Why Boys Are Falling Behind (and What We Can Do About It) with Steve Biddulph

I would get stopped in the street and I still I still get stopped in the street by guys these big guys come over to me and say you're you're Steve Biddulph aren't you and I I said yeah what what you gonna do to me you know you gonna break my head off ha ha ha ha ha and and I said that book that that that effing book of yours that that's the story of my life mate and and it it really helped me and I just wanna let you know I you know sometimes you know

like I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for that

welcome back to Raising Men one of the founding hypotheses of this whole project is that there is a quiet crisis happening with boys today across classrooms playgrounds and homes boys are falling behind in school they're struggling with identity and they're being forced to grow up in a world that's not quite sure what to do with masculinity anymore and my guest today Steve Biddulph has been one of the world's leading voices on this for over three decades he's a psychologist

an educator and an author of two books Raising Boys and The New Manhood and those books have shaped how millions of parents and teachers understand male development his message is simple but I think profound if we want strong men we need to raise emotionally healthy young boys Steve welcome to raising men hi Shawn and hello to everyone that's watching or listening to this great to have some time with you well thanks so much and now how did you come to focus on boys and men and fatherhood

and parenting and education for your career okay well

long people who are watching this can see I've got grey hair and I'm seriously elderly and um geriatric now and so but in the 1970s I was a young um keen young guy um this this just graduated as a psychologist and I got recruited to a a new clinic that was being set up in a an industrial kind of town in Tasmania Australia and this clinic was doing something pretty radical it was seeing the whole family it was a family therapy clinic which in those days was a new idea and so we uh

someone had a a kid with all with some kind of problems uh with the law or with with behaviour or something my boss said the whole family's gotta come we're not seeing kids on their own which is pretty sensible thing when you think about it um let's yeah I'm astonished that that was revolutionary but it absolutely is that seems like an obvious thing to do yeah cause in those days it was like you getting your car serviced you know you would you drop your kid at the psychologist to get them fixed

and that that never worked but but anyhow we we got to see hundreds and hundreds of families and these were what we call I think you call it in the States as well blue collar families that's right um families parents who worked at the mill or worked on a farm or worked in the forest and um and what we found was that the mums were great the mums pretty much knew what they were doing um but the dads really struggled and and in in in the families that came to see us

you could tell that dads they love their kids and they work their guts out all their life to provide for their kids and um but the when it came to actually relating to their kids they were kind of distant and stiff and awkward

um and and so I'm so began to think well someone's gotta help the dads and um and then something happened Sean which was more personal that I was a a young I I was married with Sharon I had a farm and we had a um had um a little boy and we are ready to have another child and um and the the pregnancy of our much hoped for second child um miscarried and um and that's the thing that happens very common thing happens to millions of people every week um but it really knocked me around

I don't I didn't understand it but it put my wife Sharon and I we kind of we had a kind of a grief reaction that was on a different timetable her grief was different to mine and she didn't want to talk to me and I I didn't know what was happening and I just got very very sort of depressed and and really affected by that and when I tried to talk to my friends they didn't they just didn't come through for me Shawn they just didn't know what to say and I began to realize well

have I even got friends you know I thought these were my friends um us guys don't um we don't support each other properly and um and this began a lot a journey right into the whole thing Robert Bly had just written Iron John his book about men um the idea of father hunger and the father wound and so manhood was the book I wrote out of that experience and and so I it was it was personal but it was also something professional I saw the need for and manhood started 500 men's groups around Australia

and I would get stopped I would get stopped in the street and I still I still get stopped in the street by guys these big guys come over to me and say you're you're Steve Biddulph aren't you and I I said yeah what what you gonna do to me you know you gonna break my head off hahaha

and and I said that book that that that effing book of yours that that's the story of my life mate and and it it really helped me and I just wanna let you know I you know sometimes you know like I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for that book and that was just you know I'm a quiet sort of guy and I'm very unsure of anything that I do but this was very affirming message that we were onto something here and we had to we had to help the guys and the guys would respond to that

and they would turn around you get you give a man the right help he will turn around you know and and um it's just that no one ever did that and so that was this that's enough of of the origin sort of I'd story but but that's that's where it began that is such a powerful story I I love it and I love that legacy that that you have I love the fact that you get recognized on the street that is that's that's fantastic hmm now you have argued that uh and I agree with this argument

that boys might benefit from starting school later um but that you know that's a big kind of systematic change and I don't think we should be holding our breath

waiting for the culture to catch up to this so since traditional school environments can disadvantage boys in in areas like like reading or behavioral expectations emotional development that sort of thing what do we what can we do to support our son's education when you know within the current system that funnels them into a situation that's frankly suboptimal yeah okay well we gonna take a while to unpack that one um sure because okay well we got a while first of all to understand um

