Real Boys Read online

  ALSO BY WILLIAM POLLACK

  In a Time of Fallen Heroes: The Re-Creation

  of Masculinity (coauthor)

  A New Psychology of Men

  (coeditor)

  REAL BOYS

  WILLIAM POLLACK, PH.D.

  REAL BOYS

  RESCUING OUR SONS FROM

  THE MYTHS OF BOYHOOD

  Owl Books

  Henry Holt and Company, LLC, Publishers since 1866

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  www.henryholt.com

  An Owl Book® and ® are registered trademarks

  of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

  Copyright © 1998 by William Pollack

  Foreword copyright © 1999 by Mary Pipher

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Simon & Schuster and A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of

  Michael Yeats for permission to reprint four lines from “A Dialogue of Self and Soul”

  from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume 1: The Poems, revised and edited

  by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright © 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company.

  Copyright renewed 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. Rights outside of the

  United States are controlled by A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael Yeats.

  Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster and A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael Yeats.

  Grateful acknowledgment is also made to Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.:

  “For My Son Noah, Ten Years Old,” from Man in the Black Coat

  Turns, by Robert Bly. Copyright © 1981 by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission

  of the author and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

  A version of the foreword by Mary Pipher appeared in Family Therapy Networker.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pollack, William S.

  Real boys: rescuing our sons from the myths of boyhood / William

  Pollack.—1st Owl Books ed.

  p. cm.

  “An Owl book.”

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Originally published: 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1998. With

  new pref.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-6183-3

  ISBN-10: 0-8050-6183-5

  1. Boys. 2. Sons. 3. Masculinity. 4. Child rearing. I. Title.

  HQ775.P65 1999 99-10388

  305.23—dc21 CIP

  Henry Holt books are available for special promotions

  and premiums. For details contact: Director, Special Markets.

  First published in hardcover in 1998 by Random House, Inc.

  First Owl Books Edition 1999

  Designed by Tanya Pérez-Rock

  Printed in the United States of America

  24

  To Marsha and Sarah—

  who have sustained the man and nurtured the inner boy

  To my parents and grandparents—

  who knew how to make a boy feel special and loved

  And to the boys and their parents—

  who opened their hearts and gave voice to their feelings

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  All of the stories and voices contained in this book are derived in part from my clinical experience and in part from my ongoing “Listening to Boys’ Voices” research project at Harvard Medical School. However, names, places, and other details contained in these materials have been altered to protect the privacy and anonymity of the individuals to whom they refer. Therefore, any similarity between the names and stories of individuals described in this book and those of individuals known to readers is inadvertent and purely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword by Mary Pipher, Ph.D

  Introduction: Listening to Boys’ Voices:

  Rescuing Ophelia’s Brothers

  PART ONE: REAL BOYS

  1. INSIDE THE WORLD OF BOYS: BEHIND THE MASK

  OF MASCULINITY

  2. STORIES OF SHAME AND THE HAUNTING TRAUMA

  OF SEPARATION: HOW WE CAN CONNECT WITH BOYS AND

  CHANGE THE “BOY CODE”

  3. REAL BOYS: THE TRUTHS BEHIND THE MYTHS

  4. ACTION LOVE: HOW BOYS RELATE

  PART TWO: CONNECTING TO BOYS

  5. THE POWER OF MOTHERS

  6. REAL FATHERS/REAL MEN: THE EMPATHIC RELATIONSHIPS

  OF FATHERS AND SONS

  7. THE ADOLESCENT CRUCIBLE: GROWTH, CHANGE

  AND SEXUALITY

  8. THE WORLD OF BOYS AND THEIR FRIENDSHIPS

  9. BEING “DIFFERENT”: BEING GAY

  10. SCHOOLS: THE BLACKBOARD JUMBLE

  11. SPORTS: PLAY AND TRANSFORMATION

  PART THREE: WHEN THE BOUGH BREAK

  12. HAMLET’S CURSE: DEPRESSION AND

  SUICIDE IN BOYS

  13. VIOLENCE: SLAY OR BE SLAIN

  14. DIVORCE

  PART FOUR: STAYING CONNECTED:

  REAL BOYS/REAL MEN

  EPILOGUE: THE “REAL BOY” CODE—REVISING THE BOY CODE

  AND STAYING CONNECTED

  SOURCES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A work of this scope rarely involves the toil or ideas of just one person. The author inevitably stands on the shoulders of many strong personal, professional, and creative pillars, including many friends, family members, and professional colleagues. Therefore, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer my sincerest gratitude to some of the many people who helped make Real Boys possible.

  First, I’d like to thank my editor at Random House, Kate Medina, whose perspicacity, energy, warm support, and critical thinking were central to making this book come to life. From our first meeting in Cambridge I sensed her deep connection with my work and her hopefulness about how my research—and this book—could help make an important difference in how we think about and raise boys. Her editorial comments and suggestions were nothing short of brilliant, and I shall be forever grateful for her creative guidance in taking these chunks of ideas and shaping them into the big picture of this book. Her dedication and expertise at publishing this book cannot be too deeply praised.

