understanding that people are relational beings, that we have a capacity and desire for relationships?” And it raised questions about boys in particular, because of course when you talk about girls and you say, this is really important, and people say, well, aren't relationships important for boys too? You know, what's going on for boys?
And so at the time that I was learning about these things from Carol and her work with adolescent girls, I happened to go home to California and was chauffeuring my 13-year-old brother and his friends. And one of the boys said to me, know, what are you learning in Harvard at your doctoral studies? And I said, well, there's this really interesting work on girls. And he said, yeah, yeah, you everyone's worried about girls, and it's great that they're trying to support them. But there's stuff going on with boys, too, and nobody's talking to us. So he looked right at me and said, you you should study boys. You can start with me. And so we went back to Harvard that fall and I was taking clinical interviewing with Carol and I told her what this boy had said and she goes, it sounds like he has something to say. Why don't you interview him? And so that's how I started studying boys. So I was looking at adolescents 12 through 18 and they were telling me, know, kind of what was going on in their social lives and their personal lives, what they were thinking about in their questions. And one of the things that I led with was, you know, do you ever feel like you're expected to act or be a certain way?
And they would talk about, you know, kind of expectations and how people talk about boys, stereotypes about boys, how people see them just because, you know, they're in boy bodies and, you know, and the assumptions that they made, and then how they had to kind of reconcile that with how they experienced themselves to be, like what they knew about themselves and how, you know, how it was always, you know, as with stereotypes, it was always more complicated and more complex and, you know, and deeper than the stereotypes tend to represent. But what I was finding was a lot of the boys were kind of coming to a point where they're like, well, maybe that's just how it is. Like people just aren't going to know the real you. They're just going to make assumptions about who you are because they see you as this kind of man in the making or these adolescent boys. And there's all these like negative stereotypes around how they don't care or how they're oblivious and just really bad. And one of the things I always say is like, we need to really be careful as adults about how we talk about kids because it trickles down to them. Either they hear us saying it, they hear how we talk about them or the things that we say- the authors who write the books or the teachers who teach the teachers- it ends up influencing the people who are in their lives who are interacting with them and making assumptions and having expectations for them. So anyway, when I felt like, when I told Carol that this boy had already kind of not reconciled to the fact, not completely, but he was kind of saying, well, maybe this is just the way things are, that there's gonna be a gap between how people see me and how I see myself.
She said, “You know what? I think you need to start earlier. I think you need to look in early childhood when boys are still kind of actively speaking out, saying what they think and know, and maybe coming up against these expectations for the first time, and therefore more likely to challenge them.” Whereas with adolescent boys, it was more like, what do mean you're struggling with this? A sign of maturity is the fact that you're supposed to just kind of accept like this is the way things are. But the younger boys hadn't gotten that message yet, that they weren't supposed to struggle when people told them, this is how boys are. They're like, that's not how I am. And so Carol encouraged me to go and study four-year-old boys in a preschool class. And I was a little bit nervous at the time. I was about 22, 24, somewhere in there. But I felt like I had just finished or was finishing my own adolescence and that's why I felt really comfortable with the adolescent boys. But the younger boys, was like, my gosh, I'm not sure what they're want to say to me or if they're even gonna want to talk to me or have anything to do with me. But they were amazing just as the adolescent boys were. They really kind of, both ages really took me under their wing. And when I let them know, because I'm a girl or I grew up as a girl, I don't really know what it's like to be a boy. So I'm really trying to learn.
And once they kind of figured like, she's really interested, they took care to kind of say, well, if you want to know what it's like to be a boy, this is what you need to see. This is what you need to. And I was super impressed by what four-year-olds could tell me and how astutely they were observing their relationships and the dynamics. They were very, very capable, very, very articulate, very direct. I like to say that they wear their hearts on their sleeves. And so they could and would tell you exactly what they were thinking and feeling. But it was also a very interesting age because they were also entering schools for the first time for many of them. And they were kind of learning new rules. You there were new people, lot more peer engagement, more teachers being in school. it was sometimes similar, sometimes different from what they saw at home, but basically learning like, how do I get along here? How do I fit in here? And figuring out that, you know, some things get more positive responses and some things get more negative responses. And if they wanted to be accepted by their peers as one of the boys and kind of be with the boys, there were kind of new rules for engagement that they had to learn. And so I observed and engaged with them over the course of two years. So through their pre-kindergarten year and through their kindergarten year. And I also interviewed them in first grade, but really got to document this transition where both things were evident. Like on one hand, seeing their relational capabilities, like what they're capable of knowing and doing and expressing in their relationships, but also seeing them kind of navigate through this new culture where boys are not supposed to cry and boys are not supposed to be like the girls or they're not supposed to be babies anymore because now they're big boys in school and how they kind of had to negotiate their new identities and how to behave and how to engage with other people so they can be seen as one of the boys with the boys or real boys as the kind of messages about masculinity came in.
