Parents of boys- what are we doing to break the cycle of entitlement and patriarchy?

[datcherygrateful]

I want to raise my son who is a teenager, to
-not grow up into an entitled man
-to eventually understand the patriarchal system that has propped many men up and supressed women and so understand and appreciate equity vs equality in relationships.
-Respect women
-Be fully functional and so won't weaponize any incompetence in his relationships.
-Have emotional intelligence and maturity
-Be emotionally available
-Be able to emotionally regulate
-Be grounded
-Communicate openly
-Understand nuance
-Align his words with actions; lives with integrity.
-Be an active listener to his future partner and children
-Advocate and stand up when a friend or peer say or do something misogynistic.

Curious to know if there are any things you have been doing, in small doses maybe, that you picked up on from your own lived experience, things that you have vowed to do or say (or not) when raising your boys

I'm generally frustrated by a lot of the threads on this site where unfortunately too little progress is made. Cycles are repeating no matter how kind we think we raise our little boys to be. Women are still bearing the brunt and the things that too many women are experiencing are shocking and it's happening to women in their 20's and 30's; so very young still. I don't want to propagate or be complicit.

In terms of small steps or micro forms or doses, what are we all doing to plant the seeds of change?

Here's another example of the conversations we have - recently, DS and a few of his friends got into trouble at school because they were shouting and behaving badly outside a teacher's office/classroom. A few of the boys were shouting the teacher's name and making inappropriate/disrespectful comments.

DS felt the school over reacted in that they were just in the playground at break etc and while he agreed that some of the comments were not okay, he felt it was a bit much.

Until DH and I asked him if the boys would have behaved that way outside of a male teacher's classroom? He was resistant at first, but we asked him to pretend it was happening outside Mr Smith or Mr Jones' classroom and Mr Smiths or Mr Jones had come to the window and asked them to be quiet. Would they then have continued, and used his name?

It FINALLY sunk in. But we had to have this conversation with him.

From my experience with men, I do think the majority tend to be more 'black and white' with emotions compared to woman. Maybe that boils down to woman being more comfortable in expressing them. A lot of woman tend to go deeper with things, over think more, want answers. Whereas men are more black and white. Not sure if this is something that could ever be aligned or not in raising boys.

Thank you
I did actually read them all. I was replying to the ones that clearly missed the mark.

I'm not sure that is correct though could be a respect thing or a fear thing. Not necessarily a woman man thing.

We had a teacher where even the bad boys wouldn't disrespect and actually knuckled down and she was female.

Full agree.

Women are far more emotional and I'm the same.

I'm autistic so have weird interests don't judge haha 😂 but yeah from what I've seen incels are a varied bunch some had mother's who mollycoddled them others were abused/neglected or their mother had multiple boyfriends who were abusive the incels then see their own mother as a "whore" and think that's what most women are like. Sisters who were favoured etc
Some had feminist mother's who tried too hard and instilled a sense of guilt that turned sour as they grew, which is what I'm warning of here.

Btw not at all saying it's always the mother's fault an Incel becomes an Incel.

I also second what a previous poster said about boys being taught this stuff in school and it makes them switch the other way and they start getting into stuff like Andrew Tate. I'm younger than most on this site so I saw this my self in secondary school

All I'm saying is don't go overboard with this stuff

Following with interest. I've really drilled consent from a really young age, and have tried to encourage kindness, care and responsibility towards animals. No idea how else to progress.

This.

Raising decent human beings. Isn’t that our brief, regardless of whether we’re raising boys or girls?

@Leah5678 "Btw not at all saying it's always the mother's fault an Incel becomes an Incel."

Well, you kind of are. Not a mention of the influence of fathers/other men.

I'm not. If I was I wouldn't of said I wasn't. I don't mince my words.
My first comment on this thread was me saying I've been in Incel groups and a fair amount of them moan about their mother's being feminists and another poster asked me what exactly they moan about so I explained.

Honestly, it's this type of response that's part of the problem. You had a female teacher who was terrifying and 100% respected so of course, boys don't disrespect female teachers?

Overall though, the reality we were trying ti impress on DS that it was far more likely that they would behave this way outside a woman's office than a man. Stastically, all the research shows that men are MORE likely to respected/listened to. That doesn't mean ALL men are respected/listened to or that ALL women are not listened to/respected. But it's an overall reality.

