The Woman's Room – Boys Need to Be Boys
My son is upstairs killing zombies. And I’m OK with that. But many Moms wouldn’t be.
I remember an incident back when my son was about eight. He was part of a group of boys playing a shoot ’em up game among the trees near the playground. I watched as another mother pulled her boy out of the group.
“I have to take that gun away from you,” she said with determined calm. “Our agreement is you can only play with toy weapons if you don’t point them at other people.” She raised her gaze for a moment and happened to meet my eyes. Her glance scanned automatically from me towards my son, who was pointing his broken plastic semi-automatic directly at other kids while making impressively realistic machine-gun sounds, while I sat in the sun, unperturbed.
Awkward. Very awkward.
This column is a belated explanation to that Mom – and more: it’s a plea to reconsider her, um, “agreement.” In fact, it’s a plea not just to her but to all parents, educators, and policy-makers: Let our boys be boys.
We are all, first and foremost, individuals, and thankfully, there are many different ways of being a boy or a girl. But generally speaking, boys love to play rough games. They love to wrestle, chase each other, smash things, talk about smashing things, watch things being smashed, make smashing sounds and, whether by bludgeoning a stuffy, or machine-gunning enemy forces with the wiggle of a thumb, pretend to kill living beings.
This kind of play is increasingly forbidden, even labelled pathological. Kindergartens ban not just toy guns but also plastic swords, axes and knives. Schools forbid picking up sticks, friendly wrestling at recess, or writing stories about cool explosions, epic battles, or scary monsters who destroy the world. The media consistently tell us that electronic gaming is going to turn our boys into desensitized, violent, obese failures.
With no outlets for their energy and imagination, boys are suffering. Educator Ali Carr-Chellman (Check her out HERE), a recent speaker in the cutting-edge TED series, points out some sobering statistics:
- For every 100 girls suspended from school, 250 boys are suspended
- For every 100 girls in special education, there are 217 boys
- For every 100 girls expelled, 335 boys are expelled
- For every 100 girls diagnosed with a learning disability, there 276 boys
- For every 100 girls diagnosed with an emotional disturbance disorder, there are 324 boys
Are boys just naturally messed up? Not at all, says Chellman. They’re just stuck in social structures, especially schools, that do not reflect their culture. She says we have to meet boys where they are, and suggests getting the geniuses who work for the gaming companies to design educational electronic games that can be used in schools to re-engage boys. She also calls for more male teachers in Elementary schools, re-examining “zero-tolerance” policies, and offering boys more physical activity in schools.
I know that the vast majority of violence in the world is perpetrated by males. In particular, male violence against women is a horrible scourge in our society, a sometimes-deadly enforcer of the patriarchy. But expecting little boys to play and learn like little girls is not the way to address this. Instead, as suggested by Chellman’s statistics, it seems to be setting them up for frustration, low-self-esteem, social exclusion, and academic failure – none of which positively correlate to non-violence.
Taking toy guns away doesn’t work. I’ve watched a boy pick up a Barbie doll, point her at his friend, and let loose with a barrage of shooting sounds. I’ve heard of a girl who dressed up her brother’s plastic guns in doll clothes and served them tea (saying, “This is the Mommy gun, this is the Daddy gun and these are the baby guns,” according to the guns’ size). Primal forces will out, no matter how hard we try to suppress them.
And that is what we are dealing with here – primal forces.
For many thousands of years, men have tended to be warriors, hunters and protectors. Their survival, the survival of their family and tribe, and the perpetuation of their genes, depended on their ability to fight and kill. It is only relatively recently in the history of humans that most men no longer live with this imperative.
But evolution doesn’t move as fast as social change, so men are still born with the instincts, interests and drives of the warrior and hunter. Boys with their toys are literally acting out these masculine archetypes through their play.
The operative word here is “play.” Well-adjusted children recognize the difference between their fantasy worlds and real life. They have no desire to shoot their friends or blow up their own homes, but they sure enjoy pretending to. Wisely, they want their fantasy worlds to be rich and wild, places where they can explore concepts of danger, adventure and aggression that (rightly) have no place in their everyday lives.
Children’s play is primal, but balancing the primal, we have civilization. Although children don’t always leave childhood behind without a pang, boys do generally mature, pack away their plastic Viking spears and Darth Vader costumes, and channel their warrior/hunter energies into sports, work, community activism, dedication to their families, and other adult pursuits. If they end up violent, it is due not to their childhood games but to a complex interplay of personal dysfunction, genetics, and social forces, much of which we can, and should be, addressing.
If we try to suppress boys’ play, their expression of primal energies and ancient archetypes, we only hinder their development. Let’s stop demonizing boy energy.
After all, who else will keep the zombies away?
Category: Your Healthy Nature
About the Author (Author Profile)
Laura Busheikin is a writer, wife, women's rights activist and mom. She lives with her lovely family on Denman Island off the West Coast of beautiful British ColumbiaSubscribe
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Great article. Thanks for posting a very “pro-boy” story, especially those horrible stats. As a feminist and mother of two boys (8 & 6 years) I have learned the hard way of ‘soothing’ their rough playing. Now, I let them play Star Wars, do battle with their swords & play the Wii, run around and creat havoc (both indoors and outdoors) to their hearts content, knowing that they go to bed happy, exhausted little boys. They still sing, dance, read and bake with me. Happy boys = Happy Parents. I think I have finally got the balance right!
Its true, boys and girls will act out what they are exposed to in our relentless media culture. I sympathize because we can’t seem to keep the ubiquitous media out of our lives. I must congratulate the Mom who tried to stand against such a tide of influence. But in truth, I am more worried about the girls who are rewarded for conforming.
We can teach our girls to be strong and smart, but this is not the message they get elsewhere.
