Gay Pride month is in full swing, and its celebration of diversity and creativity in how we perform gender has gotten me thinking about the ways our lives can be shaped by the roles and rules we’re taught for how to be women or men — and it starts when we’re very young. How do we help our children deal with these issues? The exploration of the conventional and cultural expectations of young boys, in particular, is an ongoing dialogue in the field of psychology.
One of the important voices in the field is the very talented child psychologist Dr. Tony Rao. He and I spoke about many of these issues in a public dialogue at the East Side Institute a couple of years ago. His book, The Way of Boys: Raising Healthy Boys in a Challenging and Complex World, gives wonderful support to parents, teachers (and clinicians) who want to create environments that allow boys to be who and how they are, without turning their every hyperactive move into a pathology. (On June 29, the Institute will show a video of that discussion as part of a webinar entitled “Breakthroughs in Child Psychology.” If you’re interested in participating, you can contact mfridley@eastsideinstitute.org. And you can have a look at the video here: http://vimeo.com/18562495.
Another seminal voice in this area is Dr. William Pollack, the Harvard Medical School researcher who for over two decades has studied the emotional turmoil — the confusion, the loneliness and sadness — that boys can experience. This work is documented in his book Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood, which focuses on how to help boys develop more confidence by challenging expectations of masculinity. Do read it.
As a social therapist, my contribution to this dialogue has emerged from our multi-family groups, in one of which I work with five nine- and ten-year-old boys. Along with their families, we’re exploring how to deal with the ways they feel unsure, conflicted and perplexed about how to be a boy. They often feel enormous pressure and a deep need to turn off their emotionality, toughen up, to act like things don’t bother them, and never express their caring for each other. And at all costs resist having a play date with a girl! (What would the other boys think?) These cultural standards of maleness are the price of acceptance by other kids (and sometimes even their parents).
I have been working with these five boys for over two years. In their school settings the boys find social relationship to be quite challenging. Some have diagnoses, some don’t. They’re quite different from one another, but are all energetic, creative and playful. One boy, Tom, has a particularly difficult time joining the group conversations and performances. He often likes to play with a small set of toys I keep on my desk — puppets, miniature paintings, plastic animals — and once in awhile he’ll join our group activities. We love him and the boys are kind to him — they always invite him in, and accept his difficulties.
One afternoon, in a children-only session, I introduced the idea that we were going to play with how we talk to each other. One child asked if there were any rules. I said yes, the rule is that we are not allowed to make any sense at all.
They became very animated and excited, and began running around the room. One boy asked if I was included in that rule. I said that indeed I was, but now we were breaking the rule — we were making sense! “Oh, no,” he said, and then ran away, laughing. Along with my steadfast co-therapist, Lew Steinhardt, I ran around the room with them.
We began a series of games — speaking nonsense and gibberish, using words “incorrectly.” It was silly. The children were incredibly joyful. I felt joyful with them, and laughed through most of the session. The children created movement, ran all around, and rolled on the floor as they played with the activity of communicating in a new way. We thoroughly enjoyed doing this together. How interesting, I thought. I had not seen them so joyful and so much of a group in awhile, if ever. As we played, we were making up new ways to be together, which were not coherent with the rules and roles for children and adults. The boys became very affectionate with each other. I had not seen them do this so openly before.
Near the end of the session I asked them how the group was doing. They became very sheepish and put their heads down. I was perplexed, and asked them what was going on. One boy, Michael, said it was embarrassing. I asked him what was embarrassing. No answer. Then Michael said the group felt close today. “Close. Yes,” I agreed. Then I decided to push this issue even further.
“I would even say that you really love each other,” I said. They were silent.
Tom, the ten-year-old who has difficulty being a part of the group, said, “Yuck that’s gay.”
Another boy asked, “Is that gay?
I thought about how I wanted to answer. What would be most valuable for them, given the struggles they have with their emotionality ?
I said, “Yes. It is gay to love whomever you want to.”
Tom said, “Gay is disgusting.” The other boys said nothing, and the session ended.
The following week, Tom spoke first, and said, “Christine, I have something to tell you.”
“Great,” I replied. “Tell all of us.”
He said, “I am now in a gay relationship.”
“Really?” I said. I noticed that the boys didn’t giggle. They were curious about what Tom was saying.
Michael asked, “Who are you in a relationship with?”
“Pikachu,” he answered. (For the uninitiated, Pikachu is a well-known character in the world of Pokémon.)
“Congratulations!” I said. “I’m happy for you. What do you love about Pikachu?”