Hunter (10:09)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
It's so fascinating. I remember learning at some point along the line that- and I don't know where I got this and I could have remembered it a little bit wrong- but that around age five was kind of when kids were pretty rigid, the most rigid about gender roles. Like, boys do this and girls do this. And I was wondering about, I was wondering, am I right about, did I learn some BS thing that I remembered from the internet a long time ago? Is that generally taken to be true? like, how do they, what did they say at that age, this like four to six age about what it was to be a boy versus being a girl?
Dr. Judy Chu:
That's a great question. So first to talk about what, where you probably heard that. And so there is a basis to that. For instance, Larry Kohlberg, who did theories of moral development said that by age five, kids solidly identify as their gender and they start to kind of view the world in the categories in terms of whether that's for them or it's not. And so they kind of say, “Ok, well, if I'm a boy and boys are supposed to do boy things or masculine things, then masculine things are for me and feminine things, which are for girls, are not for me”. And so they start to kind of set up a categorical structure in their head. And then Alfred Binet had this concept of auto-criticism, which means that we might generate a lot of ideas about anything in a given situation, and auto-criticism helps us to kind of filter out, like, well, what's actually socially appropriate in this situation? So that if someone asks you to do something or to conduct yourself in a certain way in a certain situation, you don't run the whole gamut, the whole scope of possible behaviors. You know, this is library behavior, this is dinner party behavior, this is birthday party behavior. And so we kind of use, you know, draw upon social scripts. And in terms of what you're saying by age five, they say that, “Okay, so this is how boys are supposed to act and I'm supposed to do this way”. But it doesn't mean that they're unforgiving and that they can't reflect on it, but it's just that they start to kind of set in their mind that becomes. one framework that they start to view the world through and gender becomes an important identifier. Like this is how I can make sense of the world and this is what people are going to expect of me. And it's partly that they're accurately reading and responding because other people are seeing them more as gendered beings. With babies, people do gendered behavior with babies too, unfortunately, but you'll say, what a beautiful little girl or what a tough little boy. People will what seemed like innocuous comments, but they're gender specific, all the same, starting in early childhood. So in terms of that rigidity, it kind of is a response to what's being elicited and expected of them.
Hunter:
I think it is interesting how quickly like we see gender just like as an aside or even biological gender, you know, because there are people I interact with or, know, around Philadelphia who are trans people or whatever their main, their gender ambiguous, whatever they identify as is fine. But my brain sees like I, my brain sees the biological gender like that, like so quickly. And it's hard to, it's just interesting for me to note that as more people who have more ambiguous gender have been in my life, like how quickly I identify, like I separate according to that. It's fascinating. learn. I'm probably not the only one. It's part of, it's pretty human, I think, isn't it?
Dr. Judy Chu (15:42)
Absolutely. mean, we definitely, you we learn social schemas and scripts. So just like, you know, for instance, there's a totally different example, but like we see dogs and cats. It helps to know if something's a dog or if it's a cat, how we should behave because we'd approach them in different ways. You know what I mean? And so gender becomes one of those categories. It's a socially constructed category and there isn't necessarily a basis, you know, for why we think what person's going to be one way or the other based on gender, but it is one of the categories that we learn early, we learn often, and it gets very much reinforced by our society so that when we misstep, people can get very offended if you misinterpret their gender. And so we learn through those cues that it's important to some people, right? And if it's important, then either out of respect or out of just kind of self-preservation, we learn to kind of say, okay, well then I wanna try to follow those rules, you know, because it's important in some places to some people.
Hunter:
And that's what's happening with these boys then, right? Like they're coming to school and then what do they learn about? What does it mean to be a boy?
