“管理圈”不能給男孩們最需要的東西
Naomi schaefer Riley著
娜奧米·謝弗·萊利
Naomi Schaefer Riley is an American journalist and author who focuses on cultural, religious, and family issues. She has written for publications such as The Wall Street Journal and has published related books.
娜奧米·謝弗·萊利是一位美國記者和作家，專註於文化、宗教和家庭問題，曾為《華爾街日報》等媒體撰稿，並出版過相關書籍
男孩需要什麼？根據“管理圈”（manosphere）的博主和播客——近年來吸引了數百萬讀者和聽眾的那些通常厭惡女性、有陰謀思想、有時偏執的男人——男孩需要更堅強。他們必須學會如何保持身體健康，對女性更加霸道，在情感上不那麼脆弱。
《華爾街日報》（The Wall Street Journal）最近一篇由一名高中生撰寫的文章稱，男孩們被這些信息所吸引，因為它們有助於消除他和同學們收到的“混雜信息”。
“在歷史課上，我們被教導平等和尊重女性的重要性，通常是通過過去爭取民權和選舉權的鬥爭。在英語課上，我們鑽研文本，揭示我們作為白人的特權；我們被敦促為這個世界的不平等感到內疚，即使這些不平等不是我們自己造成的。但在更衣室里，一切都是關於強硬和‘男子氣概’，從不退縮，”伊萊·湯普森寫道。
網上的“manosphere”提供了類似於更衣室的信息，但這是男孩們在生活中快樂和成功所需要的嗎？在《大西洋月刊》最近的一篇文章中，心理學家約書亞·科爾曼提出了一種不同的方法。他寫道，男孩需要父母更多的關愛和培養。不幸的是，他們得到的比女性同齡人少。
科爾曼引用的研究表明，“從嬰兒時期到學齡前，母親和父親花在給女兒講故事、唱歌和讀書上的時間比兒子多。”另一項研究表明，“有女兒的父母比有兒子的父母感覺更接近他們在幼兒園的孩子，而且父母更有可能因為太忙而沒有時間陪兒子玩。”
科爾曼認為，正是這種培養的缺乏，助長了我們的男子氣概危機。他指出：“父母的養育方式會削弱男孩的能力，這種觀點在美國文化中仍然存在，並被男人和女人所延續。”
也許吧，但這取決於我們對培養的定義。與男女孩子一起閱讀、玩耍和交談是非常重要的，但這些事情對不同的孩子來說可能會有所不同。小男孩可能想聽不同類型的故事或歌曲，他們可能沒有耐心坐着不動。他們可能不傾向於放鬆，抱着書玩，他們的遊戲可能更多的是身體上的。
科爾曼正確地觀察到，一些情感和行為問題發生在單身母親撫養的男孩身上。單身母親不會像對待女孩那樣照顧孩子，而是更有可能因為男孩的吵鬧行為而感受到壓力，從而變得不那麼照顧孩子。也可能是單親媽媽過度補償，試圖讓兒子變得堅強，過早地讓他們成為“家裡的男人”。
雖然科爾曼建議在單親家庭中通過社會支持來解決這些問題，但事實是，不同層次或不同風格的養育並不能解決這種男子氣概危機的核心問題——父親的缺席。
有些父親給兒子更多的照顧，他們給兒子讀更多的書或唱更多的歌。但這些並不是決定一個男孩如何成為一個男人的最重要因素，也不是決定他如何駕馭“混雜的信息”的最重要因素。
我一直在聽演員羅伯·洛（Rob Lowe） 2011年出版的回憶錄《我只告訴朋友的故事》（Stories I Only Tell My Friends），他對母親先是離開父親，然後又離開繼父給自己的生活帶來的影響的評估是毀滅性的。他和父親的關係仍然很好，但由於搬到全國各地，他很少見到父親。多年後撫養自己的兒子，他意識到自己錯過了什麼。
他寫道“十幾歲的男孩需要學習的課程”，這些課程“不能在午夜吃披薩或在網球場上教授”。他們不是通過演講來學習的。“他們通過數小時的觀察逐漸吸收。關於離婚的可悲事實是，除非你和孩子一起生活，否則很難教會他們生活。”不僅是吃飯、做作業、開車送他們去參加活動，而且，洛寫道，“在你做生意的時候，在你和妻子日夜相處的愛情、挫折、複雜和回報中，讓他們傾聽。”
具體來說，洛指出，通過觀察生活中的男人，男孩們“看到成年人是如何處理責任、誠實、承諾、嫉妒、憤怒、職業壓力和社會互動的。”
如果我們想要理解為什麼這麼多的年輕人如此茫然，試圖弄清楚他們在世界上的位置，以及他們應該如何與異性相處，那麼就有必要理解他們在與父親分離的過程中錯過了什麼。
What do boys need? According to the bloggers and podcasters in the “manosphere” — the often misogynistic, conspiracy minded, and sometimes bigoted men who have attracted millions of readers and listeners in recent years — boys need to be tougher. They must learn how to be physically fit, more domineering over women and less emotionally vulnerable.