  Also at Random House Meaghan Rady has been essential to making this book happen and I am deeply grateful. In every way the people at Random House have shown the highest standards of professionalism and excellence.

  This work would hardly be a paper, let alone a complete book, without the foresight, energy, and love for this endeavor that my literary agents at Zachary Shuster—Todd Shuster and Lane Zachary—brought to the party. They were the first to see the potential for a book relating to work with boys, and helped me enormously to shape its movement from research notes to the written page. Their agents and staff, especially Jennifer Gates Hayes, Esmond Harmsworth, and Allison Murray, provided me and Real Boys with a level of support and encouragement an author has almost no right to expect—but which I did receive, cheerfully and regularly, almost daily.

  Although as author one must take ultimate responsibility for the hypotheses, findings, suggestions, and results of his work, there are debts of intellectual gratitude that, though they cannot be completely repaid, must be acknowledged. Dr. Fran Grossman first invited me to study families with her Boston University Parenthood project, which led me in the direction of defining and researching the world of fathers, at a time when the world was just beginning to perceive the meaning of men in family life. Dr. Ronald Levant then felicitously invited me to join him on a journey to understand the struggles men were having in our society and to band together with other like-minded individuals to study, help, and treat men and boys. Our intellectual coll
aboration has given birth to two professional books on gender, a continuing collaboration toward understanding men and boys, and a friendship for which I’m very grateful. I am appreciative too of my collaboration with Dr. Bill Betcher, with whom I have coauthored a book and now codirect the Center for Men at McLean Hospital.

  The International Coalition of Boys’ Schools recognized the significance and need for a new psychology of boys and has also been generously supportive of my work. I would like to thank John Farber, who first invited me to speak; past president Rick Hawley, who has been a constant intellectual supporter; and the Reverend Tony Jarvis whose spiritual understanding of boys is both erudite and uplifting. I must especially thank Dr. Rick Melvoin at the Belmont Hill School, who with his staff (especially Connie MacGillivary) opened many doors in helping my recent research project come to fruition. Diane Hulse and John Bednall also collaborated with suggestions and ideas that have been very helpful to our project. I would like to acknowledge and thank the Research Committee of the Coalition for a grant that partially funded some of the early analysis of the data from the “Listening to Boys’ Voices” study.

  Likewise, I must express my gratitude to the superintendents and educational leaders of the key suburban and smaller city districts in New England who (although they must remain nameless) have been of inestimable value in bringing balance to my understanding of the educational needs of boys today.

  Several graduate assistants who aided in the analysis and gathering of data at different phases of the work—namely, Judy Chu, Chuck McCormick, and Roberto Olivardia—are to be thanked most heartily. In addition, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to John Butman, Nancy Roosa, Becky Shuster, John Delancy, and Mark Zanger for their assistance in gathering data and preparing materials to be included in this book.

  I would also like to acknowledge the gracious input of my colleagues at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital, including its former chief Dr. Steven Mirin and his successor, Dr. Bruce Cohen, for their support for the Center for Men; Dr. Joseph Coyle, chair of the Consolidated Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School for his recognition of the psychology of boys and men as a legitimate field of specialization; and the support of the Department of Continuing Education at McLean Hospital, especially Carol Brown and Cathy Toon. Carol Brown’s and Patti Brown’s aid with the typing of portions of the manuscript is also gratefully recognized, as is the research assistance of Lynn Dietrich and Ann Menashi, the chief librarians at McLean Hospital and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, respectively.

  My colleagues and teachers in psychoanalysis have also played a dynamic, formative role in enhancing and deepening my appreciation of boys’ inner lives. On this score, I would particularly like to thank Drs. David Berkowitz, Arnold Modell, Gerald Adler, Dan Buie, Jim Herzog, Ralph Engle, Tony Kris, Lynn Layton, Paul Lynch, Risa Weinrit, Dianne Fader, Laura Weissberg, Rita Teusch, and Steve Rosenthal.

  I must also express my gratitude to Dr. Shervert Frazier, psychiatrist in chief, emeritus of McLean Hospital, who has been an incredible mentor, helping me to develop my “voice” in a field of psychological study that was once largely overlooked. Never before or since have I had the opportunity to absorb such sagacity about the inner lives of boys and men.

  I must acknowledge how much I have learned from my colleagues in gender and adolescent studies in general, and in particular, from my friends at the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, namely: Gary Brooks, Sam Cochran, Michael Diamond, Richard Eisler, Jeff Fischer, Marion Gindes, Glenn Good, Corey Habben, Marty Heesacker, Richard Lazur, Richard Majors, Neil Massoth, Larry Morris, Gil Noam, Jim O’Neil, Marlin Potash, Jerry Shapiro, Denise Twohey, Lenore Walker, and many others. Jim Barron has honored me with an editorial role on his journal Gender and Psychonalysis, and my consulting colleagues Jef Connor and Ken Settel have listened patiently to my theories about boys. Also, the members of the Men’s Studies Seminar and Play Group, a personal/professional development group, have created a wonderful environment in which I have been able to discuss new ideas and hear about the experiences of others as they discover more. Specifically, I would like to thank Joel Eichler, Alan Gurwitt, Steve Krugman, Ron Levant, David Lisak, Jon Reusser, and Bob Weiss.

