Resilience Kit for Teen Boys
Resources | EVERGREEN AND ANTI-BULLSHIT
What These Resources Do
These resources are focused on two processes:
- Teen boys growing into their unique adulthoods and best lives
- Becoming boys/men who women want to befriend or love
Grown ups are people who handle their own shit as best they can. From their education, to the dishes, to their career, to their health, to their laundry, to their physical and emotional hygiene, to the hygiene and educational support of their kids, to the stability and safe feeling of their partners. If you are a man reading this, notice the gender neutral language. People who master these life skills make excellent siblings, partners, parents, and friends.
Generation after generation, most of us figure out how to do this, and our boys can too. So, because the world is also full of unhealed and very messy bullshit artists, Medusa Rising has prepared a sample of resources to help us help our boys find their way into manhood with their whole self intact and capable of being a fun time, a good citizen, and a sought after romantic partner. Manly Manliness has always been very hard on most men because most men don’t get to be king, big boss, CEO, or billionaire. And settling for pimp and maxxed bro is no substitute for a fully alive life. This, after all, is what liberation is all about.
History is way, way weirder than we’ve been taught. Deep time is especially wild. It has lessons for that liberation.
I wrote the Resilience Kit for Teen Girls to girls because, let’s face it, there’s a chance some teens are actually reading this site. But teen boys? Less likely. So this kit is written for parents, and mostly for feminist mothers.
As feminist mothers, one of our most critical roles is equipping our sons to see through the lies they are being sold. Our shared responsibility is to raise sons who do not just occupy space in the world, but who actively contribute to a more equitable one as partners, friends, and citizens.
Media in the US creates a new panic every decade: the marijuana panic, the satanic panic, the attachment panic, the hook-up panic , and now the crisis among boys and men. That panic or crisis is almost never the issue that most needs to be fixed (affordability, dignity in work, agency over our lives). But it will always be a crisis/panic that many companies and now influencers can make lots and lots of money from you to solve for you. They have done this in ways subtle or gross to girls and women for decades and we are getting wise, so they are turning on men and boys.
Let us assure our boys that the world still works for them, still respects them, still wants the very best for them and from them. In fact, 60% of CEOs are men, men still earn more than women, and political power is overwhelmingly in the hands of men in the US. Is being a well-rounded adult with skills who is fun to know a lot to take on? Yes. It is for women, too. But it is the work of being a human being. And the world at large is not trying to stop you.
Very rich people are sucking up all the money, land, real estate, and health care in the world. That is making a comfortable peaceful life very difficult for all of us. Again, the media and now influencers (who are the devil) are very practiced at saying that any man’s difficulty is every woman’s fault. Believing that makes a boy or man very easy to manipulate. The default story used to manipulate our boys is that “masculinity is in crisis” a story that really gains steam after The Seven Years War. That’s right, the Enlightenment and the masculinity crisis are co-evolving.
There has been a very slight demographic change among mostly upper-middle class, urban, professional women. Some of us are choosing to live in peace rather than with a man who brings a mess into our lives. Three things here: it’s not a big number, it’s a panic (to do with profit margins); and being in a peaceful life is super healthy, being in a peaceful relationship is super-duper healthy and fun, and our sons have some choices about whether they bring a mess into anyone’s life.
Many men bring their mess to women they claim to love, even believe they love. They don’t bring it to work. They don’t bring it to their boss. They don’t bring it to their friends. Only to the woman. This is how we know that a man is making a choice about where to put his mess, even his neglect, and sometimes violence. That choice is something he have total control over. Obviously, many parents did not serve their sons well by letting them become such men. Still, those messy men can seek real advice on how to address their frustrations in life, or process their emotions, or become more generous without fear and without making all that some woman’s ‘job.’
Matriarchal Studies scholars and many indigenous American peoples know that modern masculinity is an aberration. It’s a dysfunctional practice of manhood that keeps “lesser” men in service to other men. More than one culture in prehistory and in contemporary history had no word for rape, for soul murder (includes the destruction of children in abuse, or any action that destroys the will of another person). This means that domination is not an essential feature of manhood.