Dr. Judy Chu (16:51)
Right, and so, I mean, so yeah, they come in and they're trying to figure, and this is, I think this is one of the key findings that my study revealed was that first and foremost, they're motivated to connect to other people, right? So they want to be liked and they want to get accepted and they want that sense of, belong here and people like me, I'm likeable, I'm lovable, I'm worthy. And so they're trying to figure out like, how can I fit in? They know they don't want to stick out. They don't want to be bullied. They don't want to be ridiculed. They don't want to be excluded. And so they're trying to figure out like, OK, like I said, they're incredibly astute observers. They're seeing like, OK, what gets positively reinforced and what gets negatively reinforced? And so sometimes if they, for instance, say exactly what they're thinking and feeling, and somebody responds negatively to it tells them, you're being bad or that's rude or you shouldn't say that. Then they learn, you know, like for one example was from my son when he was five, you and this woman asked him, how old are you? And he goes, I'm five. And so he reciprocated and said, well, how old are you? And she goes, don't you know you're not supposed to ask women that? And I thought, that's not very fair, you know? But he learned, some people will ask you things, but you're not allowed to ask them. And so we had a discussion around that. But you know, things like that. So they learn really quickly, you know, what's good. And so for instance, with the boys in this class, they learned the boys like to play with the blocks, you know, and the girls might play with something, you know, might play in the house corner more. I mean, they kind of designate areas. And it's really arbitrary because it doesn't mean the girls don't like to play with the blocks or the boys don't like to play in the house area. But they're really just playing around with ideas. So when I interviewed these four-year-old boys and talked to them about it, what does it mean to be a boy? What are the rules? And so sometimes they start out like, oh, well, boys have short hair, girls have long hair. And then they catch themselves and say, oh, wait a minute, no, I've seen boys with long hair and I've seen girls with short. So again, they're figuring out what does it mean? I'm hearing all these things. There seem to be these rules, but then there are exceptions to the rules. So it's more complicated than people say. And so, and they're capable of holding that level of complexity and nuance. I think we sometimes underestimate what kids can do. And so we think, we have to keep it really simple. We have to keep everything kind of black and white or very binary. Like it's either this or that. But they're actually quite capable of of seeing the world in its complexity and responding on more individual case basis rather than a open shut absolute sense. But some of the messages that they were hearing though were that, and that voice in other spaces here as well, is you need to prove your masculinity. That masculinity is not something that people just assume, but you have to prove that you are a “Real boy”.
So that implies that there are right and wrong ways to be a boy, or if you're a wrong boy, then you're kind of a girl. And so they learn, so that's, think is confusing for them in some ways, because to enter a space and all of a sudden this is something you have to prove. And then the second part of that is that they prove that you you prove that you're a boy by displaying masculine behaviors and by eschewing or differentiating yourself from feminine behaviors. So like if the girls play with dolls and the boys are not supposed to be like the girls, then the boys are not supposed to play with dolls. So like in my study, one of the boys happens to like to play with dolls. And so that became an issue and kind of I got to kind of track his learning process as he came up against time and again, the kind of contradictory thing where he liked to play with dolls and he was constantly told and sometimes he, so he began by not playing in front of people who told him he shouldn't play with dolls. Like his stepfather said you can't play with dolls, so he'd play at school. But then like his sister happened to be in the class and said, daddy said you can't play with dolls. And so then he had to figure that out too. But then when his sister wasn't around and he continued to play, then the other boys, you when they said, yeah, the boys don't like dolls, then he started to say, neither do I. And we wouldn't like boys who play with dolls. And so you kind of see the different places.
Hunter (21:05)
So sad.
Dr. Judy Chu:
Because he's just enjoying himself and he's just having a good time, but then somebody's kind of gender policing him, right? And monitoring him and telling him, is really not what boys are supposed to do. And either someone else, you're going to get in trouble from a parent or an adult, or you're going to get in trouble from other boys. But what really ended up motivating the behavioral change in him was finding out that his peers were not going to like him if he continued to display this interest in that setting. So there's that. And then there's like, if the boys are into sports, then one way to do it is to be into sports and to pretend like you like sports, whether you like them or not. And so again, it's just kind of, you know, the way we all do, when we want to fit in with other people, we try to find things in common and we try to express an interest in things that we think will get people to like us. And so they're doing all of those similar things, similar things that anyone at any age or any gender does. It's like figuring out like, what are the rules here? How do I get people to see that I'm interesting and worthwhile?
Hunter:
It's interesting because like one of the conversations we've had here on the podcast and with different guests in different forms is about sometimes it seems like the rules are so rigid, right? And they've almost gotten more rigid: because when I was a kid it was very okay to be a kind of a tomboy, right? Like, there was Punky Brewster. It was kind of cool, you know? But it probably wasn't the reverse. So there probably weren't very many examples of boys who were more feminine and that was accepted and okay. But it almost feels like, you know, the rules have gotten stricter about what a girl is supposed to be- socialized as a girl and what a boy is supposed to be. As some people are kind of pushing away from it. I know this is a little bit of a diversion from what we're talking about, but, I don't know if you've seen that or are we imagining that?