“He’s yellow,” Tom said. Everyone laughed.
“I get it,” I said. “I think I get it. I love yellow, too.” Everyone laughed again.
Another boy in the group calmly said, “You can’t be in love with a fictional character.”
Tom asked me, “What do you think about this?” I assured him that a lot of people are in love with fictional characters. Lew and I laughed.
Tom asked again, “So Christine, how do you feel about this?” I said that I was very happy for him and Pikachu. The boys smiled and nodded. They nonchalantly began to play some floor games. Tom joined them for the remainder of the group play.
I would love to hear what you think about all this. I find these conversations to be quite a provocation, and I think they were wonderfully helpful to the boys and their families. Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!
Dear Christine,
Having worked with elementary school children for the last few years, I can definitely relate to the approach that you took to help create an environment for the boys that not only allowed them to be active, but helped them understand themselves emotionally.
Boys are often raised to keep emotional issues to themselves and to be tough. Myself included. Situations that require expression are seen as uncomfortable and boys are quick to close themselves up completely which makes the process that much difficult.
There’s a correlation in the minds of young boys that wrongly relates feelings of closeness or happiness to being gay. However, this is not a fault of their own. It is our job as adults to help boys fully understand what it is to express themselves emotionally among a group of other boys and not feel embarrassed.
This was a very enjoying read!
Eddie L Boden,
Yes and yes. Creating environments for young boys to be emotionally close and expressive is so terribly important. Thank you so much for your comment. Recently in another session I asked a five year old boy if he wanted to be closer to his father. He shook his head no. I asked how come? He said that dad tis scary and doesn’t know how. Astounding to me that a five year old could see and say that. We created conversations with the family on their response to what the boy had said. I worked on helping the dad let his very young son help him grow. Very beautiful indeed.
Christine
I absolutely love this blog, I feel that it is important to let boys be who they want to be starting at a young age. Not everything within a male should be tough or emotionless, that is what society wants but is it what these soon to be men actually want?. There is nothing wrong with showing your emotions and more important love for someone else. You can raise your boys to be open and not to close themself in because they are a man, there is nothing wrong with being emotional and still holding their man entitlement at the same time.
How very liberating, to find out what else there is to language. Letting children lead that way. They seemed very happy you and Lew let them. I would probably be nervous the whole week waiting for the next session to see if there were any reactions to the last session. What could Tom’s week have been like? Do you get a chance to speak with the parents too.
Bob Friedman
Bob
Thanks for your response. I did speak to parents. I had some concerns how they might respond. They were open and curious about what happened in the group. They wanted their boys to grow and to be able to care for each other. I was very moved by their support for our work together and the development of their children.
Christine
Loved this and the conversation started.
I particularly love “choosing to love whomever you want” as gay. I recently had a conversation with a dear friend about my father saying her father was handsome at her wedding. She was surprised and found it odd. She then went to her new husband and said, “Levell (my father) said my dad is handsome.” He replied, “he is.” And a male friend nearby said, “yeah, he is.”
It was such a simple appreciation of one another that I’m sure felt gay, a challenge to what men are supposed to notice or say. I was very proud them all.
Hello Christine,
I enjoyed reading your blog. I appreciate the creative reframing you did with your young clients to allow them to relax and enjoy being themselves. I would like to instill in youth the idea that “gay” is not a bad word, nor is being gay “bad” in any way. Our society has seen bigotry take many forms–racism, antisemitism, sexism. Homophobia is the latest frontier challenging us.
As a psychotherapist paid thru a grant to do crisis intervention and conflict resolution in an urban middle school, when LGBT students started coming out to me in counseling, I started a Gay/Straight Alliance in Berkeley, CA in 1998. According to the GSA Network, we were the first US middle school to have a GSA. In doing so, we made a statement that it was “cool” not only to talk about but especially to support LGBT issues and students. The GSA became perceived as a “cool” venue for kids who wanted to make a difference.
Although I retired from King in 2006–after twenty satisfying years–the GSA and the counseling program I started are still going strong! In my book, LOST and FOUND: HEALING TROUBLED TEENS IN TROUBLED TIMES, coming out in October, readers will be able to “listen in” on the conversations I had with youth in crisis who were dealing with major losses–loss of innocence, loss of self-esteem, loss of friends, loss of family–as they shared their pain with me and supportive peers, and worked through their grief to find and accept themselves.
