Raising Cain
Dan Kindlon, Ph.D. &
Michael Thompson, Ph.D.
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
1999 Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345424573

Two of the country's leading child psychologists share their experiences of working with boys & their families. They reveal a nation of boys who are hurting - sad, afraid, angry & silent. Statistics point to an alarming number of boys at risk for suicide, alcohol & drug abuse, violence & loneliness.

Kindlon & Thompson set out to answer this crucial question: What do boys need that they're not getting? Through moving case studies & up-to-date research, Raising Cain portrays generations of boys systematically herded away from their emotional life by adults & the peer “culture of cruelty” receiving little encouragement to examine their emotions & develope qualities like compassion, sensitivity & affection.

We've all heard to queasy excuse: “boys will be boys”. Either wild animals or entitled princes. These archetypes validate/condone destructive behavior. Once upon a time, boys were taught that to be a gentleman was the goal of manhood. Once upon a time our boys read about heroes like King Arthur & his Knights of the Roundtable who sought justice & honor. Then Camelot fell.

So, what can Kindlon & Thompson tell us about why boys are emotionally illiterate & what is that doing to our sons, our daughters & their children?

First of all, let's remember that discipline is not a dirty word. There's an ad on the tv that has a family coming home; the children dash in ahead of their parents & drop their school things right there in the entry way & head off to a) the refrigerator; b)the computer; c)the television, while the parents exchange wry smirks & bend to pick up the mess. I shudder!

Were I to have done that once, ye gods! Had I discarded my satchel, coat, gloves & hat in the hallway instead of putting them neatly away, I'd have had dried bread & water in my room for the rest of the evening & I'd remember the lesson! I had chores to accomplish the moment I got home the foremost of which was changing out of my school clothes. Of course I was just a girl who had been taught that obedience was an important form of respect for my parents. I also didn't like the consequences of disobedience!

My parents' discipline, however, was meted out in logical & ceremonial order with due warnings & steady consequences. No cruel revenge or sudden violence although the staged paddling with first the butter pat & then the cricket bat, was awful enough to keep us in line for most of our childhoods. Nowadays, I know parents treat their children very differently & violence is quite common. Often enough I've seen fathers swear & curse at his children for foul language; or mothers slap a child for hitting a sibling: “don't hit your sister!” Whack! What do we think we're teaching?

In Fathers and Sons: A Legacy of Desire and Distance, Kindlon & Thompson open up the sad, sad wound of unrequited love. When a grown man cries in therapy, it is almost always about his father & his yearning for his father's love. Into that yearning has been fed decades of anger, sadness & shame.

Why is it that fathers describe their sons as never listening, not understanding while their sons describe their fathers in similar terms of discontent? Why do sons rub their fathers the wrong way? Can fathers & sons have a close, loving relationship? How can they close the emotional gulf? Kindlon & Thompson have some good ideas, read'em & weep!

In Mothers and Sons: A Story of Connection and Change, we see the other side of the coin. Sons are explorers & mothers are their “homes” to which they return with treasures & adventures. Is it only a gender thing that makes it easier for sons to love their mothers & ultimately, leave them? What has happened when older boys complain that their mothers just don't “get it” anymore? When do mothers stop growing up at the same speed as their sons? In the case studies in this chapter, Kindlon & Thompson show us.

Now we're into adolescence & we're Inside the Fortress of Solitude where a boy has become emotionally isolated, hiding his feelings & denying his emotional needs. Intimidated by cruelty, humiliation & trust, boys strike a psychological bargain, bad though it be, that they'll hide out rather than be a target. The more taunts & fears the farther boys withdraw. Facing social pressures of adolescence alone, boys are ill-equipped to find their way out of this hiding & only dig themselves deeper into their isolation. Now nobody knows who they are & what they're feeling, especially their own selves! Should we be surprised that depression then takes hold?