Dr. Judy Chu:
No, you're absolutely right. I don't know if you've seen the documentary film The Mask You Live In by Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
Hunter:
Yeah, I did see that I think a while ago.
Dr. Judy Chu:
But Professor Carolyn Helvin made that exact point and she said that in the media, in commercials, she's like, you know, it's gotten more binary, more opposite extreme. so the girl stuff is more pink, more princessy, and the boy stuff is way more, you know, just tough and rough and all this. And so aggressive and violent, you especially with video games and things like that. But absolutely, the rigidity has increased.
And also in terms of what you're saying, like, it's different when a girl is a tomboy than when a boy is. And even the names that they get called, a boy's a sissy. know, a tomboy can have, especially these days, a very positive connotation. And that has something to do with the fact, well, not with how our society differently values masculinity and femininity, right? Because they're separate, but they're not equal. And so when a girl reaches up for masculinity, it's less likely to be shamed than when a boy reaches down to femininity. And that's one thing that we need to fix if we want to equalize everyone's access to the full range of human interests and abilities and skills. Because part of what we gender feminine are emotions and relationships. And those are essential to everyone's well-being. So when you gender them feminine, you make them less accessible to boys and men. That creates problems for their social and emotional development because everyone has to know how to take care of themselves and take care of their relationships. And so it's kind of like we bind boys and men's arms and legs before we throw them into the water and tell them to swim in this ocean of life where they need all the resources and all the capabilities that they have to draw from because life is inevitably challenging and they will struggle if they can't access their full capacity.
Hunter:
Yeah. I bet you're seeing those studies about like the loneliness of men and all of that and saying like, “yes, I see exactly where this come from”. Because you write about that. And when boys become boys, how they hide their sensitivity or they hide- they suppress their feelings to fit into this gender norm of being a boy. How can parents recognize when a boy is suppressing his feelings and how can we respond without shaming him?
Dr. Judy Chu:
I think that's a great question. think one of the things, and parents are actually the best positioned to do this because you know your kids better than anyone. And so one of the things you can do is just kind of watch for notice unusual behavior, especially with younger kids, but adolescents as well. I'll start with the younger kids just because it's easier to talk about it. it's kind of like when a five-year-old is telling his friend a secret and they're not very good at like whispering. And so you can totally hear it. And I think that, you know, when younger kids are trying to hide that they're upset, you can still tell. So for parents to just trust their instincts, when you see your kid behaving in ways and you're like, that seems like something's wrong, ask them, ask them what's going on. And you can just say, you know, I've noticed you're not very, you know, my goodness, there's a great example actually of a boy doing this with another boy in my book, right? And so one of the boys was feeling a little stolen, a little downcast while they were playing, two boys were playing together and his friend says, you know, you seem a little bit sad or unhappy today. And the boy says, yeah, well, I miss my mom. And his friend says, that's okay. You you still have your friends and they just continue playing. And eventually both of them are running around and fine, but just kind of validating, know, noticing, validating it.
And being able to kind of say, you I've noticed this about you. You don't seem quite yourself. Not that we expect them to be like happy and excited all the time, but just like if something seems off, like they can talk about it and they want to talk about it. So kind of starting from this understanding that boys can tell us what they need as long as they sense we're actually interested. And to kind of give a maybe a little bit of a contrasting example, another boy I spoke to during his kindergarten year said that he was new to the class and being excluded by all of the other boys because he was new. And so he was really unhappy and struggling and he tried to tell his mom and when he told her that the boys were leaving him out, she said, “I think you're just joshing. I think you're just kidding and don't worry about it.”
Hunter:
No, she dismissed his feelings.
Dr. Judy Chu (28:00)
Exactly. And he goes, “she didn't believe me”. And I just thought, “my gosh”. And so it's just like, know, at that time, and actually at all ages, as Mr. Rogers tells us, if it's mentionable, it's manageable. And so we can help kids to mention these things and we can give them not only language, but permission to say, you know, what's going on for them. And not to have it all figured out and not to solve it for them, but just to have them be able to talk about it and talk it through. Just that act of being able to share what they're experiencing can be very comforting. One of the 12-year-old boys actually said to me when he was talking about why he wished he had a best friend, he just says, just that feeling that someone else understands and can relate to what you're going through, he's in this kind of comforting, right? So then they know they're not alone. Exactly, exactly. And so that's one of the things that parents can do that can be very, very powerful is just being there and just listening.