We know all too well why women are pulling back. We have seen the patterns of entitlement and the refusal to develop basic emotional accountability. Our goal is to break that cycle. We must teach our sons that their humanity is not defined by the approval of 'bad men' or by the domination of women. The reality of male privilege is a tool they must learn to dismantle, not a status to defend. By prioritizing their emotional intelligence, we are not only supporting their growth into whole human beings but also prioritizing the safety and dignity of the women who will be in their lives. The research, such as Lucia F. O'Sullivan and Scott T. Ronis's study "Isolate, Inebriate, Intimidate, Repeat" in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, underscores the urgency of this work: we are raising the men who will either perpetuate these dangers or help end them.
But, I’m warning us mothers, aunties, fathers, uncles, there is A LOT of work to do.
You Get What You Praise
But you ALSO get what others praise. Make a little show of correcting – dad’s this is for you to do with men – friends, other parents around your children. You know gently, but let your kid know that you’re not slipping and not easily letting others slip either. You’re supporting them in their pro-social maturation AND showing them that you have their back in a world that does not.
Spot Manosphere Bullshit
Lots of strangers on the internet want to teach boys how to be a man so they can take their money and use it for themselves. Men, “the rational sex,” are being encouraged to resent others – especially women, but anyone – rather than to get better at being themselves and running their own paths in life. Men and boys are being manipulated and kept weak and stupid so other men can make money off of them. Sound familiar?
So. Start With The Teen Not The Tech.
Interventions
How Dads Can Raise Healthy, Resilient Sons: Lessons From Our Work with Boys and Young Men By Brian O’Connor, V.P. Public Education, Futures Without Violence – FWV recognizes that most harm to women is interpersonal and done by the men in our lives. They do this without blame, without anger and with education about women’s life conditions and strategies for not becoming an abuser. The blog linked here has lots of parenting resources, most of them focused on fathers.
Also see this XY collection on raising feminist sons. XY is the massive archive, blog, resourcing site run by Dr Michael Flood about whom all I can say is that He Is Just Excellent. If there is a man on the side of women, Flood is that man.
Regenerative Mentors on the Socials
Andrew Huberman (I don’t vouch for every episode but these I have reviewed). He’s a genuine neurobiologist but not overtly feminist. He’s most helpful in the “you are a human creature, you can relax about that” department. Good counter-measure against the idealist disembodiment of our screen-locked age:
- Emotional Intelligence and regulation - emotional competence is the quality most lacking in most men, it’s lonely for them, and dangerous for others
- Hormones and Sexual Orientation - relax, masculinity can comfortably include homosexuality
- The Mind-Body Influence Goes Both Ways - human bodies have flexible structures, and human minds give us options for behavior many animals don’t have
Stoicism is not a flat affect and lack of emotion or psychological withdrawal. It’s not the sociopathy influencers are peddling. It's a realistic sense of perspective. Other men’s opinions of our boys are not who they are. Learning this in the social media age may be the single most important life lesson we can absorb. Meet Mark Manson and modern stoicism. How to be happy by building a good life. Manson is a man who grew up. He started out as a pick-up artist in the 1990s, and became a decent dude instead. He’s not “woke” but he’s not toxic either.
Stoicism is not the opposite of empathy or care or curiosity. A man who learned how to listen skillfully: BlackSpeed teaches powerful empathy (and turns us on to more powerful music).
Stoicism can help boys-men, and women, to practice slowing down. Dropping both reactivity and defensive aggression. Counting to five and taking a deep breath or two is actually a massive power move. It shows confidence, it shows enough respect for self to also respect others. Slow down, give yourself the space to respond to anything at all. The news, a book, a person, frustration, insult. Reactivity, quick anger, the lightening of self-righteous outrage puts us at others’ mercy. Not just others – others who intend to manipulate us. Tyrants both personal and national. Modern men are under a lot of pressure to act fast because it means they won’t think about whose work they are doing.