On Drinking and Drugs: Filling the Emotional Void. When boys in elementary schools are asked about booze & dope, they invariably say “no way!” & mean it. By the time they reach junior high, things have changed & by the time they've made it to high school, very few have withstood the pressure to alter their moods by way of alcohol or drugs. “It's fun!” is a common response when boys are asked why they use stuff. While drink & drugs may be a male rite of passage, it really leads nowhere except addiction & death. Some of the case studies in this chapter are withering not only for what happens, it's the virtual inarticulateness of the boys. They can barely put words together to form thoughts!

What do boys want? To love & be loved - really? Wow, that simple? Trouble is most boys have so little grounding in emotional communication that they can't imagine what intimacy is like, especially in a non-intoxicated episode. Boys have learnt how to “read” the body language of violence & have forgotten all they might have learnt from their parents of the body language of affection. & no matter how many books are written, affection is what holds a relationship together, not sex!

What Boys Need to develop strong, flexible emotional lives, to become empathic human beings is no mystery. Traditional prescriptions for raising boys, both individually as well as culturally, have distorted our view of boys. They deny our sons their capacity for feeling which distorts our boys' own vision of who they are themselves. “Boy-friendly” adult love, support & guidance is sorely lacking in the way we raise our sons. There are no generalizations, no panaceas that you can learn; there are only your sons to love, cherish & encourage. Do they need more music, sports, games at home? New friends & interests to draw them back out of their cave of isolation? More routine or less?

Mostly boys need permission to have an internal life & approval for the full range of emotions & help in developing an emotional vocabulary with which to understand & communicate.

Kindlon & Thompson end Raising Cain with seven foundations of parenting, teaching & creating communities that respect & cultivate the inner life of boys. They are simply powerful ideas. Read'em & weep, then practise them!

That's the bad news: the good news is that Kindlon & Thompson make a compelling case that that doesn't have to happen. That emotional literacy while being a most valuable gift can also be learned, if parents recognize what they are doing & the price their sons have to pay when we hold them to impossible standards of manhood.

I have often been perplexed at how we think our sons will miraculously turn into affectionate, caring, strong boyfriends, husbands & fathers when their own childhoods have been such barren emotional wastelands. It's not that boys don't feel anything, they do, as constantly as girls.

Boys, however, have been handicapped by some myth that has them avoiding emotional expressions at all costs - is the fear of being like a girl really that bad? Girls who are taunted about their tomboyishness get called lesbos not boys. Boys who are taunted for their emotions are called girls. Now I ask you, how can you expect boys to grow into friendly men who respect & enjoy women when the worst insult they dump on each other is: p----y!

As I watched the Mardi Gras riots in Seattle (I refuse to call them celebrations - & if that's what those men think celebrations are, we all are in trouble!) Hundreds of boys milling about, suddenly beating up on each other while others simply stand around in glazed apathy. I wondered about all those boxing classes my brothers had to endure at school. As far as I know not one of my three brothers was ever in such fights as I saw bursting out on the streets of the Emerald City.

Kindlon & Thompson identify the social & emotional challenges boys must encounter in school & the streets & show us how we can help boys cultivate emotional awareness, empathy & health.

Raising Cain is aptly titled for it is one tough book to read! There were portions I dreaded! I do, however, recommend it heartily even if you have no boys in your life - you must have brothers, husbands, co-workers & bosses & this book goes a long, long way to explaining why modern people of the male gender behave the way they do.

Dan Kindlon, Ph.D. is a clinical & research psychologist specializing in behavioral problems of children & adolescents. He holds joint assistant professorships in the Psychiatry Department of the Harvard Medical School & the Department of Maternal & Child Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Michael Thompson, Ph.D. is a consultant, author & child & family psychologist practicing in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He co-authored Finding the Heart of the Child with Edward Hallowell, M.D. He has lectured widely on topics pertaining to the development of boys & has conducted problem-solving workshops with parents, teachers & student around the country.

Teresa Barker is a journalist, writer & co-founder of Readmore Communications in Chicago, Illinois. She also wrote The Mother-Daughter Book Club & A Woman's Own Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth.
(03/25/01)

Rebecca