Hunter:
Yeah, we all need that.
Dr. Judy Chu (28:59)
And again, as someone who is a fixer and rushes in and tries to follow things, I can really show parents that you don't actually need to fix anything. In fact, they don't really want you to fix it for them. But if you just kind of can be there with them in that moment, that can be the most helpful thing.
Hunter:
Thank you for saying that as a fixer yourself, because I often say that to parents and they're not sure they totally believe me. I'm like, “you could just listen. Listening does a lot, does so much. Totally. So this is one of the ways, I mean, imagine if you're a parent raising a little boy, you know, you're probably in the, you know, the boy is going to get these messages to toughen up, right? To not be a “sissy”, to do all those things. I imagine probably a lot of the listeners of the Mindful Mama podcast want to resist some of these gender norms that aren't so healthy and maybe are a little toxic. I guess maintaining one of those connections that relational talking connection is probably one of the most healthy things they can do to foster that resistance a little,
Dr. Judy Chu;
Absolutely. enormous study called the Adolescent Health Study that was conducted in Minnesota starting in the 90s and it was longitudinal and they like surveyed like over 50,000 kids and then interviewed you know also tens of thousands and they found that the single best protector against psychological risk like low self-esteem and depression and social risk like an intended pregnancy, dropping out of school, substance use was having access to at least one close confiding relationship. And it could be with a parent, a sibling, a friend, a mentor, just anyone that they felt really knew them and was there for them. That those kids, those individuals, because it applies to adults as well, those individuals were much better off. It didn't mean that they experienced less struggle or fewer challenges in life, but it meant that they felt that they had a network of support to draw on to be more resilient and to face those challenges and to know that they were going to be okay in the end.
And so yeah, absolutely. mean, parents can do that for their kids by providing kind of this secure attachment base that kids know they can come back to when they've made a mistake or when something horrible has happened. unfortunately we can't shield our kids from facing, people will tell them to toughen up. People will tease them for crying when they're hurt, which always just blows my mind. Cause I don't know why we think boys can break their legs and not cry or whatever, walk it off, you just have all these really strange expectations. And the fact that as humans, they are physically and emotionally vulnerable. And so they're going to experience the whole range of feelings. And for us to allow them to acknowledge and process those feelings in healthy ways seems better than telling them to deny that they have it and to kind of withdraw from sharing it. Another example was a college-age boy who was really close to his grandfather and his grandfather passed away. And he had stopped coming to class because he was just so sad and he was really struggling. And when he finally came back to class, and it was for a workshop that Shanti Branch did in my class, he's wonderful, but he just kind of invited people into the space, invited them to be present with each other, to breathe together, really simple things that we also always take for granted. And also just to kind of check in with each other, not like a therapy session, not a professional advice kind of deal, but just sitting with each other. That this boy after a couple of weeks of grieving his grandfather thought this is the first time he felt like the weight had been lifted, like just being able to enter the space and have someone sit with him was so helpful. And so these kinds of protective relationships are really essential to our healthy resistance when seeing when we're being imposed upon by pressures that might undermine our sense of integrity or prevent us from reaching out for help and things like that. And it also just kind of helps us restore, know, it is the source of our resilience. think Saraya Shamali just wrote a book called The Myth of Resilience and said that resilience, kind of misunderstand it because we think an individual is resilient when in fact what makes individuals resilient is the network of support that they can reach out to when they are struggling. So again, it's more of a relational model and a relational understanding of how we function and how we thrive.
Hunter (33:45)
Stay tuned for more mindful mama podcast right after this break.
I think that makes so much sense and it's taking some time to filter in- think to all of us that it is so relational how we thrive that the whole Harvard longitudinal study with that started in what the thirties or something, right? You know, or it was World War II? Anyway- which came out that relationships are the most important thing. I was thinking about this and I'm thinking about the parents and I imagine there may be ways to talk about this with kids, to just make them aware of some of the messages they're getting- I don't know at what age, but that may be possible to say, “What do you think it's okay for boys to do versus girls to do?” and things like that? So would you say there are age appropriate healthy ways to kind of talk about some of the expectations about boys that aren't so good? And then I was also wondering, there are things that parents of little boys can celebrate about being a boy that is like really positive, because we talk about these problems, but there's also some like great things, right?
