THE FRAGILE STATE OF BOYHOOD | PART 3 OF 3

THE FRAGILE STATE OF BOYHOOD | PART 3 OF 3

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/13348905.htm

The Code: A boy's anchor, and burden

By Rick Montgomery

Knight Ridder Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Big boys don't cry. It's written in the Boy Code.
Be a man - strong, independent. It isn't cool to excel in school. And
dude, don't get all emo.

The Boy Code keeps a lid on emotions. Just ask girls.

``There are a lot of things you need to express but you don't,'' says
Kiera Cline, 16, to boyfriend Jonathan Smith, who grins and rubs her
arm. ``Why do guys do that?''

Pressed to explain, Jonathan just shrugs: ``If you run off your mouth,
it's immature.''

William Pollack coined the code in his book ``Real Boys: Rescuing our
Sons from the Myths of Boyhood.'' The Harvard psychologist says the Boy
Code creates a pressure cooker for many who don't really feel that
tough and don't really wish to disconnect from mothers, as culture
expects of boys - but not girls - by age 13.

``Anyone who's been around boys knows the code,'' says Pollack, who is
among academics and activist groups calling for its deconstruction.
``It's shorthand for all the messages they're getting from home, from
school, the media, the marketplace ...

```Be a little man,' we say. `Cut your mama's apron strings ... Pull
yourself up ...' It's got a lot of boys silently suffering with a pain
they don't even have words for.''

The extent of that suffering is debatable. But the power of the code is
obvious, beyond our escaping.

It's there in the bulging arms and ripped abdomens of action figures.

It's there in the sexual objectification of women in video games and
rap music.

The code only gains adherents in a society feeling its way through
redefined gender roles. When confused about sex or puzzled about why
teachers sometimes seem to favor girls, boys struggling through their
teens can always follow the code.

``You think `insecure and dramatic' with girls - putting on makeup,''
says Missouri high schooler A.W. Morrow, 15.

``We put on makeup,'' says Madeleine Burkart, 17. ``They put on
attitude.''

The Boy Code is not one fashion line worn by all boys or even most.
Rather, it is a list of accessories that - when piled on - make a
full suit of armor.

Show no fear. Avoid the honor roll. Stick to sports (boys' involvement
in other school clubs is falling nationwide, surveys say).

Oh yeah, whisper to other boy-coders about sexual exploits you've never
had.

``At least one of those symptoms applies to maybe 100 percent of
guys,'' says Joseph Bushur, 15. ``Maybe half wear the entire package.
They like to refer to each other as studs. `Oh, he's a stud.' They say
it many times a day. Almost like flirting with each other in a macho
sort of way.''

So what's the harm? Nobody can knock strength, stoicism and
masculinity, done right.

As Pollack notes, however: ``The code becomes so restrictive, it can
put boys in a gender straitjacket and lead to an ungenuine life. Girls
used to have their masks, too, but we've moved in a positive direction
to take the mask away and let girls be themselves.''

Some in the boys movement resist lumping all male hang-ups into one
code that must be corrected. ``Boys are losing on almost every front
because the system is stacked against them!'' writes family values
stalwart James Dobson in ``Bringing Up Boys.'' ``Is it any wonder why
they are in such disarray?''

But worrying Dobson, and most everyone, are the outcomes of mutated
male toughness: bullying, bad grades, delinquency, sexual violence and
low self-worth in those boys suffocating in the armor.

The British have their own term: ``laddism,'' a self-imposed condition
that The Times of London warned could lead to a permanent
``underclass'' of disaffected, low-achieving men. England and Australia
are among several nations that have launched programs to boost boys in
school and life.

Juvenile justice officials see the code in action daily.

``We call it fronting - trying to be something you're not,'' says
Allan Odle, program manager at Missouri's McCune School for Boys.
``It's the tough-guy, macho pose, the Rambo image.''

At the McCune School for Boys, a residency center for delinquents,
counselors rave about a program called EQUIP, designed to rip back the
boy armor. They gather boys in groups of 10 to hash out anger
management, social skills, decision-making and posing.

``If we're lucky,'' says Odle, ``the upper-level peers who've been
through the process will let the new ones know: `Hey, quit your
fronting. You're wasting this group's time with that act.''

Since McCune initiated EQUIP in 2002, recidivism rates have dropped in
half.

``You can only pretend for so long before the pipes start to bust under
pressure,'' says a resident named Juan, 16. ``Some guys never do get
it. They've been fronting so long they really think it's their actual
selves.''

Who writes the Boy Code?

Many parents do, without intending to, when they tell sons as early as
kindergarten to ``be a big boy. Stand on your own two feet,'' says
psychologist Pollack. ``At age 5 those are pretty wobbly feet.''

