Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Dangerous Gap in Raising Boys That No One’s Talking About

Transcript

The Dangerous Gap in Raising Boys That No One’s Talking About · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is The Happy Family's podcast. Thanks so much for
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: joining us today. A mother of four boys, Claire wrote
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in gave us a very, very long email. I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to summarize it just here, asking about one of our
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: most provocative topics recently, the idea that boys need to
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: bring surplus value to become healthy men. In my new
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: book due out next year, Boys, I talk about how
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  Speaker 1: healthy masculinity means helping the people around you to feel
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  Speaker 1: safer and stronger. Richard Reeves and his Book of Boys
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  Speaker 1: and Men calls it surplus value.
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  Speaker 2: So Claire is.
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  Speaker 1: Raising her sons to be honest and kind and brave,
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  Speaker 1: but she's worried that we're telling them that they're not
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  Speaker 1: enough as they are. She says, and here's the quote.
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  Speaker 1: If I was told as a young girl that I
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  Speaker 1: needed to bring surplus value, my confidence and self worth
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  Speaker 1: would have been pretty shaken. So I think that's a
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  Speaker 1: fair enough statement, and it cuts to the heart of
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  Speaker 1: how we develop healthy mass identity in a world where
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  Speaker 1: boys are increasingly told they're either toxic or irrelevant. Today,
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  Speaker 1: we're diving deep into what surplus value actually means. Why
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  Speaker 1: Scholars like Richard Reeves and the very outspoken Scott Galloway
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  Speaker 1: believe that it's crucial for boys and how it's not
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  Speaker 1: actually about worth, it's about something more fundamental.
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  Speaker 2: Stay with us.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, thanks for joining us on the Happy Families podcast,
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  Speaker 1: Australia's most downloaded parent in podcast. We are Justin and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Kylie Coulson, parents of six kids, and today an email
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  Speaker 1: about this idea of giving more than you take as
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  Speaker 1: a marker of masculinity. Kylie Cleare sent this email through
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  Speaker 1: perfectly captures the tension that a lot of parents are
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  Speaker 1: feeling today. She's doing everything right raising a boys they're
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  Speaker 1: age ten to seventeen, to be honest and kind, and
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  Speaker 1: she's married to a man who is embodying, in her words,
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  Speaker 1: healthy masculinity and fighting against a culture that increasingly views
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  Speaker 1: boys as problematic by defa and she just says she's
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  Speaker 1: witnessed mums saying that they're soap pleased that don't have
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  Speaker 1: to have raised boys like parents like us at raising
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  Speaker 1: girls in front of the kids, and her teenage girls
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  Speaker 1: question what's the point of boys? And she's obviously concerned
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  Speaker 1: about creating an environment PUSH's young men towards figures like
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  Speaker 1: Andrew Tate.
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  Speaker 3: Whether you agree with it or not. Once upon a time,
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  Speaker 3: gendered roles were very clear.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt.
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  Speaker 3: There was direction and clarity around what a boy did
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  Speaker 3: and what a girl did, what a man did, what
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  Speaker 3: a woman did. And while we have become leaps and
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  Speaker 3: strides in recognizing that it was actually a really small
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  Speaker 3: box we were.
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  Speaker 1: Defined what were girls were, particularly.
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  Speaker 3: In so many ways. Opening that up and giving all
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  Speaker 3: of the options that are available has actually taken away
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  Speaker 3: all the parameters. And now there's no clarity. And I
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  Speaker 3: think our boys particularly are struggling.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and the evidence certainly points in that direction. That's
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  Speaker 1: the that's the great challenge. So boys are struggling from
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  Speaker 1: mental health point of view, from an academic point of view,
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  Speaker 1: from a job point of view, from a university and
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  Speaker 1: educational scholastic point of view. It doesn't really matter what
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  Speaker 1: you look at. Yes, boys are usually at the top
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  Speaker 1: of a handful of very important tables, but they're also
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  Speaker 1: at the bottom, right down there at the bottom.
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  Speaker 2: And overall, on.
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  Speaker 1: The average, we're seeing girls not just sprinting ahead, but
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  Speaker 1: their leaps and bounds ahead, which is great for the girls,
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  Speaker 1: but we need to create a system that brings everybody
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  Speaker 1: up we don't want to have one. I mean, there
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  Speaker 1: was a sexual revolution and an a gender revolution because
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  Speaker 1: the girls were in that box and they've been freed
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  Speaker 1: from that box. But now we don't want their success
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  Speaker 1: to be the expense of boys. We want everyone to
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  Speaker 1: have the same opportunities for success. So Claire's heard us
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  Speaker 1: talking about this idea of boys needing to first learn
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  Speaker 1: masculinity and then earn masculinity by bringing surplus value. We've
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  Speaker 1: talked about that on the pot a couple of times
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  Speaker 1: while I've been writing my boys book, which will be
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  Speaker 1: out next year. Where so excited about the progress we're
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  Speaker 1: making on it. Now it's going to the publisher in
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  Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks. I know, I know, but
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  Speaker 1: that concept is not my concept. I've put new words
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  Speaker 1: around it, new framing around it, and given it a
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  Speaker 1: new context for the book. It's been popularized in recent
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  Speaker 1: years by scholars like Richard Reeves and Scott Galloway. It
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  Speaker 1: was originally articulated by an anthropologist called David Gilmore, and
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  Speaker 1: it's landing not quite right for Claire, and she's not
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  Speaker 1: the only person. I've had this pushback a couple of
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  Speaker 1: times now, So I think This is a profound, really simple,
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  Speaker 1: but really profound question. Are we telling boys that they're
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  Speaker 1: not enough as they are, that they need to be
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  Speaker 1: more to be different? That's literally what she wrote, and
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  Speaker 1: I love that. Here's what she said in her in
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  Speaker 1: her email. I'm raising my boys to know that they
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  Speaker 1: have value just by being themselves, and the idea of
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  Speaker 1: surplus value feels like it contradicts that fundamental truth.
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  Speaker 3: Let's unpack this a little bit more, this concept of
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  Speaker 3: surplus value, on what it actually means and why it
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  Speaker 3: might be more important and less threatening than it initially sounds.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so this is a This is not a conversation
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  Speaker 1: about worth, which is where Claire has gone. And it
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  Speaker 1: makes sense because we're using the word value, like my
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: value is valuable as a person. It's really a conversation
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  Speaker 1: about identity and purpose. What do I mean by that?
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  Speaker 1: It's recognizing that boys and men typically develop identity and
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  Speaker 1: self worth differently than the way that girls and women do.
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  Speaker 3: Well, if you go back to my original conversation around
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  Speaker 3: traditional gendered roles, a man was the bread winner and
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  Speaker 3: the protector.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, provide protects appropriate, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And he no longer has to protect the way he
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  Speaker 3: once did. There's no no dingoes, there's no lions and
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  Speaker 3: tigers and bears. He doesn't have to play that role.
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  Speaker 1: And society is generally quite safe.
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  Speaker 3: And then secondly, because women are no longer boxed, he
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  Speaker 3: often doesn't need to be the bread winner.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and even procreation not necessarily involving men anymore, certainly
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  Speaker 1: in the way they.
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  Speaker 3: So from a traditional point of view, he's lost all.
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  Speaker 1: Of his roles. The value that men provided, right, that
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  Speaker 1: was the value. That was how they showed up and
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  Speaker 1: made the contribution they protected the tribe or the community
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  Speaker 1: they provided for them.
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  Speaker 2: Here's the thing.
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  Speaker 1: You can lose eighty percent of the men in your
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  Speaker 1: tribe and you can still keep that tribe alive, or
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  Speaker 1: your community or your society. You lose eighty percent of
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  Speaker 1: the women. It's not gonna make it like you're just
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  Speaker 1: not it's not going to work. And so one of
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  Speaker 1: my favorite scholars of all time, a guy called Roy Baumeister,
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  Speaker 1: talks about how in every known society we have to
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  Speaker 1: make men. That's literally the line, we have to make men.
