Last month I wrote a blog and shot a video called Two Words You Should Never Tell a Boy. The two words I was referring to are “stop crying.” It’s a message that is devastating to boys and leads to lots of other problems for them in the future. Problems that I see everyday in my counseling office with the men that I work with.
I agree with Terence Real in that we need more relational heroes in our culture…which requires that young boys are taught and modeled from an early age that it is okay…more than okay…to express and talk about how you feel…rather than bury those emotions, letting them only come out in anger and violence. This is something that I write about in my book What it Means to be a Man.
So I was happy to see this piece by NPR this week, The 3 Scariest Words a Boy Can Hear. It’s a great interview with former NFL player and pastor, Joe Ehrmann. I love his emphasis on relationships as central to masculinity. Listen to this great interview and check out his TEDx talk below:
