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Becoming a man
Around the age of fourteen, a new stage of adolescence begins. As a rule, at this age, boys noticeably stretch in growth, but a striking change occurs in the body: testosterone levels rise by almost 800 percent!
Although everyone is individual, at this age they have something in common: they become more stubborn, restless, their mood often changes. And it’s not that they change for the worse, it’s just that a new personality is born in them, and birth always involves a struggle. They need to find answers to serious questions, plunge into new adventures, set new goals for themselves, determine priorities for the future — and meanwhile, the internal clock rushes them to live.
I believe that it is at this age that we lose contact with children to a greater extent. It just so happens that we make a standard set of requirements for teenagers: more diligence at school, more housework. But teenagers need something more. He is both hormonally and physically torn into the adult world, and we want to keep him in childhood for another five or six years! It is not surprising that problems arise.
But in fact, you need to raise the boy’s spirit — direct his passion into a creative channel, give him the opportunity to spread his wings. All the troubles that come to parents in the form of nightmares (teenage adventurism, alcohol, drugs, crime) come from the fact that we do not find channels for the outburst of teenage thirst for glory and heroism. Boys look at the adult world and see nothing that they would like to believe in or participate in. Even their protest is packaged and commodified by advertisers and the music industry.
The guys want to break through to where it is cleaner and better, but such a place is not visible.
How did the ancients
In any civilization — from the Eskimos to African tribes, at all times and on all continents, teenage boys received special attention and care from the entire community. Ancient cultures knew—and we are just beginning to learn—that parents cannot raise teenage boys without the help of other adults, who can be trusted and who are willing to participate in the parenting process on a long-term basis.
One reason for this approach is that fourteen-year-old sons and their fathers drive each other crazy. Often a father can only love his son. But to love and teach is no longer possible. (Remember how your father taught you to drive?) For some reason, the two men are bound to bump head-on, and that only exacerbates the problem. If someone else comes to the rescue, fathers and sons become much calmer. (Several films have even been made on the subject, such as Finding Bobby Fischer and Out of Town starring Albert Finney.)
Traditionally, two methods were practiced to help a young man enter adulthood. First, teenagers were taken under the wing and set on the path of true adult men who could teach them the craft. Secondly, at certain stages of mentoring, the elders of the clan or tribe conducted the initiation of young men into the mysteries of the profession. This process involved serious trials aimed at familiarizing the boys with adulthood.
Initiation in the Lakota Tribes
The Lakota natives of America must be known to you from the movie Dances with Wolves. It was a tribe of energetic and successful people, with a rich culture, marked by especially warm relations between men and women.
Around the age of fourteen, Lakota boys were subjected to a kind of strength test, the so-called vision test. The boy was supposed to climb to the top of the mountain and sit there waiting for visions or hallucinations caused by hunger. It was assumed that the vision would appear in the form of some heavenly being who would lead the boy through life. While the boy was trembling on the top of the mountain, the menacing growl of mountain lions reached him from the darkness. In fact, these sounds were made by the men of the tribe, who ensured the safety of the child. The boys were too valuable material for the tribe, and no one was going to expose them to senseless risks.
When a teenager returned to the tribe, his success was celebrated noisily. But from that day on, and for two whole years, he was not allowed to speak to his mother.
Lakota mothers, like the women of all hunter-gatherer tribes, are very close and affectionate with their children, and the children often sleep with them in huts. The Lakota believed that if a boy spoke to his mother immediately after the rite of passage into a man, the temptation to return to childhood would be too great and he would again be in the female world and never grow up.
After two years, the reunion ceremony of mother and son took place, but by this time the son was already a man, and his attitude towards his mother corresponded to his new status. Women who heard this legend from my lips found it very touching, sad and joyful at the same time. Mothers of the Lakota tribe deliberately let their children go, confident that in return they would receive love, respect and friendship from their grown-up sons.