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  Speaker 1: So what he says is time allows girls to become women,
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  Speaker 1: but that hasn't been the case historically, in any society
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  Speaker 1: that we know of, for men basically mature, healthy masculinity
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  Speaker 1: is not a naturally occurring phenomenon, and that's why role
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  Speaker 1: models and rights of passage and even institutions and men's
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  Speaker 1: spaces have been so important. Research keeps on showing that
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  Speaker 1: boys are more likely to meaning and identity from what
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  Speaker 1: they contribute or what they produce. Well, girls are more
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  Speaker 1: likely to derive it from relationships and from being valued
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  Speaker 1: for who they are. So this isn't a better or
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  Speaker 1: worse thing, it's just different. Claire rightly is giving unconditional
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  Speaker 1: love and acceptance to her kids, and we're not challenging
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  Speaker 1: that that's the foundation for him to develop for those
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  Speaker 1: boys to develop healthy masculinity.
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  Speaker 2: But boys also tend to.
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  Speaker 1: Need opportunities to feel useful and needed and make contributions
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  Speaker 1: to develop healthy identity and.
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  Speaker 3: Also have purpose. Yeah, and too often our boys are
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  Speaker 3: coming out of the high school situation lost and they're
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  Speaker 3: completely lost. They've got no direction, no purpose, no, not
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  Speaker 3: even any trajectory of where they might end up. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't even know how to signal to the
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  Speaker 1: people around them that they are going somewhere because they
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  Speaker 1: don't know where they could be going.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the evidence is really quite clear about that.
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  Speaker 1: Claire's love tells her boys that you matter because you exist,
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  Speaker 1: and that's what they need to hear.
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  Speaker 2: That's really really important.
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  Speaker 1: The surplus value concept adds and here's how you can
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  Speaker 1: matter to the world beyond our family, especially to maybe
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  Speaker 1: the family that you'll have in the future. So after
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  Speaker 1: the break to other vital reasons that this conversation around
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  Speaker 1: surplus value matters. Okay, Kylie, surplus value it matters for
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  Speaker 1: men in ways that we've been talking about already. But
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  Speaker 1: there are two more big things that I want to
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  Speaker 1: talk about. I've already touched on this, so I'll go
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  Speaker 1: over this really quickly and get to the big one.
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  Speaker 2: Number three.
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  Speaker 1: David Gilmore I already mentioned him before. He's this cross
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  Speaker 1: cultural anthropologist wrote book called Manhood and the Making. He
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  Speaker 1: found that virtually every society across the globe, and virtually
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  Speaker 1: every society throughout history, has had some form of expectation
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  Speaker 1: that boys must demonstrate their transition to manhood through contribution
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  Speaker 1: or achievement or service of some kind. So whether it's
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  Speaker 1: catching fish or slaying the mammoth or protecting the tribal
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifties parlance bringing home the bacon. It's not
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  Speaker 1: arbitrary cultural conditioning like this isn't This isn't something that
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  Speaker 1: we've invented. It's not toxic masculinity. It's not some nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifties throwback. It appears to be a nearly universal human pattern.
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  Speaker 3: And this conversation intrigues me because I've been thinking about
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  Speaker 3: the idea of what it means to become a woman,
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  Speaker 3: and by virtue of the physiological changes that take place
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  Speaker 3: in my body, i enter into that path.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: What's crazy about that to me, though, is that men
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  Speaker 3: you go through your own.
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  Speaker 1: Physiog there's puberty.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 1: But this is the thing right, Men have always had
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  Speaker 1: to both learn and then earn their masculinity. And if
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  Speaker 1: you're not doing the stuff that men do, you are
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  Speaker 1: judged as being less of a man now. And that's
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  Speaker 1: not just an our culture and society thing. That is
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  Speaker 1: an anthropologically accurate way to describe most societies and cultures
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  Speaker 1: throughout time and history across the globe. If you're not
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  Speaker 1: doing so once you're a woman, nobody says, oh, because
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  Speaker 1: you're doing that, you're not much of a woman anymore,
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  Speaker 1: Like you don't have your femininity stripped. Once you're a woman,
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  Speaker 1: you're a woman. But for men, they have to earn
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  Speaker 1: that masculinity. And then if they stop producing, they stop contributing,
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  Speaker 1: they stop adding that surplus value that they've added. People
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  Speaker 1: look at them and say, well, what sort of a
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: man are you like? That is a that's a phrase
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  Speaker 1: that we use in Australia, what sort of a man
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: are you? But you never look at a woman and
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: say what sort of a woman are you like? That's
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: just not asked. It's a different question, it's a different well,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: it's not a question at all. It doesn't happen.