DS actually tried this argument on us saying, "But no one would ever do that to Mrs White" to which DH and I pointed out - but that's exactly part of the problem. Mrs White is considered "extra" and is uniformally respected and feared by all the children.

I have to agree with this. I'm raising a girl and a boy and I'm really focusing on teaching them to be kind and considerate. I'm raising them both the same way.
If course we occasionally mention issues around sexism, perceived gender differences etc. (and also issues like racism. My children are mixed race.)
But really I'm not going to burden my boy (or girl) with notions that he has to constantly fight against the patriachy and toxic masculinity etc. I'll teach him to be a decent person, not to be sexist. I'm already teaching him to cook, do the laundry etc but I'm not into getting too heavy about these things. I'm a woman of nearly 50. I've really enjoyed my life so far and have never felt oppressed or held back because of the patriachy. I've always done whatever I wanted.

But a feminist woman is NOT responsible for creating an incel. If someone is treating their son badly, it doesn't matter if she claims to be a feminist. She's not a very good person.

All your examples about why men become incels are still putting it at the feet of women. They were bad mothers, they were sluts, they treated the boys badly....

I call bollocks to all of that. Not least because when some of these incels then get out and do terrible things and we look at their lives, we too often see that they claim to have been so hard done by/their mother was a whore etc etc, when actually, none of it is true.

Well I was just listing what I've heard them say because someone asked.

Although I still think that if you take a young boy and constantly remind him that his entire gender is oppressing the opposite gender etc etc for 18 years that it probably won't have the outcome you expected.

And yep it's good to see most on this thread aren't recommending to do that this time but they have on previous threads on this topic on Mumsnet.

Best thing parents can do is just model treating each other respectfully

Well I was just listing what I've heard them say because someone asked.

I understand what you're saying, but the reality is that the nature of an incel means that he's not particularly rational or sensible so quite frankly, I'm not believing a word he says about why he is the way he is.

And I absolutely will point out to DS when his sex puts him at advantage or when a girl/woman is disadvantaged because of her sex. And I not going to stop highlighting how often men are in power and women aren't, and asking him to think about that and what it means that when we see world leaders on the tv, they're men. When we see top police/doctors/fire department people on tv, yup, dominated by men. When he goes to school and head teachers are all men.

I'm not telling him he's bad. We're discussing how society makes it so that these positions tend to go to men more often than to women and why that is.

Caitlyn Moran’s latest book, ‘What about men?’ is very good.
It’s hard for young lads. I’ve raised mine single handedly and they’ve always had to pitch in. Having seen me walk away from relationships with men who don’t treat me right, I like to think they have learned about boundaries and respect.

"Ok I don't think we're going to move past this kitchen stuff.
Still baffled. "

The reason why people are talking about the kitchen stuff is because it encompasses the attitude of men towards women. Apparently women are better at domesticity, it's their job, they have to do all of it even if they're working, and they have to do it to a high (often male) standard.
Op your situation is rare. Most men who are entitled and disrespectful towards women, will believe that the kitchen stuff is entirely the woman's role.
So it starts there. Getting rid of that notion of female domesticity where the man shares that burden.

My son who is 24 is an alpha male with his own house and career. He is a feminist and will call out misogyny with other men (and racism and homophobia). Shares the domestics with his girlfriend (if anything does more) - totally at ease with romantic and soppy gestures and making fun of himself. Always remembers birthdays and what he wrote on the last Father’s Day card to his dad made me cry…

I’m a feminist, but the biggest reason he is like this is because of the role model my husband is. Always pulled his weight and more. And was an amazing hands on father.

We also encouraged my son to be independent from quite an early age. I was never going to be mummying him into the teen years like some mothers do with sons. They become the worst kind of men - mummied into adulthood and because they’re useless and dependent, they marry some poor wretch who becomes the surrogate. This just becomes a cycle with children being born who think adult relationships are useless man and domestic slave wife.

Really important topic OP. My son is 17 and I have tried to instil similar values to those you mention.

When my H walked out on us last year (married 13 years, not DS' biological father) my son's attitude was astounding. He thought a great deal of his step dad, they were close and I wondered if he might blame me given that H's main complaints were that I'd recently I'd become opinionated, let myself go, exercised without him, and didn't keep the house to his standards. I couldn't have been more wrong. He was appalled and upset and extremely thoughtful. I have done my absolute best not to lean on him, as I'm keen to keep the boundary between parent and child and for him to know he is safe and I am broadly ok. But he has been very mature, allowed himself to grieve, been a big support and made it very clear that although he knows marriages end all the time, he also knows unacceptable behaviour and attitudes when he sees them. He also realises how much of the mental load and unseen work I did as a wife and mum as well as my own job.