In sharp contrast to the customs of the Lakota tribe are modern relations between mothers and sons, which (as Babbett Smith emphasizes in Mothers and Sons) often remain shy, infantile and indifferent. Sons are afraid to remain close to their mother and at the same time, already becoming men, they still cannot tear themselves away from maternal care. They transfer their dependent position to relationships with any other woman. Having not passed the rite of passage into the male brotherhood, they do not trust men and do not believe in male friendship. They do not want to make commitments to women, fearing that they will again be treated like mothers and controlled. And so there are «no» men.
Only after leaving the female world, young people can break the mother’s shell and begin to treat women in an adult way. Domestic cruelty, betrayal, failures in married life are not necessarily the result of problems with women, the reason is precisely that the boys did not go through the prescribed path of transformation.
You may doubt that in ancient times mothers, and fathers too, were not afraid to give their sons into the wrong hands. But in fact, there was no reason to be afraid. Men who were well known and trusted acted as mentors. Women understood and welcomed this help, because they intuitively felt the need for it. Releasing a troubled teenage boy from the family, they got back a mature and self-sufficient young man, whom they were probably proud of later.
Initiation into adulthood could not be called a one-time event. Sometimes it took months to train the boy to behave like a man, to take responsibility, so that he would gain strength, become a real man. We are not well aware of the details of such rites. Sometimes they were cruel and scary (and we by no means want a repeat), but they were carried out with a purpose, thoughtfully, and the results were impressive.
Summing up the experience of our ancestors, we can say: the survival of any tribe depended on the education of knowledgeable and responsible young people. It was a matter of life and death and was taken seriously. Each society developed its own program for the education of young people, which involved the unification of the efforts of the entire adult population.
In modern world
Today, mentoring is most often non-existent or exists in a sporadic form. Mentors themselves—athletic coaches, relatives, teachers, bosses—seldom understand their role and, as a rule, perform it poorly. Mentoring was usually done in the workplace, as part of a skills development and mastery program. All this is in the past. Working on weekends at a local supermarket, a young man is unlikely to meet a mentor there.
The story of Nat, Stan and the motorcycle
Nat was fifteen, and he was not very happy with his life. He hated school, writing was difficult for him, and problems with his studies grew like a snowball. He attended a private school, and his parents, teacher, and headmaster knew each other well and could speak quite frankly to each other. One day they met and decided that if Nat found a job, he could be released from school. Perhaps he was one of those boys who feel more comfortable in the adult world than among peers at school.
Nat was lucky, he got a job at Stan’s private pizzeria and left school. Business at thirty-five Stan was going briskly, and he really needed help. Nat set to work and liked it very much. His voice became thicker, he visibly stretched out, and his bank account was steadily replenished. But now his parents have a new reason to worry. Nat planned to buy a motorcycle—a huge motorcycle—to get to work. Their house stood on a mountain, and a winding serpentine led to it. Parents waited with horror for the moment when their son’s savings would reach the value of a motorcycle. They offered him to buy a car, but it was all in vain. Time passed.
One day, Nat came home and, passing by the dinner table, muttered something in a manner characteristic of teenagers. Something about a car. The parents asked to repeat what was said, not sure if they wanted to hear it. “I don’t want a motorcycle. I spoke to Stan. Stan said you have to be an idiot to buy a motorcycle. He advises me to wait and buy a car.”
“God, thank you for sending us Stan!” — the parents thought, but did not say anything and, only smiling, continued the meal.
Calling on others for help
At the age of fourteen to twenty-odd years, the boy moves into the adult world, gradually moving away from his parents. Parents deliberately recede into the background, not letting the child out of sight. It was during these years that the boy builds his life, separate from his family. He has teachers you barely know, interests you don’t know, and goals you can hardly help him achieve. The picture is pretty scary.
A teenager of fourteen or sixteen years old is not at all ready to be alone with the adult world. He needs guides to this world, and this is the role that mentors play. We have no right to leave young men unattended. But a mentor is more than a teacher or a sports coach: a special trusting relationship develops between him and the child. A sixteen-year-old teenager does not always obey his parents — if only out of sheer stubbornness. But with a mentor, it’s a different story. Adolescence is a season of «fabulous mistakes,» and part of the mentor’s job is to avoid making fatal mistakes.
