A few years ago when I was only blogging I wrote a post, Boys will be...Held Responsible (check it out with the 2022 updates here).
Well, this week on the podcast we revisit this topic with Kathryne Imabyashi of Sonhood Coaching.
Kathryne shares things we might be missing when it comes to raising boys and ways that we can better support boys growing into men.
She explains, "[There's this] whole concept that there's a set of rules that society places on our boys and we unconsciously support that by how we speak to boys, what we expect from them, and what we allow for their behavior. We really do put them in a box but a lot of it is unintentional".
Boys are often told what they should be before they can even develop into who they really are. Girls are as well, but I think girls are raised with being a man's partner being the ultimate goal. For instance, focusing on marriage, "giving him" children, keeping a clean house, and all of the other things that will eventually make her a good wife. Boys are taught that they have to be masculine and what that looks like, have lots of women, encouraging sexual behaviors that are not always healthy, not sharing emotions, and negative views about marriage.
A major eye opener during this conversation was the acknowledgment that boys in western culture, American society, boys do not really have rites of passage of their own (biologically or socially) so there is no real marker for transitioning from boyhood to manhood! 🤯🤯🤯 I never thought about this before but it makes a lot of sense that there would be this continuing teetering between mature behaviors and not so mature behaviors when there is really nothing that solidifies which side you should be on and when it should happen.
We continued our conversation talking about why she chose to focus on helping parents of boys, aggression vs. assertiveness, encouraging strong self-esteem, and more.
Check out the full episode here and be sure to share, subscribe, and give us a review on your favorite platform.