{"id":595,"date":"2015-06-05T14:38:07","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T21:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/searchingfortomsawyer\/?p=595"},"modified":"2015-06-05T14:38:07","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T21:38:07","slug":"boys-and-girls-emote-differently-cant-we-be-ok-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2015\/06\/boys-and-girls-emote-differently-cant-we-be-ok-with-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Boys and Girls Emote Differently–Can’t We Be OK With That?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Man-up! Take it like a man! Shake it off!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Most boys hear those words and exhortations constantly throughout their lives.<\/p>\n

Men don\u2019t cry! <\/em><\/p>\n

Men suck it up! <\/em><\/p>\n

Act like a man!<\/em><\/p>\n

Recently I\u2019ve been hearing push back on that phrase, with some, like Joe Ehrmann<\/a>, suggesting that Man Up!<\/em> is one of the most damaging phrases a boy can hear.<\/p>\n

Anyone raising a boy or seeing the way boys are often robbed of the ability to express what we often categorize as \u201csoft\u201d emotions would have a hard time disagreeing. We seemingly live in a culture that has a difficult time allowing boys and men to show an emotion other than anger\u2014and we don\u2019t like that emotion, either! Crying, for example, is often pegged as one of the most anti-manly things a guy can do. It\u2019s a sign of weakness and a guy can never show himself to be weak.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll get no disagreement from me on the problem. I think we do a great disservice to our boys and the rest of culture when we socialize good, healthy, emoting out of our boys.\"517526_99507694\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But, contrary to much of what I\u2019ve been reading and hearing as of late, the answer is not to socialize boys to cry more, or to nurture them to be more verbal with their emotions. <\/strong>(Or to put it more bluntly, it does not help boys emote by insisting that we can nurture\/socialize them emote more freely like girls often do!)<\/em><\/p>\n

To start there is to also do a great disservice to our boys.<\/p>\n

Brain science research has found at least 60-100 differences between the male and the female brain. While males and females are mostly the \u201csame\u201d those 60-100 brain differences make a big difference.<\/p>\n

In addition, at the risk of oversimplifying, males are made up primarily of testosterone\u2014an aggression\/action hormone. Women are made up primarily of estrogen and oxytocin\u2013bonding\/tend and befriend chemicals. While males and females are mostly the \u201csame\u201d those hormones make a big difference.<\/p>\n

Boys generally do not emote the way girls emote. For one thing, because of the way a boy\u2019s brain is wired, he has a much harder time accessing his feelings than does a girl.<\/p>\n

Ask a girl how she\u2019s feeling about something and generally all you have to do is step back and listen to her verbally express her feelings instantaneously.<\/p>\n

Ask a boy how he\u2019s feeling about something and what you\u2019ll often get is a blank stare or a mono-syllabic grunt\u2026not because he doesn\u2019t want to answer the question\u2026but because he doesn\u2019t know. It can take a boy 30 minutes to over a day to access his feelings and put them into words.<\/p>\n

Girls tend to processes stress in the front of the brain enabling them to verbalize the stress. Boys tend to process stress in the back of the brain, moving them to a fight, flight, or freeze response\u2014i.e., a response that doesn\u2019t use a lot of words.<\/p>\n

Where a girl\u2019s brain is wired to tie emotions and words together, a boy\u2019s brain is not.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

Women throughout the world have higher levels of prolactin, which controls, among other things, the development of tear glands\u2026hence, generally\u00a0<\/em>wherever you go (even in a culture that is friendly to male tears, like Italy), you see more tears from women\u2019s eyes than from men\u2019s.<\/em><\/p>\n

Leadership and the Sexes<\/a>, <\/strong>Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis, pg. 14<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

My point is not that we should not nurture our boys to emote in healthy ways, but that you can\u2019t start a discussion on helping boys emote more freely and healthily by focusing first on nurture. When we start with nurture, usually to the exclusion of nature, we tend to assume that boys can be socialized to express their emotions and feelings like girls\u2014who tend to do it more openly and verbally. But this, in the end, will only frustrate boys more. Because it is trying to nurture them to emote in a way that isn\u2019t a part of their nature.<\/p>\n

Many will claim that the brain has great elasticity, meaning that it can be molded and shaped through socialization and nurture, which is true. But the brain also has some set points, so to speak, that make a male male and a female female. These cannot be changed.<\/p>\n

Boys\u2019 emotive nature, however, can be recognized, affirmed, and nurtured to respond accordingly. Meaning, if we want to free our boys up to express all of their emotions, we need to understand how boys are wired to emote, and then free them to do so. We start with nature, and then nurture their nature.<\/p>\n

Most boys will not emote like most girls. But boys are wired to emote and to do so in powerful, profound, healthy ways. (Movement is always a good starting point for most males\u2014get them moving and it will energize their brains to verbalize better, bond, shed some tears, emote, access feelings, etc.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Our job is not to nurture boys to express emotions the way girls do, but the way boys do.<\/p>\n

In other words, when we exhort a boy to Man Up! <\/em>we should pour a rich understanding of nature and nurture into those words, so that we are truly inviting a boy to man-up into the healthy, thriving man he is created to be\u2014engaging all of his emotions, gifts, and skills in the way he is created to by God.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Man-up! Take it like a man! Shake it off! Most boys hear those words and exhortations constantly throughout their lives. Men don\u2019t cry! Men suck it up! Act like a man! Recently I\u2019ve been hearing push back on that phrase, with some, like Joe Ehrmann, suggesting that Man Up! is one of the most damaging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1621,"featured_media":1109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[137,24,2,173,5,174,45,9],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boys","category-girls","tag-boy-behavior","tag-boy-brains","tag-boys","tag-emotions","tag-girls-2","tag-man-up","tag-michael-gurian","tag-searching-for-tom-sawyer"],"yoast_head":"\nBoys and Girls Emote Differently--Can't We Be OK With That?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Man-up! Take it like a man! 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