He has zero tolerance for any kind of prejudice including sexist, misogynistic behaviour. He sees nuances more clearly than me.

I'm honestly not sure which (if any) of my own actions may have helped. I do have a strong dislike for prejudice and judgement in any form to the point that some people probably find me frustrating. I have adhd and I think for me a strong sense of justice and fairness is part of that. Being judged has hurt me and I don't want to be that person.

I think maybe the fact that my son has always had a lot of female friends and is close to female cousins may have had an impact.

He has never been traditionally sporty, he's more musical and into water sports in a big way. Academically he's a proud geek. I think that this has meant he has ended up in friendship groups of both male and female where (and I choose my words carefully to avoid offence) most of them aren't especially typically 'female' or 'male' , it's all a bit more level in terms of typical gender roles with a massive range of personalities and quirkiness is embraced .

Many of them have been friends since primary school and although I expected maybe the girls and boys to form separate friendship groups in secondary school they haven't tended to- the group has just changed and grown.

I think caring about these friends, and respecting them has taught him and shaped him a lot. He's made plenty of mistakes too- and learned from them. He has also seen the fallout that has happened especially to his female friends when they have been victims of toxic masculinity.

I do wonder if for whatever reason never being part of a more 'sporty' or 'alpha' friendship group has been helpful in this way- as a byproduct he's not been part of a group of dominant boys . He's also naturally tall and strong and not interested in arguments so is very lucky that he's tended to avoid much in way of worrying conflict.

My ExH would probably criticise my son for being 'different' and say that he's missed out on being a more traditionally male child. He criticised me for not encouraging sport playing or watching- I wasn't even aware of it at the time it's just that I genuinely find it dull and DS didn't enjoy football/ cricket etc and TBH part of that was that he was not at all good at it. In exH's world boys should play sport, be tough, be respected, take charge blah blah. He's similar about the adult vs child relationship also- so young people should not answer back, have strong opinions, debate (he'd call it arguing), disagree etc.. I've tried hard not to bring my son up like that as I recognise the difficulties those attitudes have caused me. In fact me finally finding my self esteem and putting all that behind me was what began to put my H off 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I'm not naive enough to think DS has no issues, or me for that matter. But I am proud of his attitude towards woman and his understanding of the patriarchy.

"But a feminist woman is NOT responsible for creating an incel. If someone is treating their son badly, it doesn't matter if she claims to be a feminist. She's not a very good person.

All your examples about why men become incels are still putting it at the feet of women. They were bad mothers, they were sluts, they treated the boys badly.... "

Mothers are powerful. That relationship between a mother and their child is so formative. Fathers too of course but the mother, has far more influence in the primary years. The mothers acceptance, rejection, unconditional or conditional love plays a massive role on how that child develops and will have an effect on mental
health as well.

Marking my place

Great posts. Thank you

I agree that chores should be shared of course. But my issue is that I think many men today, were at some point pulling their weight around the house when they were little. We're not in the dark ages. A 40 yr old man today would have grown up in the late 80's and 90's??

Being able to help around the house that he lives in, is a good person thing to do- should not be an expression of love or empathy or whatever.

Being able to cook and clean, is all fine and makes them equipped to look after THEMSELVES. But, how does that translate to EMOTIONAL intelligence, maturity and being able to regulate emotions for example. Or how does it translate to being emotionally available? Or be respectful, and live with integrity?
How does that translate to not viewing dates and relationships as transactional?

Case in point, not exclusive to however: A man in the military may have learnt how to fend for himself, be organised and clean thoroughly but it does not necessarily translate to him respecting women or being emotionally available partners, or having emotional intelligence.

I don't think my situation is v rare. I don't think control and disrespect is limited to slobs and that those that are neat and tidy are automatically lovely.

OP as mum to a daughter can I say thanks to you and many other like minded mums to boys on this thread. It's good to know so many can recognise that there is much boys and men can do to make life better for girls and women.

And often like you say it's the little things and mind sets changing that make most meaningful difference.

Absolutely this

The best men are the ones that see women as fully human. Evidenced by them having genuine friendships with girls as a pp describes - her son sounds lovely. Knew Dh was a keeper when I met his uni friends from his course. All women - women I would have been friends with who adored him.