Dr. Judy Chu:
Absolutely. mean, if I can start with that, mean, one of the main points of my book are that boys have these relational capabilities. They are born with a fundamental capacity and a primary desire for relationships. They can be articulate and direct and authentic and attentive. They're just, they're very capable of being fully present and genuinely engaged in their relationships. And so they have all these things, but again, because we tend to associate those or gender those as feminine. We see those and notice them more in girls, and we expect girls and women to do it and to be good at it, but we don't expect it in boys and men. And moreover, when we see it in boys and men, we're like, should they be doing that? Are they too soft? Are they too feminine?
Hunter (37:38)
We could almost like mentally code it as leadership because that's what leadership is in so many ways is like understanding all the different relationships and how to.
Dr. Judy Chu:
Absolutely. these relational capabilities, like one of the points I make is that they're not feminine weaknesses. They're human strengths. And Jackson Katz, who founded mentors in violence prevention, enabling boys to be attuned to emotions and to be responsive in relationships, this is not sensitivity training. It's leadership training, because this will serve them well, not only in their personal relationships, but in their professional relationships. It's what makes a good leader. You have to be able to get along with people. You have to be able to know what's going on, to consider other perspectives, to be attuned to their needs and to be responsive and to work collaboratively. It takes all of these skills. And so, again, when we kind of socialize boys away from being in touch with and valuing those qualities and skills, we really do them a disservice and we put them in harm's way in terms of their well-being, but also in terms of their professional success, right? And so, it really is to their benefit to acknowledge and value boys' emotional intelligence, if that's what some people are more comfortable calling it, or relational abilities, relational strengths, because these are things that they need in order to thrive and in order to succeed.
Hunter:
Okay. And then I imagine likewise, then it might be healthy to have some conversations about, some people think that boys shouldn't cry. What do you think about that? Something like that. Would you encourage parents to have some kind of, I mean, depending on the age-
Dr. Judy Chu (39:14)
I think that it's a great idea to talk about it, but because we want to be careful about not, we don't want to introduce the idea either. Like if they haven't heard that, then you don't want to be like, some people say this. So usually when I talk to the four-year-olds about it, I would say, you know, again, like similar to the question I asked Alice, do you ever feel expected to act a certain way? Or do you see some people being treated differently? Or what if you notice, you know, and they'll tell you. Or you say like, well, does everyone play together or do some kids play different? And so then you don't introduce the idea that things need to be gendered, but obviously most likely some of the things are going to be gendered. So does everybody play the same games and does everyone do the same things? is it okay? Does anyone ever get in trouble for doing one thing when... So just kind of say like, do you... Kind of asking them like what they're noticing.
And what they see, because they have a, kids have this wonderfully strong sense of justice and fairness. That's true. Yeah. So when they see someone being treated incorrectly or they don't, or something doesn't make sense to them, logically, like, why would that, why did they tell this boy he can't cry? This person was crying and everyone was kind of, you making fun of him. Why did that happen? You know, and one of the boys in my study actually said that, like the neighborhood kids, there was one kid who was somehow different. can't remember why he was different and then the other kids would pick on him. And his mom would say, and he felt conflicted because he's like, well, you all of my friends are picking on him, but I don't feel like that's the right thing to do. And so she'd say, well, if you don't like it, then don't do it. And if you're feeling up to it, maybe you could stand next to him and, you know, and defend him, you know, if you're comfortable. mean, never asking kids to themselves in harm's way, but letting them know that what they're feeling is not wrong.
And even if other people seem to be on board with it, letting them trust their instincts because they have such a strong sense. Their moral compass is so compelling and we want them to hold onto that sense of what's right and what's wrong and I don't like this. And even if they don't always, it can't always follow up their behaviors. One of the things we can really help them to do is to preserve and cultivate their sense of their own conscience and their own values and their own beliefs. mean, can't, as much as we might aspire to behave in ways that reflect our beliefs, we know that that's not always practical, even for adults, and sometimes takes enormous courage to do. And so giving kids that credit too, like, yeah, I know it's hard sometimes to say what you think, and then telling them where they can do it, where it's safe. Because again, it's not like all or nothing. It's not like, you're authentic and you just have to tell everybody what you think all the time.