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  Speaker 3: This is really curious to me, and I might be
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  Speaker 3: going a little bit of track, but there's this, obviously
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  Speaker 3: this emphasis that as men we need to bring surplus
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  Speaker 3: value to the world, but we're not asking that of women.
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  Speaker 3: Is that because as women, generally speaking, we're the nurturers,
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  Speaker 3: we're the care is, we provide the emotional framework for
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: society and as such we bring something to the world
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  Speaker 3: that generally speaking, men don't.
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  Speaker 1: I think that could potentially be part of it. But
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  Speaker 1: more than that, through out of all of humanity's evolutionary history.
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  Speaker 1: Regardless of your perspective on how we got to be
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  Speaker 1: who we are, society has evolved through the centuries and
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  Speaker 1: through the millennia and throughout all of that time. Because
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  Speaker 1: women are the nurturers and the ones who bear children,
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  Speaker 1: what they have always done. What women have always done
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  Speaker 1: is look for the very best genes to pass on
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  Speaker 1: or to mate with and to create offspring with. And
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: so if you're a female, whether it's an ancient tribe
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  Speaker 1: or in modern Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Australia, whatever it is,
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  Speaker 1: you're looking for the person who is going to be
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  Speaker 1: able to demonstrate their fitness. And how do you demonstrate fitness.
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  Speaker 1: You demonstrate fitness by adding value to the lives of
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  Speaker 1: the people around you. Like if you're selfish, if you're narcissistic,
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  Speaker 1: if you don't look after anyone except yourself, then no
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  Speaker 1: woman is going to look at you and say you
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  Speaker 1: are exactly what I need and exactly what our children
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  Speaker 1: will need. Whereas if you're the one who goes out
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  Speaker 1: and you slay the wooly mammoth, or you catch enough
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  Speaker 1: fish for the village, or you go off to battle
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  Speaker 1: and you win the war and you take the scalps
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  Speaker 1: or whatever it is that you're doing, and you come
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  Speaker 1: back and everyone says you were the hero, and then
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  Speaker 1: you can be modest and humble about it and say, well,
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  Speaker 1: it was a team effort. We all worked really hard.
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  Speaker 1: You become increasingly desirable, and therefore the men across the
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  Speaker 1: eons of time who have consistently produced have become the
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  Speaker 1: ones who are the most a manly, most healthy, and
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: most sought after. Now that has been abused over time,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's perfect. I'm not saying that's exactly
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  Speaker 1: the way it always should be, or whatever it is.
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  Speaker 1: The key insight is not that this is how it
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: should be. The key insight is that ignoring this pattern
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  Speaker 1: leaves a lot of boys and men without a clear
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: pathway to healthy masculine identity, and society's job is to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: provide constructive channels for this drive. If society doesn't, then
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: boys will often find destructive ones. That's exactly why Claire
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: is worried about figures like Andrew Tate showing up and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: misdirecting her boys. And to be clear, her boys sound
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: like they're great kids. They're age between ten and seventeen,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: surrounded by family, love and really clear values. But what
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: happens when they hit twenty two or twenty five or
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: thirty two. A lot of young men today report, as
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: we've already sort of touched on, feeling directionless. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of them literally say I feel unnecessary. You look at
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: some of the young men that we work with and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: some of the things that they say, no one will
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: ever love me. I'm not providing anything, I'm not showing
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  Speaker 1: any direction, and I'm being ignored by the girls. And
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: it's not because they're not loved enough at home. It's
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: not because they didn't come from stable families. It's not
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: because they misunderstand their value as humans. It's because they
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: don't know how to be useful. And if they're not
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: being useful, they're not signaling to prospective partners and mates
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  Speaker 1: that they're going to.
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  Speaker 2: Be wonderful husbands and fathers.
