How To Ensure Your Daughters Marry Sensitive Men
I am a mother of sons and I am raising husbands. When my son was three years old, he considered pink his favorite color and he loved to play with his kitchen set. These would not even merit mention but for the fact that the moms around me felt it was “interesting.” It is amazing how invasive society’s rules about our gendered lives really are. It has always been important to me to help my boys express themselves fully. What that means in reality is giving them opportunities to recognize, name and confidently feel a full range of emotions. Anger, silliness, and joy. These are the more socially acceptable emotions for boys. But fear, sadness and a deep sense of connection are so much harder to nurture.
Here are two moments in my son’s lives (Insert: Your future sons-in-law) that I treasure:
My teenage son’s camp friends have just spent a long weekend at our home as part of a camp reunion. My husband drives the boys home and our son joins them to say goodbye. My husband comes home amazed to have witnessed the emotional farewell of these close friends-hugging and all!
I walk into the living room where my son is reading a book on the couch. As I get closer I see that he is crying. Gently, I sit down next to him and ask him if he is okay. He looks at me. “Yeah”, he says through tears, “but this book is so sad. The children in this book are being treated so meanly.”
Thankfully, we don’t have to leave this important process to chance. There is wisdom out there in the world to help. Our goal as parents should be to normalize our children’s emotions. There are no bad emotions, only unhelpful responses to them.
Introduce your children to the language of emotion
When children pretend play, ask them how a character feels? You can also label emotions and connect them to what you are seeing. (“That boy jumping up and down in the picture looks really happy doesn’t he?”) Go beyond happy, glad, mad and sad. Find opportunities to use more nuanced words like frustrated, wistful, and confident.
Help kids recognize emotional courage
In the words of the authors of Raising Cain, “Many adults display emotional courage in their work or personal lives, but rarely do we allow our children to witness our private moments of conscience or bravery.”
Show your love openly
Dads, this one is especially important for you. Hug your son, kiss him, and tell him how much you love him without condition. No dad around? Borrow a mentor and a role model who will care about him, do things with him and make an emotional connection.
Let boys be boys
Boys can be sensitive and caring and they are not going to express it exactly like girls. Honor and appreciate them for their capacity to take action, their willingness to be inclusive and their structured games and fidelity to fairness.
Check out: Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. (Or watch the PBS special.)
Photo by puja.
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December 1st, 2008 at 11:01 am
My mom gave me Raising Cain when I had my first son, because, in her words, “It was just you and me for so long, what do we know about boys?” It was a proud day for me when my three year old patted his wailing baby brother and asked “Are you fwustwated?”
December 1st, 2008 at 11:51 am
those moments bring tears to my eyes. They are little victories. thanks for sharing it.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Hey Pearl
Great post! This is a wonderful invitation to consider what it means to be “whole” and experience all that life has available to us, without the compartmentalization of certain emotions that we learn to be negative.
I'm happy to know you are raising your men to be fully expressive. You are right, it all starts so early for us.
Thank you.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Ahahaha! Oh, that IS cute!
March 10th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Thanks for the share very interesting
and keep up the good work with your blogs!
Cheers!
March 11th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Thank you for sharing this information.
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March 13th, 2009 at 4:01 am
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Fidelity 401k
April 11th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Corey Rosenbloom wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptA few number crunchers at Dow Jones Fidelity 401k have been pretty busy as of late.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
I walk into the living room where my son is reading a book on the couch. As I get closer I see that he is crying. Gently, I sit down next to him and ask him if he is okay. He looks at me. “Yeah”, he says through tears, “but this book is so sad. The children in fidelity 401k this book are being treated so meanly.”
Thankfully, we don’t have to leave this important process to chance. There is wisdom out there in the world to help. Our goal as parents should be to normalize our children’s emotions. There are no bad emotions, only unhelpful responses to them.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
am a mother of sons and I am raising husbands. When my son was three years old, he considered pink his favorite color and he loved to play with his kitchen set. These would not even merit mention but for the fact that the moms around me felt it was “interesting.” It is amazing how invasive society’s rules about our gendered fidelity 401k lives really are. It has always been important to me to help my boys express themselves fully. What that means in reality is giving them opportunities to recognize, name and confidently feel a full range of emotions. Anger, silliness, and joy. These are the more socially acceptable emotions for boys. But fear, sadness and a deep sense of connection are so much harder to nurture.