Because sometimes it really isn't safe, right? And so teaching them to say, if you don't trust your instincts, if you don't feel like you can do this here, that's okay. And it's not so much about, I make a distinction between compromise and over-compromise, because I think, again, we all do, we do an all-or-nothing thing, and we're like, never compromise, you never compromise. But that's not really realistic, because if you're going to be with another person or other people, everyone has to compromise. Nobody gets their way all the time. So it's more about being, holding, being aware, maintaining awareness of your compromises. Cause then if you say, I'm doing this so that we can just not bicker, it's not really that big of deal, but I know what I'm giving up as opposed to automatically, like kind of coasting on autopilot and just being whatever anyone else tells you to be. You don't want to become like this kind of automatic chameleon, which was another, one of the adolescent boys said, you he said, I've mastered it. He was like 17 years old and he was kind of proud of himself, but also kind of- he's like, I can be what anybody wants me to be. Just tell me what you expect and I can be it. But don't ask me what I really think. Cause he's like, cause I'm not going to get it anyway. So there's no point.
Hunter (43:19)
The middle is so messy, right? That’s where you're saying, “we want to encourage our kids to kind of navigate this messy middle”. And that navigation requires like, “let's talk about all these different situations that- they're so messy”. It's interesting because in some of the other conversations for this Boys Series, we're talking about adolescents. And I think, dear listener, it’s going to be so interesting for you to come from this conversation and then think about how boys start to change and adolescents start to become- so these conversations may become more difficult, but maybe also just as important, I imagine, right? As our boys start to grow older, that we insist on having some of these conversations that become a little bit uncomfortable maybe when they're done in adolescence, etc.
Dr. Judy Chu:
The good news is the adolescent boys can talk about it too. It doesn't go away. They don't lose that capacity and desire. They absolutely still want to connect. Men too. That's one of the things that I mean by healthy resistance is that they continue throughout their lives to seek connections and resist disconnections. So if you use that framework, and it actually has served me really well in the past 30 years, because you use a framework and then if you find like, that doesn't really hold up, then you kind of edit or adjust and modify. But this is one, you know, that started with Carol Gilligan's work that has really helped me in my personal relationships as well as my professional work, is this idea that people are really primarily motivated to connect. And when you see their behaviors as efforts to connect, it casts a new light on, you know, kind of things that, you know, especially for adolescent boys, what might look like standoffish behavior or indifference, or even belligerence. Like if you look at it as they're trying to connect in the ways that feel acceptable to them or in the only ways they've ever been taught or in the ways that, you know, what they feel they have access to, like what they're able to do in that moment, because they've been so many restrictions and constraints have been placed on them and that are, and it's been all done wrapped in like this package of shame. Like, if you don't stay this course, this very narrow, rigid course of masculinity, the shame cascade, you know, it's an avalanche of shame. Like, what are you, you're not a real boy, you're not a real man, nobody's ever gonna love you, you're not worthy, you're not, you know, and it goes so quickly that it almost is like a subconscious process, right? So they don't even realize why it feels so bad to try to step outside of their comfort zone, but they know that not only will other people call them on it, but they'll also feel that it'll impact their own self-esteem and the way they see themselves. Like, my gosh, I'm nothing because I can't even do this. So they're really, really hard on themselves.
And so to kind of give them a break, what I mean, and to see that, and also just, and I see this in adults, and so I feel like it applies to adolescents as well, but I'm 53. And I look around and I say, 50-some year olds, we are still just kids in bigger bodies. We're all just like kids in bigger bodies. I feel like adolescents are too. so why we would think that, you know, that a 14 or 18 year old is all grown up and doesn't need our help. I don't understand that at all. Cause if a 55 year old needs help sometimes, then a 15 year old can need help too. And we all kind of, you know, we need our relationships. Now, one of the things I start my course with at Stanford, is I say, “no one succeeds alone. No one. We all need help sometimes.” And so then I asked them to reflect on who helped you to get to or become where and who you are today. And then they can call on that. And that's their network of support. And that's how they know they're not alone in the world, because all the people that helped to shape who they are, it gives them strength. Whereas our culture tends to, “Oh, self-sufficient, I'm a self-made person”, you're all by myself. That just, it just can't possibly be true. At the very least, when you're a baby, you're not making it in this world by yourself, right? And so we rely on other people and that's true throughout the life course. So a 65 year old, an 80 year old, we need people as much as we did when we were young. And to deny that fact is to deny ourselves something as basic as water and air. We need companionship. We need to be with others. We need to know that we are worthy, as, come back again to Mr. Rogers, to know that we are worthy and lovable. I think that's at the basis of a lot of our behaviors. And sometimes the behaviors come across as sadly actually putting people off or pushing them away again because of what we're told.