I would be happy to connect with you, Tony Rao, and William Pollack to talk about the critical issues that youth are facing in these troubled times.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Jan Elise Sells, M.Ed, M.A., M.F.T.
http://www.TroubledTeensInTroubledTimes.com
Christine, I really love the discovery that when liberated from the “sense-making” of language, a joyful, affectionate, physical movement became the mode of communicating and experiencing each other (rolling on the floor, running around, being affectionate). It highlights how our cultural concepts can be so confining of our activities! when the language piece is given the space to be creative, silly, and nonsensical, we can express ourselves in totally new and unexpected ways. we can find and experience closeness, without the linguistic knowing of how that closeness is defined.
Last year I learned a Hawaiian healing massage, and one of the most gratifying elements of this training, for me, was a new expansive way of communicating; not only through words, but through touch and the intelligence of our bodies. In fact, part of our training was without words all together, we spent a day working together in silence! These new ways of communicating and defining fostered closeness in our group. I experienced a letting go and a sheer joy, that I can feel when you talk about your session with the young boys.
I find this progressive, creative and holistic way of communicating and being with each other really exciting and relieving. it gives me a new “definition” of being gay. I love how we are talking about being gay as an activity rather than an identification.
I’m all in favor of giving new meanings to our culturally-weighted (and often rigid) words, and doing gayness in a new way! What are more word-concepts we can open up/break open??
Janessa
Thanks for writing your thoughts here. Your last question is a big one. The answer demands that we create the conditions to discover what those concepts are. It is the methodology of social therapy—- the search for method, the performance of not knowing…….
Best,
Christine
Christine,
I really appreciate how you are allowing these boys to share love through “gayness”. Even though there certainly are dominant understandings of what it means to be gay, there still is a multiplicity of definitions. As a gay man, I’ve always been attracted to the understandings of “gay” that stress that gayness is an opportunity to transform relations not only between men, but transform relations as a social body. To this point, I really enjoy Michel Foucault’s thoughts in an interview he did titled “Friendship as a Way of Life”, particularly the following statement:
“Is it possible to create a homosexual mode of life? This notion of mode of life seems important to me. Will it require the introduction of a diversification different from the ones due to social class, differences in profession and culture, a diversification that would also be a form of relationship and would be a “way of life”? A way of life can be shared among individuals of different age, status, and social activity. It can yield intense relations not resembling those that are institutionalized. It seems to me that a way of life can yield a culture and an ethics. To be “gay,” I think, is not to identify with the psychological traits and the visible masks of the homosexual but to try to define and develop a way of life.”
(you can go here for the full interview: http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/michel-foucault-friendship-as-a-way-of-life/)
Christine – you are definitely rubbing up against this way of thinking! I would love to learn and know more.
I don’t get it, are you trying to send the message that if a boy loves another boy, that is gay? Fictional or not that is wrong. I might have missed the point but isn’t being gay, being attracted sexually to the same sex? Being gay isn’t or shouldn’t be painted with this wide all incompassing brush. I am sure gays have to fight every day for things we straight people take for granted, I don’t think it’s fair to just jump on the band wagon thinking that it’s fashionable today to be gay.
Yes the confusion might be that I am playing with what it means to be gay with these children . I am working to create the conditions for the young boys to go beyond their socialization and fear of loving each other and their well learned lessons of homophobia to embrace that they together have created intimacy. I think being gay is an activity not an identity that labels who you are. In contrast I think it is important for children to have the opportunity to play and perform meaning making activities together. For me, creating what gay means together is a critical part of developing their capacities to love each other. It has helped them develop emotionally. Being gay , loving the same sex, or being straight and deeply loving your male friends takes courage and the support from people who love you . Being gay is not only about attraction and sex. It is how one lives one’s life — breaking the roles and rules of how we are supposed to be. As a therapist I am working to help the boys create a powerfully new way of relating to each other. Thank you so much for responding.
Dear Christine,
I loved what you did with these children to create an environment
that they did not expect, allowing freedom to express and to be creative with language and communication. I would say it was
somewhat like a surrealistic experience for them – unexpected -
(the Surrealists played games based on the unconscious, as you probably know – by folding paper and not seeing what the person before has drawn or written, and the next person adds to the drawing). And the results!! Falling in love with a fictional character,
but also admitting, as they did in the group, that their definition of
closeness they described as “gay”, says quite a bit about conditioning, in our world. Quite provocative and extremely important to see how when we create an environment for people to express, how belief systems are altered.
Great job.
Joyce Culver
Freedom for boys to play with language , with how and whom they love! Let’s celebrate.