Empathy for Young Males
- © 2002 Waid Johnson

Imagine you have a job like many people who come into their office every morning about 9:00 a.m. Now imagine your co-worker comes into your office or cubical and says to you. "After work I am going to find you in the parking lot and kick your #%@!!!" How much work would you get done that day? This may seem like an absurd situation to many of you, but today, most of our boys have to live with this fear at some point in their school career. And to whom can they turn? If they talk to their parents they are tattling about being bullied. So as a society we socialize boys at a young age to "suck it up" and "take it like a man".

And how do we handle this situation as parents or role models for kids? We teach boys to suck it up. Boys are taught not to care about others, because if they care about the others being bullied they are setting themselves up for trouble. Boys are taught not to cry when they are physically hurt. Last year I heard Geoffrey Canada discuss these issues at his speech at the Training and Education Consortium of Hennepin and Ramsey (T.E.C.H.R.).

Geoffrey Canada is the 1994 recipient of the Heinz Award for the Human Condition in recognition of his battle against what he calls the monsters preying on the children of the depressed inner city. He is president of the New York-based Reedlen Center for Children and Families where he created model programs and set an example for all adults who want to protect children from crime, drugs, lawlessness and despair. Geoffrey has been instrumental in the development of two programs through Reedlen; the Beacon Schools Program, which provides inner-city families with shelter and constructive activities 17 hours a day 365 days a year; and the Peacemakers Group which trains young people in conflict resolution, mediation and violence prevention. He is the author of Fist Stick Knife Gun and Reaching Up For Manhood.

I work with young fathers in North Suburban Ramsey County as well as students who are considered "throw away" by the school district. These kids may have stopped attending school for any number of reasons: family situation, emotional acting out, or social discomfort. In my work with troubled youth over the last 15 years (including a stint with Outward Bound's Youth at Risk directive program), I have experienced the personal reward of making large, positive impacts on students' lives, even if I can only reach one or two students at a time. Also rewarding and challenging is my latitude to use innovative and creative approaches with such youth that wouldn't be acceptable in an ordinary school setting.

Many of Mr. Canada's insights are valuable for those of us working to support or raise young males. Of particular interest to me was the question "What is it to be a man?" I struggled with this question as a youngster and believe that many "youth at risk" (or, using the new term, "youth at promise"), struggle with this question on a weekly if not daily basis. Many boys look to their sexuality as the defining element of being a man. Sexual prowess has many unwritten taboos regarding what can or cannot be talked about and with whom. Many times the message boys share amongst themselves is focused on the virility and sexual prowess of the boy telling the story.

Boys are becoming more violent today. Lack of family structure along with increased importance placed on peer relationships are major causes. Geoffrey is noticing that more boys growing up in rural USA are looking and acting more like today's inner-city gang members. I find this intriguing, and my belief is that parenting has changed in the USA in the past 30 years because both parents are expected to work full time which results in abandonment and neglect. Consider also the influence of the media. Movies and TV have more explicit violence as well as sexuality then ever before.

What is changing in America?
Geoffrey has taken the opportunity to travel around the rural USA and what he has found is astonishing: kids in rural America are dressing and sounding more and more like the inner-city culture in which he grew up. I have noticed kids in suburban schools, some from the wealthiest families, imitating and emulating "gangsta" clothing hairstyles and slang. I have asked some of these kids if they have ever lived in a setting that is more urban then suburban Ramsey County and the vast majority said "no".

Geoffrey Canada found this troubling as well because the rules of the inner city "youth at promise" have changed drastically in the past 20 years. In the "old days" a kid challenged you to a fight after school much like I described in the opening paragraph. If you were challenged you would make sure that many people heard from you about how badly you were going to beat him. It did not matter you were sure he was much stronger and more agile than you were. You had to fight this foe or face further torment by anyone and everyone in the school. If you knew that the person was much stronger, then you tried to avoid the fight but if you had to fight you tried to get a good punch in and take your lumps "like a man".

Today the code has changed drastically. Now there does not have to be as many words exchanged, and kids in school are not just using fists to fight with – they are using guns. Kids can get in a gun fight because one kid looks at another kid in a way that some one may interpret as anything but respectful. What has not changed is whom kids can talk to, and it's not adults!
Resources

The powerful video entitled, "Tough Guise" more thoroughly discusses how men are portrayed in media and how that affects young men. See: <http://www.mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderCulture/ToughGuise> The U of M Extension School now offers a parenting class; for more info go to <http://www.extension.umn.edu/positiveparenting> Written for the media, policy makers, and practitioners, Raising Teens: A Synthesis of Research and a Foundation for Action reviews over 300 recent studies and identifies core actions for parents and caregivers about which there is widespread agreement among researchers and practitioners. The report is available at: <http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/chc/parenting/raising.html>