what's going on is that when when a little baby is still in the womb you know it was still inside his mum um if it's a boy baby in his his there's a point about third trim third sort of month of pregnancy the little testicles start to pop out and start to grow

and straight away they make testosterone that's their job and they start making testosterone and they start shaping this little fetus into a boy baby and one of the main effects they have is that they they put the brakes on the testosterone slows down the development of a boy and whereas a little baby girl in the womb is kind of kind of surging on little baby boys grow more slowly and we have no idea why that is but at the moment of birth they're they're probably three

three or four weeks less developed than baby girls wow that that's counter intuitive yeah yeah and um and maybe it's got something to do with that they've got extra things they need to to develop but we we don't know but the the result is that with a little baby boy he's a little bit harder to switch on in it's sort of like you know when you hold when mum's holding him and talking to him and you know how you going little fella you know you and tickling him and and smiling at him

you have to work a little harder to get him on the outside and uh Richard Reeves who's written about the science of this it's it's

you know that they're um they're even more likely to you know to die in in in early childhood um it's a vulnerability in boy babies and and so and by the time they are starting school it would coming to your question um so age 5 or so 4 or 5 the difference between the boys and girls is from 6 to 12 months difference Sean so it's a you know enormous the gap gets bigger yeah at that age it gets bigger and and and then they slowly start to catch up but they don't catch up till they're about 22

and so so it's a lifelong thing and so girls for instance have puberty um a year and a half to two years sooner than boys do um and

but if we stay with our school be school starting what this means is that little boys are can be a year behind the girl that's sitting beside in the desk yeah and and that's not good and and and a year behind what that what they're behind in is two things um talking you know be able to put a sentence together and express themselves and and getting finger control you know picking up a pen and being able to do nice work in which and schools have traditionally been very big on you know neat work

you know and answering the questions and and and so if you're a little boy and you just get this pretty immediate you know they're not silly they're not stupid they can see that those girls are so good at it you know um what can I do um and so very likely to get restless discouraged not be able to follow the teacher and the whole trajectory which of course ends up in not very good places sometimes and so I began when I wrote Raising Boys which was 1996 um I said don't send them

if you if you got any doubts

just hold your kid back um send them the following year and so many parents as I said Raising Boys is the top selling parenting book in the world so far this century and and it was massive particularly in Europe and and Asia and and so I I met someone who was a Scottish education bureaucrat he said your book gave us so much trouble he said we had like 10,000 families held their kids back

the year your book came out we had to we had empty classrooms we had to build other classrooms in other places because they this great wave came through the next year yeah the year that gets implemented you don't have any boys in school no that's right that's extreme but yeah but but but I get you know I get stopped by mums and dads especially when I used to do my speaking tours and they say we did that we kept our son back and and he did great you know he he was a year more mature

he could hold his own and um I'd never met in out of thousands of people who told me that I never met anyone who regretted doing that you know cause it paid off in high school as well and it does does that make sense Shawn just as a as a dad to you so yeah I mean what your your description of that problem is I mean it's like you're talking you're you're telling my story of my childhood I I have this distinct memory when I was quite young maybe kindergarten aged and I went

my parents brought me over to a friend's house and they had a daughter my same age and we were sitting down and the parents were socializing and me and the daughter were hanging out and she had a bunch of coloring books and I was coloring with her and she colored beautifully she outlined the area that she wanted to color in the color that she wanted to use and then she was just filling it in and it was her pictures were gorgeous and I desperately wanted to be able to do

that and she was getting on me like why you know stop coloring outside the lines stop coloring outside the lines and I couldn't physically do it I I I I I was so frustrated because I actually couldn't physically keep the crayon from going outside the lines and it it ended up I ended up in in school I I have a September birthday and in September you can kind of fall on that edge where you can be in the earlier school year or in the later school year

and my parents put me in school early and and then and to make matters worse I was big for my age and I started skipping grades and I prided myself on that I was so smart that I'm skipping grades but my emotional development and my intellectual development diverged and I was and frankly the best thing that ever happened to me is after 8th grade my parents decided to put me in a I was in a public school for 8th grade and they decided to put me in a private school and the private school said

we don't want him to go into 9th grade we want him to repeat 8th grade wow and that was actually a blow to me because it was such a an area of pride that I'd skipped all these grades when I was younger and did all that stuff and they said listen

like he's just he's gonna fit in better if he repeats 8th grade and cause he's not gonna be the youngest kid in class anymore and um and I I they could very well have cited your book it would not have surprised me and that's what they did and it was the best thing that ever happened to me it wow it just I I wasn't playing ketchup anymore and I didn't feel I felt so much I didn't even understand how much anxiety and stress I had associated with this having to perform at this level

that I just wasn't ready for and it took that all off the table for me and now I look at my son who has my same makeup he's he's only 6 unfortunately he's a January baby so he's like