Hollywood and Madison Avenue pump up the code to its physical extremes:
Compare the flabby TV version of Batman in the 1960s to his chiseled
form today.

``Even `Star Wars' action figures have beefed up, with Luke Skywalker
and Han Solo much more sculpted than when they were introduced in the
1970s,'' says psychologist Roberto Olivardia, co-author of ``The Adonis
Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession.''

``It's not a coincidence that Rambo and Rocky were capturing our
attention back when the culture was feeling this blurring of gender
roles,'' as women stepped forward professionally and physically,
Olivardia says. ``It's as if we were saying, `We're still men: We're
powerful, dominant and don't forget it.'''

What if Dad isn't around?

Just as some fathers feed into the Boy Code, their absence can leave
boys without a compass for finding ways around it.

Minority communities are especially haunted by what poet and hip-hop
historian Kevin Powell calls ``father void.''

But even when economics are factored out, boys not living with
biological fathers who might guide them to manhood are twice as likely
as other boys to land in jail, according to studies by Princeton
University sociologist Sara McLanahan.

They do worse in school and are less likely to go to college.

Rates of illicit drug use and emotional problems are higher in boys
from single-mother homes or stepfamilies.

Girls can suffer without Dad, as well; they're twice as likely to get
pregnant out of wedlock. But the hurt seems deeper in boys.

``Girls are more ticked off at the intrusion of parents, not so much
the absence,'' says a high school English teacher who reads their
essays. ``Boys are ticked off by the absence. They're angrier.''

``Finding Our Fathers'' author Samuel Osherson added it up - families
married, divorced or otherwise - to arrive at the average daily time
an American child spends with Dad: 10 minutes.

He warns of a ``psychological time bomb within the younger generation
of men.''

As Pollack says about one of the uglier, more divisive features of the
Boy Code: ``The largest put-down today for boys ages 5 to 15 is `You're
gay.'''

``So gay'' has evolved into the all-purpose tease. Whatever is silly,
stupid or irrelevant is ``so gay.''

For people called gay, it can be deadly serious. Witness the carnage at
Columbine High School, where such taunts helped drive two troubled
seniors into gunning down a teacher and 12 classmates.

At Winnetonka High School in Kansas City, Mo., teachers have been
trained by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to address
sexually oriented bullying.

``Boys have a harder time, in different ways, than (lesbian) girls at
school,'' said school counselor Alan Schuerman. ``With boys, the
bullying is more overt. It's in your face.''

For those who really are gay - or who feel guilty thinking they might
be - he said many parents never find out about the teasing, or they
offer this advice: ``If you just act like a man, this wouldn't
happen.''

Experts estimate that gay boys are three to six times more likely than
straight boys to commit suicide.

Dylan Theno was luckier than other boys: his parents knew how much he
needed them.

Dylan was labeled gay in his Kansas town of Tonganoxie, population
3,600, where the code made every school day agony since seventh grade.
His parents re-mortgaged their two-bedroom home to pursue legal
options. And this year, at 18, Dylan went to federal court, a plaintiff
stating for the record he is not gay and alleging that school officials
did little to stop the harassment.

Two years earlier his mother found Dylan curled up in a ball on the
couch, sobbing, shaking, begging to quit school. Cheryl Theno held him,
and resolved never to send him back.

His father, Alan: ``Dylan was slowly falling apart in front of us.''

A wood craftsman, Alan spent more time than ever with his son. It was
mostly Dad who pressed the fight with school officials to demand they
enforce suspension policies for sexual harassment.

He and Dylan's mother would enforce their own rule, that Dylan never
strike back in anger. This was about justice, they told him, not
vengeance.

They turned the Boy Code on its head, comforting Dylan through his
tears and supporting his taking Tae Kwan Do, its principles steeped in
self-restraint. Once, he got into a fistfight at school. His parents
made him paint an aunt's house as punishment.

A judge recently upheld a harassment verdict against the school
district, awarding Dylan $250,000 in damages. As appeals continue, he
has his G.E.D. and is learning to weld. He still lives with his
parents.

``They were incredible,'' he says.

It may sound gushy, but Dylan just nailed what experts say is the first
line of defense against the code - loving parents.

Want masculinity? Teach your son empathy. Assure him it's OK to feel
bad. Back off when he asks; hug when he needs it.

Show him how to fight - for justice.

``Stay in touch,'' write Susan S. Shaffer and Linda P. Gordon in ``Why
Boys Don't Talk - And Why it Matters.'' ``As they get older, it may
appear that they need their parents less often.

``Appearances are deceiving: They still need you.''