Parents should take care of the selection of a mentor, guided by strict criteria. In this regard, belonging to a strong social grouping — say, an active church, a family sports club, a community school, a group of friends who really care about each other — helps a lot.
You really need friends who will fulfill the role of caring uncles and aunts, guarding children and participating in their upbringing. Friends can have conversations with your children, ask about their interests, exchange opinions with them. Ideally, if your children become welcome guests in their homes — if your friends can sometimes clear their minds, and the children, in turn, can cry into their vest when there is some tension in relations with their parents. (Many people are familiar with situations when, after an argument with their mother, a teenage daughter runs to complain to her mother’s best friend. That’s what friends are for!)
By the way, you can also help the children of your friends in this way. Teenagers are adorable, unless they are your own children!
Prison is dangerous
Teenagers suffer greatly when their parents live isolated lives. I know this firsthand. When my parents emigrated to Australia, they, already shy people, became even more withdrawn. They never managed to find friends and their own company, in which we, the children, could join. As a result, when my sister and I reached adolescence, we had great problems entering the big world, there were both dramatic and risky moments. Some teenagers on this basis develop mental illness, suicidal tendencies, anorexia. And someone has a strong protest against isolation, and then teenagers are drawn into bad companies, joining drugs, crime, sexual perversions. If you have teenage children, you must certainly force yourself to go out, communicate with people, create a social circle in which your children could rotate. Reclusion does not contribute to the proper upbringing of the child.
If there is no mentor
If there is no mentor around, a young man may face many problems on his way to adulthood. He can get involved in a futile struggle with his parents in an attempt to assert himself and defend his own independence. And can fall into depression and stand apart. Children of this age have to look for answers to very difficult questions — about sex, career choices, attitudes towards drugs and alcohol. If the mother and father still devote a lot of time to the child, live in his interests, he willingly shares his thoughts and doubts with them. But sometimes a teenager has a need to talk to other adults. One study found that having an adult friend outside of the family keeps a teenager away from criminal connections. (Of course, unless this friend is himself a criminal element.)
Young people are trying to choose their own path in life. They may find their interest in religion, they may get bogged down on the Internet, they may be into music or sports, surfing or rock. If we cannot organize children according to their interests, they will create their own groups. But the problem is that these groups can only become a community of lonely hearts and the children in them will not receive any skills and knowledge. Many boyish companies are based only on flimsy connections, and there is no commonality of interests and support in them.
Worst of all, if we leave teenagers to their fate. That’s why we need really professional teachers, sports coaches, leaders of scouting organizations, young workers — in general, adults who are interested in the younger generation. We need people who can bring order to the lives of teenagers.
Today, mothers are most active in the process of raising children, and fatherhood is still being revived. And yet in society it remains a problem to find good mentors.
Briefly about the main thing …
- Between birth and six years, boys need a lot of attention and tenderness in order for them to learn to love. By talking with them, teaching them, we help them enter this world. As a rule, the mother copes best with this role, although the father can also take part in the process.
- Around the age of six, the boy begins to show great interest in everything male, and the father becomes the main parent. It is important how much time and attention he will devote to his son. The role of the mother is still important, and she should not move away from her son just because he is older.
- From the age of fourteen, boys need mentors — adults who take personal care of them and help them gradually move into the big world. In ancient civilizations, a rite of passage was adopted, and mentoring was an indispensable attribute of education.
- Single mothers can raise a boy well, but they need to carefully consider choosing a man as a worthy role model. In addition, single mothers should spend more time taking care of their own health (because they do the work for two).
Video from Yana Shchastya: interview with professor of psychology N.I. Kozlov
Topics of conversation: What kind of woman do you need to be in order to successfully marry? How many times do men get married? Why are there so few normal men? Childfree. Parenting. What is love? A story that couldn’t be better. Paying for the opportunity to be close to a beautiful woman.