One of the things that I kind of imply or suggest is that boys are told that if you go on this trajectory, if you project this image of masculinity and do what society tells you, or boys are taught this, right, then people will value you and accept you, approve, wanna be with you, et cetera. But ironically or unfortunately, when they do those things of this kind of conventional masculinity that says, have to do it myself, I have to be self-sufficient, I can't ask for help, I can't reveal any vulnerability- they inadvertently prevent themselves from developing the kinds of emotionally close relationships that they got on that path in the first place for, right? So they were motivated to connect, but those ways of demonstrating masculinity actually makes it harder for them to develop the kinds of connections that they say they need and want. And so we really put them in a bind. It's this really difficult dilemma.
And so if we can go back to your question about how do we talk to boys about this? Again, they know what's going on. They're incredibly astute and smart and they're insightful and they're navigating some really challenging and conflicting dilemmas and advice. They're hearing contradictory things. Even like, I think in response to one of the questions you sent in terms of re-imagining boyhood, I'm like, we don't even have to like re-imagine it: to create something anew. We're really just remembering and returning to things we already know. So for instance, if the conventional masculinity or the hegemonic masculinity emphasizes this kind of tough guy, real guy, and that's kind of the default, right? We say, what does it mean to man up and be a real man? We have this all like kind of muscular, you're strong, you're tough, you're emotionally, you don't need anybody. But if you say, okay, well, what if you say this man, he's a really good man or he was a great guy or you know, saying this eulogy, this person was a really great, good man. We know that too. You know, usually he cared about people. He took care of people. He was loyal. He was responsible. He showed up. He was really, you he made people feel good about themselves. He was honest. You know, we have that, oops, sorry, we have that in our repertoire as well. So it's not even that we have to like somehow conjure up this new image of masculinity. We have examples of really good men around as well.
And so what we can do is like make it so that those are the first hits in our Google search. You know what I mean? Like in our mental Google search. Like when we say, oh, what does it mean to be a man? And I see that more and more actually these days with students and things like that. Like when I do an exercise, I ask them about masculinity. It's creeping up more. It doesn't automatically default to this kind of Marlboro Man, like this lone cowboy out on the ranch doesn't need anybody. They also say, you know, he loves children, he takes care of the planet, he's respectful to his partner, all these things. And so we know those things.
Hunter:
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because like, you know, we know that the founding fathers, right, who are, I don't know, they seem very masculine in my point of view, but they had these like very intimate close relationships with other men. you know, I knew, I know that back in the colonial days, like men walked down the street holding hands with their men, their male friends and things like that. And it is always something that has been here. And I love that your example of what is a good man. Like we, that is in our repertory, know what that is. Judy Chu, this is amazing. Judy Chu's book is “When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships, and Masculinity”. And you can find it anywhere books are sold and it's fascinating, especially all these like little conversations that you have recorded from the four and five-year-olds are just, they're amazing. Such a great resource. Thank you so much. This has been such a fascinating conversation. I really, really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and your research and doing this work. It's really a gift to all of us. Thank you.
Dr. Judy Chu:
Thank you so much. really appreciated your questions and your listening and all that you do to help parents provide for their kids what their kids need. I mean, it's hard. Parenting is hard. And so we can all use all the help we can get. So thank you for all that you do.
Hunter (52:50)
This episode is so fascinating, isn’t it? To hear about how societal pressures shape boys and how they you know come into these gender norms- maybe willingly or unwillingly- and so fascinating. Really, really interesting: if you have any thoughts about it, I'd love to hear. Tag me: I’m @MindfulMamaMentor on the socials and you can always reach out to me: hello@MindfulMamaMentor.com We'd love to hear from you and I hope you liked this “What Boys Need” series. You can also listen to last week's episode “Decoding Boys” with Dr. Cara Natterson talking about puberty aged boys, and then “How to Talk to Boys” with Joanna Schroeder, which is so fascinating and so practical. Really, really love that episode. So make sure you tune into that.
And if you have a boy who has maybe has some ADHD issues, you're definitely going to want to be here for next week's episode, “the Truth About Executive Function: Supporting Neurodiverse Kids to Thrive” with Seth Perler. Really great. And we'd love it if you subscribe, make sure you're subscribed to the show. We're small and mighty team working to bring this to you. And when you subscribe and when you share it, you make it possible for us to keep bringing this podcast to you. So please do those things. Leave a review, those reviews are always so wonderful, they really help a lot.
And yeah, I'm wishing you a great month, a great year, and you know, you can get “Raising Good Humans” as a good present. And all those good things. I hope you have a good week and that this podcast helps you have a better week. And thank you for listening all the way to the end here. I really appreciate it. I'll be back. Until talk to you again next week. Namaste.
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