Being a man and suffering CPTSD really should be two different experiences. Yet, many Manly Men are damaged by their experiences. (Many scenes from films about war.)
Nontoxic
Some influencers out there know that ‘toxic masculinity’ is one type of masculinity, the anti-social kind. The men I’m recommending in this post are at least trying to describe and model a ‘generative masculinity.’ Much of the expression of toxic masculinity today is driven by the algorithms. Our boys and men are being algo’ed into these lonely, angry, tense, insecure, violent jerks.
Roses Are Dead is not a perfect new masculinity project, but it is premised on the assumption that women have changed and men should too. They talk of leadership, but not in the christofash-Turning-Point way. Leadership is about supporting, facilitating, being a little bit more on your family and friends side than on your own. Interesting, no?
These men understand that over the last two centuries science and industry have given humans tools that replace most traditional forms of 'male coded' labor. Without the false break on women’s talent, we are simply proving to be as human as men. Roses Are Dead understand that men’s honor and value for women now is in their support of community well-being, the family’s health and security, their adaptability to the needs of people around them, and their emotional competence.
Joy
Joy and camaraderie are essential for mammals. Life cannot be made only of duty, bare life, and “trying not to be toxic.” Being joyfully human with other people makes you healthy and relaxed, and seems to be evolution’s clever recognition that we do best in community. Heart rate synchrony is a deep aspect of what psychologists call ‘collective effervescence’ which is that feeling we get when we’re all vibing together when there is shared experience and purpose. It lets the boundaries of the ego soften just a little and creates that sense of connection we get at concerts or raves or worship and the like. It works exactly like ‘mob mentality’ but in the other direction – bonding us in pleasure rather than rage.
Neuroscience News
Education about Pornography
Rape media ruins everything. There. Done.
Feminists have good reason to call pronography "rape media." Most of it is, and maybe allowing children to see it should be considered sexual assault, too. What you need to know starts with: “1 in 3 kids say they’ve seen explicit, hardcore porn by age 12, which equates to roughly 25 million children in the U.S. alone. In the majority of cases, they’ve stumbled upon it accidentally.” Then you need to know that girls don’t want to be choked, they want to be loved, but porn taught boys and boys told girls that choking is the norm and fun. Brain damage, bruising, and tears are not a normal side-effects of sexual activity.
Fight the New Drug talks about pornography as an industry and a social issue in a non-judgemental way with a focus on helping teens and parents understand how the industry is working against them.
Culture Reframed offers schools and individuals FREE courses on how to protect your kids and on how kids can protect themselves from an industry that abuses them for profit.
- Harm to users - Rape Media is sex negative because it sets your dopamine response something other than another human person
- Connection to abuse/trafficking - The rape media industry and the sex trafficking industry are very intertwined. It is not a porn industry standard that all pornographic material is completely consensual or even that everyone is of legal age.
End Slavery Now
Being Ex'lnt
Humans have been very smart in many ways for a long time, and it may help our boys to learn about them rather than only the Roman Empire... Civilizations have discovered many ways to succeed, and knowing them gives us all options for imagining a future where we don’t all boil in our skin in a long global heat bulb event. We can be more than this.
Being competent and excellent in the world, with ideas, with invention, with creating moving collective experiences used to be a matter of survival. The slothful, the inebriated, the self-indulgent were a heavy tax on our ancestors success in against natural selection.
Learning to live in the natural world gives us all, friends, and lovers more options for adventure and experience. Getting good at real world skills (mechanics, carpentry, DJing, storytelling, music making, &c., not sling throwing - tho that is fun) both for the pleasure of doing and making things well, and for the ability to take care of, and give pleasure to, others in our family and community. Also, using mastered skills to assist our community impresses the hell out of women and girls. The future is super uncertain, and a wide breadth of skills is boy or man’s best shot at being successful in it (this is also true of girls/women).