  As the book itself will show, “real boys” have much in common with “real girls”—more than we often tend to believe—and scholars and writers in the new psychology of men and boys owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those researchers who went before us to create a “revolution” in women’s studies. Although my research derives from many years of work with boys and men, it is important to recognize the important influences that the “new” psychology of women has had on this entire field. I would like to mention my particular appreciation of the seminal work of Carol Gilligan on girls’ “voices” whose influence is clearly noted in this work, and that of the core faculty of the Stone Center at Wellesley: Jean Baker Miller, Irene Stiver, Judith Jordan, and Janet Surrey, all of whom have helped to shape a concept of a “connected self” in women that bears much relevance to my own theories of premature separation in boys and the possibilities boys have to heal from it. Dr. Judith Jordan, my colleague, collaborator, friend, and “fellow traveler,” has had a tremendously positive impact on my thinking in this field. Her deep intelligence and creative inspiration may be felt throughout my work.

  Researching and writing this work would have been impossible without the patience, love, and understanding of my family. I am deeply indebted to my wife, Dr. Marsha Padwa, for her invaluable insights about adolescents and their families and important input into earlier drafts of this work; and to both Marsha and my daughter, Sarah Faye Pollack, for their unwavering love and support—juggling schedules, borrowing laptops, and sustaining my spirits during times of distress.

  To our boys who participated in the study, their parents, and my patients, who have opened their lives to us, and who have taught me so much through their struggles, I extend my personal gratitude and thanks.

  Most especially, however, Real Boys would never have seen the light of day without the special dedication, tenacity, creativity, and love for this work manifested by my agent, Todd Shuster. Beginning with an innocent breakfast in Belmont and continuing through weeks of reviewing, reediting, haranguing, and kibitzing through draft after draft, Todd shared his heart and soul with me in this project. This book bears much more of his imprint than he is ever willing to take credit for. But such credit must be given, and it must be acknowledged. As literary agent and creative critic, sometimes arguing vigorously and thoughtfully with me about points in this book, Todd worked tirelessly to support me in a project that I can only hope will have an important impact on the lives of boys. I cannot thank him enough for his special contribution to my work.

  FOREWORD

  In the five years I have spoken about Reviving Ophelia, the most common question I am asked is, “What about boys? Don’t they have problems too?” I answer that I wrote about girls because I was a girl and thus had a repository of female experience on which to draw, and that at the time I wrote Reviving Ophelia, I had a teenage daughter and was seeing adolescent girls in therapy. I also make it clear that I don’t like “suffering contests.” I never compare girls’ and boys’ suffering. It is impossible to empirically verify which demographic group has suffered the most, and it polarizes an audience to make such comparisons. I want everyone on my side and eager to help change our culture.

  I do believe our culture is doing a bad job raising boys. The evidence is in the shocking violence of Paducah, Jonesboro, Cheyenne, and Edinboro. It’s in our overcrowded prisons and domestic violence shelters. It’s in our adult bookstores and white supremacy groups. It’s in our Ritalin-controlled elementary schools and alcohol-soaked college campuses. So I am glad someone has written a book that answers the question, “What about boys?”

  In Real Boys, Harvard University faculty member Bill Pollack writes about what boys are like, how to help them, and wha
t happens if they aren’t helped. He argues that there is enormous cultural confusion about how to raise our sons. Referring to Reviving Ophelia, Pollack reminds us that Hamlet fared no better than Ophelia. Hamlet was alienated from himself and his parents, filled with self-doubt, unable to communicate his pain or solve his personal problems. He acted impulsively and violently and died a tragic death.

  Pollack finds several causes for boys’ current crisis of meaning. One is the early and harsh pressure to disconnect from their families that occurs when boys are toddlers and again in adolescence. Another reason is what he calls the “Boy Code,” the rules and expectations that come from outdated and highly dysfunctional gender stereotypes. He tells of a boy, severely taunted at school, who grew more depressed even as he told his parents and teachers, “ ‘Everything’s just fine.’ ” And of a small sensitive boy who was not ready to part with his mother the first day of kindergarten. Johnny was shamed into letting go of her hand and, weeks later, he was still sobbing and throwing up after his mother dropped him off at school.

  Pollack discusses how boys are made to feel ashamed of their vulnerable feelings and how they are called sissies or mamma’s boys if they stay too sensitive or open. Recently in my doctor’s office, I watched two middle-aged men who had escorted their mothers to appointments. These men, rough-looking, rural Nebraska types, both showed such gentleness and concern for their mothers. They held open doors, helped them with their coats, brought them newspapers or drinks. Ironically, only late in life are men allowed to be so publicly loving to their mothers.