Just because something has occurred in the past does not make it worthy of repeating. I find the caveman reference to be insulting to males. Why reinforce such an idea? The men I know are strong and gentle, as are the women I know.
Science has finally shown that our brains continue to change throughout the lifespan. Science has also shown that these changes are passed on through our DNA. As such, we are currently participating in the evolutionary process. So, to say that girls and boys are ‘wired’ in a certain manner is false. What science has shown is that boys are becoming wired that way through reinforcement. These evolutionary changes will be seen in our grandchildren who are not yet born. What kind of future human do we wish to create?
Check out non-violent communication, its a better way.
You gotta let boys be boys, women. You don’t have any alternative. We all ran around playing war and guns and vying with each other for ritual dominance. None of me and my friends are violent. Violence in adulthood does not come from childhood games. It must seem puzzling to women, to see their precious boys engaged in such games, but hang on a minute. It’s tempting to try and draw a direct line from boys’ childhood play to issues like rape, violence, and war. But it’s just not true. Boys don’t want to hurt anyone.
War is cultural, and men and women have to take ownership of it together. Last time I checked, millions of women voted for GW Bush and his warlike policies, not just men. Many women commentators on tv argued in favor of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And women even demand the right to serve in armed forces. And so they should. If we’re ever going to solve war, it won’t be by clamping down on boys’ playground antics. That’s just going down the wrong path.
You won’t find the roots of war, violence against women, etc., on the playground. Kids know the difference between play and real hurt. So do most adults. And we know when to step in if things go too far on the playground, and so do most kids.
You can encourage boys to play other games, and often they will. Give them options. But don’t clamp down on them too hard. You’ll be denying them a type of expression that’s vital to most of them as they grow up.
What get’s me is the use of the word “tomboy” for you girls who like to do “boy” things. Women say it with such pride, “I was a tomboy when I was a kid!” Like not being a tomboy was weak, or not as important or as credible or something. I would not identify myself as being a “tomboy,” I played with dolls, but I also played with my big brother a lot, played with his boy toys, killed ants, climbed trees, played superheros. Of course, I always wanted to be Wonderwoman and not Spiderman.
What further gets me is that there is no “cool” equivilent for boys who like to play traditional “girl” games. Nancy boy? Girly man? These tend to be derogatory. So, more “masculine” qualities are seen as a badge of honour, but more “feminine” qualities are seen as, I don’t know, something else not worth bragging about? Or, it is okay to be “daddy’s little girl,” aw, isn’t that sweet and tender, but to be a “mama’s boy:” whoa, now what is that mama doing to make her boy like that?!
That ol’ pendulum comes swingin’ round, and we want our boys to adapt more “feminine” characteristics yet it is still okay to say, “I was a tomboy” with a s**t eating grin.
It seemed to me while growing up and becoming interested in feminism that being “feminist” involved adapting masculine characteristics. It was a man’s world and women had to be like men if they wanted equal acceptance in this world.
As a mother of a little boy, I question the notion that it was ever entirely a “man’s world.” I almost believe it is a “whatever is easiest” kind of world. Like in the school system, it was generally easier to have the kids sit down, not move, and behave: not conducive to many little boys who require a more active type of learning. But in the older days, a lot of these boys left school early, got a good trades job and found success in their strengths (and I’m not meaning just physical strengths here). That world doesn’t exist anymore.
That pendulum, man: this way or that, feminine or masculine…. Why can’t we honour both of these energies that exist in our world and how they mix and blend to various degrees within us intead of saying, “This way is better than that” etc. etc.
And how can we encourage “boys to be boys” without glamourizing war and violence?
I love having a little boy for a child: I used to think I wanted a little girl so I can dress up and teach bellydance to, but bring on the boys! A whole brood of boys, and who knows, maybe one or some of them will want me to teach them bellydance!
I put a lot of things in quotes, because the question of what gender actually is, is a fluid spectrum and the words I used may not be the ones other people would use. I used to think gender was purely a social construction, but now I think it is not just a social construction.
Saying “you girls…” Sorry. That sounded provocative when I just read it now. I actually think it was a typo of sorts, “You girls!” Kind of like how Evan called us “Women,” and it read kind of uncomfortably! Ha ha!
Well said Lisa. I hope none of what I said sounded offensive or outdated. I didn’t mean any of it that way. The kids all are amazing!
Thanks for all the comments, readers (and I hope that doens’t sound awkward the way “you girls” or “women” might to some people…)!
I think we all agree that the question is how to provide kids the widest possible field of being without being constrained by gender expectations. That would have to include our expectations that they WON’T follow gender norms if we don’t want them to, or we don’t have a TV, or we don’t give them certain toys.
I don’t think any scientist or sociologist would say we are not born with a certain amount of “wiring,” even though, thank goodness, this is ever-changing. Hormonal differences alone HUGELY affect behaviour and perception. No one has yet figured out exactly how much of what we are as individuals and societies comes from nature and how much nurture (including social forces such as media). In the meantime, as Firedancer points out, we have the responsibilty, and the pleasure, of consciously creating our evolutionary path.
If we want to steer boys away from repetition of outmoded violent archetypes, I personally think letting them work it out through play is great, as long as the violence remains pretend. In the meantime, yes, let’s practice Non-Violent Communication (a great set of teachings from Marshall Rosenberg — Google it for more info), offer all kinds of toys, games, clothes, activities, etc, talk to them about compassion, give them pets (in studies, this is highly correlated with development of empathy), set up Roots of Empathy programs in schools (you can Google that too), model gender fluidity, speak out about gender inequity, teach them about the history and concepts of feminism, and YES YES YES stop war!!! There are so many great ways we can love our kids.
Laura,
Thank you for another thoughtful, well-expressed article.