Statement # 6
Time for Boys
In short
It seems to be wrong with the boys in our society. Girls
achieve better at school. Boys have far more behavior and learning problems.
Boys seem to be in a permanent crisis.
In the school bus, girls are busy with chatting with each
other. The boys sit, one by one, each looking surly before him. If there are
problems like aggression, vandalism and other kinds of criminality, it mostly
concerns boys.
What's happening? What's wrong? What can we do?
Last years, there is written a lot about this subject. Counter
Balance gives its own opinion in this statement and offers a selection from
literature.
Double codes
What can we do?
There is a lack of real contact
What can we do?
Control, OK, but preferably selfcontrol
M. Fadil, buurtvader
The boys' code
In the age of chivalry, there was a code for boys and men - for
those time a practical code. This code still exist, in spite of the fact that
society radically has changed. Pollack calls this the boys'code.
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Be cool
Do not show nay weakness such as pain, sorrow or shame. Thus,
these feelings are hidden. Keep a stiff upper lip - or at least
pretend to do it. By doing so, de boy might loose the contact with
these kind of feelings - thus with a part of himself. On that stage,
they no longer pretend to be indifferent, they are
indifferent.
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Be hard
Here we see the dare-devil, bravado, challenging and fascination
to violence.
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Be the big boss
A boy ought to acquaintance power; he must win and dominate.
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Be sturdy
It is strongly forbidden to be a cream puff or a softy.
This is, as also Pollack says, the most dangerous command. It prevents
boys expressing their more tender feelings and on the long term even
to feel these. Feelings such as sympathy, dependency and carefulness
are girlish, thus taboo.
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The cover of Pollack's book Real Boys in Dutch version. The words
on the left hand side are modern Dutch words referring to the boys'
code.
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The opposite code
Also the opposite is expected from the postmodern man. He must
be also tender and caring, sympathetic and social - and vulnerable. This
is not easy as we acknowledge that many men in their deeper inner self in fact
still are remained a child or adolescent.
These opposite codes head for the boy. This is disturbing. To
avoid this disturbance, many boys chose for the first set of codes, the boys'
code. This may have been a useful choice in the age of chivalry, but not in
our days. Now it is harming: the boy looses the contact with an important part
of himself. He merely uses one side of his brain. He walks with one leg, he
falls ... or attacks.
What can we do?
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We might be conscious of the above and speak about it,
including with the boys. Daily life will offer a lot of opportunities for
it. |
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We might help them to feel, to give expression to, and to
accept feelings such as sorrow, pain or failing. |
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We might value the real positive male characteristics:
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not being the dare-devil, but really courageous; |
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encouraging not violence but self-control; |
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We might appreciate and develop the modern virtues of
masculinity such as being sympathetic, caring and social. |
This is possible ... as long there is enough real contact with
the boy.
There is a lack of real contact
In our culture, children, especially boys, are quite young removed from the
mother. Already as a baby, they sleep in an own bedroom. When they go to school,
the next separation of the mother figure takes place. In puberty, the distance
becomes even greater. These separations may cause intense feelings. Ignoring
these feelings might be traumatic. The development of the boy might stagnate in
that phase, as has been the case for many men.
Boys need real contact with men, thus inter-generational
contact, particularly in one-to-one relationships. However, fathers are working
during a great part of each day and uncles and granddads often live far away. As
far as there are still men having a job in education, the contact is more and
more merely functional and from a growing distance. Also in sport clubs and
children's homes we see this development. It mostly concerns group situations
with a merely functional leadership. One-to-one contact is explicitly avoided -
if not forbidden. Men from the neighborhood or acquaintances are kept at a
distance - just fancy! 'What's on that man's mind - with my child?
Thus, boys are dependent on their peers. These are the ones who mostly
educate them. However, there is a lack of real contact among boys. The boys'
code forbids this. Boys may only express one side of their personality, the
sturdy one, and only that side may develop itself. Boys cannot offer each other
more than that.
What can we do?
Little boys should be allowed to be more often and longer close to their
mother. Dear mothers, do not be afraid for a bit more bodily contact. Also a
school boy might still like to sit on your lap.
| In addition, boys especially need fathers. Fathers should
spend less time at their job and more time going about with their children
- they should be more a caring father.
Moreover, accept a mentor for your son and allow one-to-one
contacts.
Boys who had contact with a Highly Involved Man
appeared to achieve as the best, while the bad achievers had standoffish
fathers who taught them that boys do not cry. Fathers and other men appear
to be important, along with the codes they offer to the boy.
Teachers, sports coaches and childcare workers have a function. This is
to establish and maintain a personal contact. Whoever remains
merely 'functional' and keeps an impersonal distance, wrongly realizes
that function.
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René
de Boer argues the re-evaluation of the 'initiation' of the son into the
men's world. This correspondents with the narrative of the prince who so
could become the king.
"I lead my sons away from their mother and I teach them to be a
man, which includes to cope with emotions. This seems me better than
starting to cry if your son uses drugs, while you prefers a job of forty
hours a week. No wonder, man! Bette had worked thirty hours a week and had
spend time playing with your son."
Wilfred Scholten, 'It's wrong with the man; caught between his own
adolescent behavior and the lot of claims from women; Wegenegr Dagbladen,
14 augustus 1999.
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Control, OK, but preferably selfcontrol
Boys are active from nature. Usually, this is labeled as "too
active", over-active or even hyperactive.
Instead of valuing this typically male characteristic and developing
it, activity is suppressed. Male vitality is subjected to 'treatment' and
repressed with ritalin.
Impersonal control and zero tolerance do not work, or work
in the opposite direction. It provides the boys new kicks. They
like to oppose that kind of control. 'Waw! What a kick, man!'
It is far more effective not to suppress male vitality, but instead
accepting it, valuing it, and helping to develop control from within.
Another more effective kind of control is social control and
teaching social abilities and ways to cope with conflicts.
In the Netherlands, we have buurtvaders, neighborhood fathers. This
model is developed particularly in vicinities in which young Moroccan boys
gave a lot of troubles. The fathers of those vicinities took the
initiative to walk through the neighborhood, following a roster so there
were always some of them present. They accost the boys in a personal way.
The model works so good that delegations from all over Europe and further have visited
these Moroccan fathers to copy their
method.
→
The one and only thing that really has effect is: personally accosting
the boys about their behavior after establishing a real and personal contact.
This demands time:
Time for boys
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M.
Fadil, Neigborhood Father
(NRC 4 nov. 2000)
About one and a half year ago, fourteen fathers started their daily
rounds through the neighborhood. "Actually, we have had a
try-out period of a half year. Initially, the kids called us names such as
'betrayers!' If we called at the parents to address them about their
children's behavior, we heard: 'These must be others; my children do not
such kind of things'." "What are you actually doing, asked our
wives. Each evening on the way. We had to convince the kids and their
parents that we were no policemen." "Then, we got an
idea. We have taken 56 children around the age of fourteen to an amusement
park. We have paid this from our own money. The vicinity council wouldn't
pay it. This does not fit in our plans, they said. But we wanted to make
clear that we were neighborhood fathers, we merely are here and
work for the children." "Gradually, the parents began to
accept us. Why have our children such a bad reputation? Why do our
children hang around the streets until late in the evening? We want to
change this. Now, there are no longer little children hanging round on the
streets in the late evening. " "We have had visitors here from
Switzerland, Norway, France and South-Africa. Alderman and police officers
from [.. several Dutch cities ..] have been here. The Moroccan Prime
Minister was here to see our work." "It would be good if there
would come h fathers everywhere. Will we ever make ourselves superfluous?
We go on with pleasure." |
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