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  Speaker 1: That is the thing. Being useful helps men feel more valuable.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: What's the last one?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to wrap this up. So this is
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: why I've written the book. We're seeing unprecedented rates of
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: young men dropping out of education, struggling with employment, delaying
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: traditional markers of adulthood like, that's why we call it
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: adult essence. Adolescence flows into adult essence now and experiencing
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: mental health challenges. And I think a lot of this
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: stems from a lack of clear expectations and pathways for
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: young men to feel.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Needed by their communities.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And I think Clare's right to worry about the culture
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: messaging that boys are receiving today, because it is horrendous.
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  Speaker 2: If you look at what the.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: News shows about what young men are getting up to,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it is just brutal. But the answer is not to
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: pretend that boys and girls develop identity identically. That's a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: tongue twister for you. It's to provide positive frameworks for
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: masculine development before the boys gravitate towards the negative ones.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So Colie, I'd probably wrap it up with this. The
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: surplus value concept isn't about creating pressure. It's not about
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: creating impossible expectations or about telling boys that they're not
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: worth anything unless they're doing more than being themselves. It's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: about giving boys meaningful ways to channel their natural drives
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: towards competence and contribution into positive outcomes, which might mean
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: it might mean taking on real responsibilities within the family,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: or it could at an age appropriate time, or it
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: could mean developing skills that are going to betterfit others,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: getting certified, getting educated, understanding that the community has expectations
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: of them as future men, not because they're insufficient, but
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: because they're capable of great things.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: And I think that if I was going to tweak
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: this idea of surplus value, for me, the word is contribution.
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  Speaker 3: What contribution are we willing to make.
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  Speaker 1: That's why we tell our daughters to look for the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: chair stackers at the end of the night.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. It's not about how much money he earns.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: It's not about what job he has, but is he
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: willing to contribute to the greater good? And that greater
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: good is in our home, in our community, in the
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: world in general.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And I will just add Richard Reeves talks a lot
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  Speaker 1: about surplus value based on what David Gilmore. He calls
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: it a healthy man, a real men, provision, kith and kin.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: That's the words that David Gilmore used in the Making
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of Men. The words that I'm using in my book
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: are healthy Masculinity is about helping the people around you
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: feel safer and stronger, which sits more nicely with your
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: idea of contribution, right, How am I contributing to make
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: things better here? I will just say this at a personal level,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and we're out of time, so I've got to mention
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: this really fast. I felt like more of a man.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't feel like a man. I didn't feel like
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: a man even in my and I was married and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: paying off a mortgage, and we had kids, and I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: was a student. Right, I was not really providing for us.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: The government was providing a support so that I could
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: get my doctorate, so I could go on to become
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a contributing member of the community. I've more than paid
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: back whatever the government gave me in my taxes since then.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: But that actually makes me feel like more of a man.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: The fact that I've earned enough money so that I've
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: paid back the government what we took as a family
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: when they provided support to us because I couldn't provide
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: for us, because I was getting my certifications and qualifications
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and my doctorate. It makes me feel like more of
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a man, in spite of the fact that I had
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: good relationships. It makes me feel like more of a man,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a manly man, not because of my biceps, but because
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I add so much value to so many lives because
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I don't just I don't just pay our mortgage and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: put food on our table, but we have employees, and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I'm responsible for earning the money to make sure that
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: they have food on their tables and pay their rent
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and their mortgage. And I also pay tax, which means
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: that I'm supporting people in the community who can't provide
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: for themselves or who maybe you're looking forward to one
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: day doing the sort of thing that I'm doing that
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: is earning enough money to pay tax because they're getting
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: their certification, so my taxes help them to do that.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: But again, I don't even think that this is necessarily
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: all about finances.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: No, it's about having impact and helping and lifting and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: making a difference.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: And so having somebody like Claire come to you because
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: they know that this is a safe place where they
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: can have, yes, an open dialogue around how she helps
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: her sons, you know, kind of move through life in
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: positive ways, is the biggest contribution that you get to make.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: You can sign up to get details about the Boys Book,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: which will be out early next year. If you'd like
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: to be on our mailing list, just go to Happy
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Families dot com DOTU and sign up or check the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: show notes. We will link to where you can sign
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: up for first bites of the book in the show notes.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: We really hope this has given you something to think about.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: The Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Mimhammonds provides admin
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Research and additional support, and if you would like more
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: information and resources, visit happy families dot com dot a