Boys are attracted to these messages, according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal by a high school student, because they help cut through the “mixed messages” he and his classmates receive.
“In history class, we’re taught about equality and the importance of respecting women as peers, often through lessons on past struggles for civil rights and suffrage. In English class, we dive into texts that unpack our privilege as white men; we are urged to feel some guilt for the inequities of the world, even if we didn’t create them ourselves. But in the locker room, it’s all about being tough and ‘manly’ and never backing down,” Eli Thompson wrote.
The online “manosphere” offers a message similar to the locker room, but is this what boys need to be happy and successful in life? In a recent article in The Atlantic, psychologist Joshua Coleman suggests a different approach. He writes that boys need more affection and more nurturing from their parents. Unfortunately, they get less of it than their female peers.
Coleman cites studies showing “that mothers and fathers spent more time telling stories, singing, and reading to young daughters compared with sons, from babyhood leading up to preschool.” Another study showed that “parents of daughters reported feeling closer to their kindergarten-age child than parents of sons, and that parents were more likely to report being too busy to play with sons.”
It is this lack of nurturing, Coleman suggests, that is fueling our crisis of masculinity. He notes that “the idea that boys are weakened by a more nurturing approach from parents still weaves its way through American culture, and is perpetuated by men and women.”
Maybe, but it depends on what we mean by nurturing. Reading and playing and talking to children of both sexes is very important, but those things can look different for different children. Young boys may want different kinds of stories or songs and they may have less patience to sit still for either. They may not be as inclined to relax and cuddle with a book and their play may be more physical.
Coleman rightly observes that some of the emotional and behavioral problems occur in boys raised by single mothers. Rather than offer the same kind of nurturing they give to girls, single mothers may be more likely to experience stress as a result of boys’ raucous behavior and become less nurturing. It also may be that single mothers are overcompensating, trying to toughen up their sons, make them “the man of the house” prematurely.
While Coleman recommends social supports to navigate these problems in single-parent households, the truth is that a different level or style of nurturing is not going to fix what may be at the heart of so much of this masculinity crisis — the absence of fathers.
There are fathers who offer boys more nurturing than others, fathers who read more or sing more to their sons. But these are not the most important factors in determining how a boy is going to become a man, how he is going to navigate the “mixed messages.”
I’ve been listening to the actor Rob Lowe’s 2011 memoir, “Stories I Only Tell My Friends,” and his assessment of what happened to his life as a result of his mother first leaving his father and then his stepfather is devastating. He still had a strong relationship with his father but, having moved across the country, saw him considerably less. Raising his own sons years later, he realizes what he missed.
He writes about the “lessons that teenage boys need to learn” which “can’t be taught over pizza at midnight or on the tennis court.” They don’t learn through speeches. “They absorb incrementally through hours and hours of observation. The sad truth about divorce is that it’s hard to teach your kids about life unless you are living life with them.” Not only eating and doing homework and driving them to activities, but also, Lowe writes, “letting them listen while you do business, while you negotiate love and the frustrations and complications and rewards of living day in and out with your wife.”
Specifically, Lowe notes that through watching the men in their lives, boys “see how adults handle responsibility, honesty, commitment, jealousy, anger, professional pressures and social interactions.”
If we want to understand why so many young men are so at sea trying to figure out their place in the world and how they should relate to the opposite sex, it is worth understanding what they miss when they grow up separated from their fathers.
