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The Emotional Life of Boys
An Interview with the Author of 'Raising Cain'
By Liz Harris
Copyright 2001 by Parents' Press
"The biblical story of Cain and Abel, in which a jealous Cain kills his brother, endures as a parable of sibling rivalry, but it offers much more than that. We see in Cain's story a reflection of the emotional life of boys today a boy's desire to be loved and respected, and his propensity to respond to humiliation and shame with anger and violence rather than reflection and communication
"For us, Cain's story resonates in the lives of boys today when we see them distanced from their own feelings and insensitive to the feelings of others, so clearly suffering the consequences of an impoverished emotional life."
From Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys By Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson
When they began writing Raising Cain, Boston-area child psychologists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson thought they'd offer a prescriptive "how-to" book for parents. Drawing on their years of counseling boys and their families privately and at two Boston-area private boys' schools, the co-authors use real-life case studies and research findings to plow through issues touching the lives of all boys not just troubled ones.
They start with basics such as early education, discipline, father-son and mother-son relationships, then delve into territory that becomes rockier during adolescence: anger and violence, relationships with girls, drinking and drugs, depression and suicide.
But as their manuscript progressed, Kindlon and Thompson realized a simple "how-to" would not do. "In the end," they write, "we found that the best advice we had to offer was simply to understand boys as they truly are rather than as they appear or as we wish them to be. Our deepest wish is to pull aside the curtain boys so tenaciously draw around themselves and offer you a look inside their hearts and minds. If we succeed, we hope that you will see more clearly the ways in which our culture conspires to limit and undermine their emotional lives. We hope you will understand boys better, and above all, we hope you will enjoy them more"
Published last year, Raising Cain has sold more than 100,000 copies and made both The New York Times' and independent book publishers' bestseller lists.
Ballantine Publishing Group released a paperback edition in May, and the authors embarked on a two-month promotional campaign. Parents' Press caught up with Kindlon in San Francisco.
Since publication, Kindlon has
given up his position as a psychological consultant to the boys'
school, though he still retains his association with the Harvard
School of Public Health, where he has taught child psychology
and conducted research in child development for 16 years. He
now does a lot of public speaking on "boy issues,"
addressing educators, psychologists, parents, even camp counselors.
Married to a psychologist, Kindlon is the father of two girls.
Q: What was your prime purpose in writing Raising Cain?
A: "There were two messages [to impart]. Michael and I before we started writing used to talk to each other about the cruelty that went on between boys at the schools where we worked. We saw it as so unnecessary and so harmful to all these kids. We wanted to focus on that.
"Also, I'd been interested in the father-son relationship And if one father is nicer to his son as a result of this book, then I'd consider it successful."
While fathers may not be intentionally cruel to their sons, often their inability to be emotionally close to them causes all sorts of problems, write Kindlon and Thompson. This "emotional breach" between the two the frustrations and sadness caused by the desire to be close but inability to do so is a major point in Raising Cain. Yet the authors are not pessimistic.
"Patterns of emotional isolation can change," they write. "Fathers can change them. A man who wants a more satisfying relationship with his son can begin to build it in simple but meaningful ways: a bedtime story, a game of catch, a compliment, a smile. The willingness to try is, itself, the start of a new pattern that can replace the disappointment of emotional distance with a legacy of love."
Uplifting feedback from readers, including e-mails sharing personal accounts of positive change, has convinced Kindlon that Raising Cain was indeed a worthwhile effort.
"I see a lot of men who
are working hard. Men love being with their kids, it's just that
we've been kind of marginalized for so long"
While American society assumes that women will be nurturing and
loving caregivers, he says, "There's this assumption that
men either don't want to do it, or that they're not going to
like it."
A case in point: the Elian Gonzalez debacle. "If that had been his mother in Cuba," says Kindlon, "we never would have heard his [Elian's] name."
Q: You write that boys and men often need help understanding their emotional life and developing "emotional literacy." But how do you get men to open up and become more involved? How do you break this cycle?
A. "Women ask me the question,
'How do I get my husband more involved?' I say, 'Go to Bermuda
for a week and get out of their way!'"
Kindlon says the movie
Kramer vs. Kramer rang true
in showing a father who was forced to take on child-rearing (when
his wife walked out the door) and in the process grew emotionally
close to his child and became a good parent.
Give fathers a chance, stresses Kindlon. If necessary, force them to take on child-rearing. Speaking as a father, he says, "You get into the rhythm. You realize how it's done. It's on-the-job training. There is a rhythm; you almost have to allow it to happen."
However, "It's almost easier for women to do it themselves. But it's like teaching your kids to pick up after themselves. You have to make them do it or they don't learn."
Kindlon says "one of the biggest predictors of empathy [in boys] is whether the father was involved in child care."
Modeling is key, he adds. Men can and should ask questions, share their fears and emotions, and encourage their sons to be open as well. "It's not a weakness to admit that you're afraid. It takes more courage to face the demons in yourself than hide from them. That's a message that should resonate with men."
Q: How does this era of two working
parents factor into the situation?
A: "It can be good if it makes the father more involved.
I have the kids alone sometimes and it's fun. I like it."
It can be harmful as well, he continues. "We hardly spend any amount of time as families, sitting around and talking. That time has decreased 100 percent in the last 10 years. The bad side is that nobody has time fathers and mothers"
Not spending enough time with Mom and Dad, says Kindlon, "is one of the chief complaints of kids."
Q: In your book, you describe grade school as "largely a feminine environment, populated predominantly by women teachers and authority figures, that seems rigged against boys, against the higher activity level and lower level of impulse control that is normal for boys." With an institutional problem of this magnitude, do you hold any hope for change?
A: "The easiest patient to treat is the sickest one, one of my clinical supervisors once told me. I'm in public health. And when you have a public health problem, you attack it from every angle you can. It's the same with this."
Professors at Wellesley College use Raising Cain in coursework, teachers use it in the schools, and parents are reading the book and pushing for change, according to Kindlon. "You can start almost anywhere" in attacking the problem.
Q: The chapter on early education also discusses the benefits and drawbacks concerning better diagnosis of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). What's your opinion of Ritalin or other drugs? What advice would you give parents who are grappling with this issue?
A: "I believe Ritalin is very appropriate in some situations, but it's abused as well There are no simple answers."
There is no "litmus test" for ADD or ADHD, says Kindlon. To determine if a child has ADD or ADHD, "I would get a thorough evaluation from a pediatrician or child psychologist. I would also think about the context that the child is in this one of the few psychological disorders that depend on the environment. If the world gets any more complex everyone will have ADD because they can't process everything that's out there! [Ask yourself] Is the school too hard? Are expectations too great?
"Ritalin itself is never the answer. You have to think of the context."
Q: What's your outlook for the future?
A: "I'm encouraged. Some of [what I do] is just reinforcing what people know already The message really is getting out. People are paying attention, and that's good.
"I want to help a generation of boys to become better men," concludes Kindlon. It's in everyone's best interest, he adds, chuckling. "After all, boys are a big cause of most of girls' problems."
Raising Cain:
Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by
Dan Kindlon, Ph.D. and Michael Thompson, Ph.D. (Ballantine Books)
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