Social Excellence
Most of us live more isolated lives than we used to. Between neoliberalism, COVID, and the fascism, socializing has taken on complexities it did not have when GenXers (for example) were young. Our kids and grandkids all went through the COVID years and came out different to us. History is arbitrary that way. Still, it falls to us to show them how to re-socialize, how to just be … together.
Boys need outlets for demonstrating excellence of skill and social grace. It’s part of how they impress girls. Thanks mostly to algorithms, influencers, and the media’s eternal laziness of narrative, boys and young men feel (even if it’s not real) that being who they are is somehow Just Wrong. This wrongness has come along at the same time that the gender-madness took hold, that the political purity spirals whipsawed through every echelon of social and political life. The counter to that is to model being socially excellent in your communities and be very chill about gendery things.
Ways to Demonstrate Social Excellence, which is hot
- Giving time & skills or money to community projects
- Using intellectual humility to learn more than the other guy and to make connections with people
- Not voting against minority interests for tax benefits you will never experience
- Never voting against women’s interests
- Publicly correcting or shunning male acquaintances who disrespect women/girls
Interview with Therapist of Abusers
Lundy Bancroft has worked with offenders/abusers for over 30 years. His book Why Does He Do That? (pdf) is a touchstone in the field.
Every word of this interview is necessary. In fact, I’m adding to the Resilience Kit for Teen Girls post, too. I’d forgotten it for a moment.
Inside the Minds of Domestic Abusers & How to Support Women | Lundy Bancroft
The toxicity of some men is real, as all the statistics ever taken show. It survives for two reasons. 1) Abusive men cover their tracks and deflect. Most defensive and/or toxic men will make this an issue of ‘a few bad apples, not me, not all men.” They PERSONALIZE a deeply structural problem. 2) As Jane Clare Jones elaborates in her dissertation and summarized in class recently: The whole things is structured on rape and violence against women. Without the actuality and the constantly implied threat of rape, patriarchy simply falls apart. That’s why so much of it is allowed to go unpunished, … why Medusa was made monster, outcast. This is the essential radical feminist insight from all the way back (Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics (pdf).
It is on us, mothers and fathers, to raise our boys with enough courage and depth of character to reject boys and men who harm or belittle women and girls. The law is patriarchy’s tool. But shame, ostracization, even just making fun of such behavior at its earliest appearance will get the point across.
Abuse Support Groups
A boy may need support because he has been harmed.
1in6 Helpline: Visit 1in6 Support to access a confidential, 24/7 online chat and resources specifically tailored for male survivors of sexual abuse.
We could all use more co-regulation skills.
- Kids and explosive behavior, how to intervene and regulate early
- Navigating big emotions with children and teens
Or because he is an abuser. These resources are directed more to young men than to helping boys course-correct.
- If your teen or adult son is abusive, Domestic Shelters
- Abusive behavior interventions, California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse
- Becoming a better man, The Men's Center
- Helping abusers help themselves, Center for Prevention of Abuse
How to Talk to Girls
This one is for the fathers. Show your sons how to be cool with women. And please, elaborate.
- Be interesting, know and do cool things, share them
- Be interested in her and the cool things she knows and does
- If you’re with her to score points with your male friends, you are the problem
- The Ick is us sensing danger, don’t be icky
- Learn to dance with a partner, literally, dance, not grind on
- Do the brave thing, not the stupid thing
- Learn the difference between pretty muscle and purposeful muscle
- Don’t fake it
- Don’t seek advantage
- Don’t be a threat
- Never touch a woman who is not clearly inviting you to
- Wholeness and Balance are better than instability and need in a conversation as in life
- My brother used to say, “Have fun, and if you get laid … Bonus!” The fun will be attractive.
It’s not fair, but nearly all the violence in the world, and to women or in families, is done by men who feel owed. The numbers are truly galactic. We are correct to suspect and complain. Be the bear.
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