fully smack dab in the middle of the school year um but and and but he's very big he looks he's 6 but he looks like he's 9 or 10 and so people have expectations of him that he has maturity that he doesn't he can't access and I can see that same frustration in him and and it is I'm I'm just like I really struggle with knowing what to do about that and we've had conversations where I where I've sat him down and said listen this is what happened and it can't happen that way people it's not fair

but people have expectations of you that are well beyond your age and that's not fair sometimes life isn't fair and this is one of those times we're gonna have to figure out how to how to do the right thing here and it's it's been a real tough thing for us hmm and he's only 6 still and and and yeah yeah and and and so yeah so we need to we need to do both we we we gotta as an individual mum and dad we have to do what we can to slow this down and and the school systems need to change um and

and give people a option and you know in the school of the future Sean the average boy will be a year older than the girl

he sits beside yeah and and and that'll and because it for people listening it's you what happens is the way girls bodies develop is they they get their fine motor skills at about 4 you know they pick up their those crayons and pencils you were talking about and they're good at it straight away their fingers work properly but boys develop and so what if you've got a daughter anyone listening who's got a daughter what you've got to do with girls is you build that

you have to build their core strength you know so you get girls on trampolines you know and and throwing um throwing big netballs and baseballs sorry um basketballs to them

because girls need strength in the core but boys develop core outwards and so so first of all they develop the trunk muscles and and then they develop their arms and legs and also the nerves running to those you know the nerves that control those arms and legs and then when they've got that finally it's the fingers that come last and so what a boy's body tells him to do is move me you know a little boy sitting in the classroom and his body is saying you know move me ha ha run around yeah

yeah noise yeah and and he's he knows he knows you know a good kid is a still kid you know in a elementary school classroom you're supposed to be still but his body's screaming and and guys that are listening to this if you think back you'll remember this feeling it sitting at a desk it hurts it actually physically hurts it was yesterday I remember that feeling like it was yesterday yeah

yeah and so I work a lot with elementary school teachers and I and I help them to to realize you know that little guy get them moving you know and so a lot of our schools now they they have exercise at the start of the day they they do a lot of moving around that you you you can get up from your chair and and you know stretch yourself and stand up and and you won't get sent to the principal um so you you've got to find a boy find a boy friendly school and and

and the teachers are are attuned to this Boyd needs um then it's it's my it's a whole lot better but but but the main one of course was you know that I mean I think that probably changed your life Shawn changed the trajectory of your life it really did it there's no question it changed the trajectory of my life no question at all and if it had happened earlier it would have changed it even more even better I I would have gotten involved in sports in a different way and or much earlier

which has been a wonderful part of my life but you know I it you know it would have been it it really would have changed things for me let's shift gears a little bit I wanna talk about you know it's increasingly the case that households are becoming separate moms aren't living with dads as much and and there's a bunch of research that links the absence of a father in the home to higher risks of bad outcomes delinquency

poor academic performance and you know one and at least here in the US more than 1 in 4 children are living without a a male in the home and for a lot of parents it's just simply that's just the reality mom and dad don't live together so what what do you think we can do to mitigate the issues there I I if you're staring down that reality what do you do about it

okay so again this is this is huge um and it's it's lucky this is not new this has been the case for for the whole 30 years that I've been writing about it that that um a lot of kids are in single parent homes um and it's always really important to say to to to single mums that are listening to to the podcast um that women have raised boys on their own for thousands of years um and and done just fine had them turn out really well and and what I it just means you gotta understand the

the landscape and and because when I came I came back to live in the town I live in is called Launceston and and I I came back here um after a 20 year absence I lived in the UK and I lived in in up in the rainforest of New South Wales and and I but I came back to Launceston and and when I go to the supermarket I'd sometimes bump into people who'd been clients of mine back in the seventies and and and it's kind of like the elephant in the room it's it's like um I'd have to ask them they say

oh Steve it's us you know we saw you when we came with our little boy you know and and and it was a single and the elephant in the room was well was it any help you know I was a young yeah how'd it turn out yeah how'd it go and and but more well and that they say well you know um

yeah look it was it helped and um and I'd say well what would you what would you pass on to a young single mum today what as as you've raised a son I've met him he's doing great what would you pass on and they'd say it was always the same thing Sean they'd say I made sure he knew what a good man looked like because you can't turn into one if you've never seen one and so those mums they they recognise OK I can do I can get him 90% there you know if I'm loving and if I

if I'm understanding of his boy energies and I don't get into negative um you know put downs and fights with him um then I can get 90% there but he's got to see some good men and so that's right you know so we we say don't send him to Kev's College of karate um unless you like the look of Kev ha ha you know if there you go you know yeah whether it's a sport or a musical instrument or whatever it is um role models are the real thing and in a second

we can talk a bit about that if you've got time Shawn cause it's a big theme of mine but but those mums they you know they kind of recruited you know they said OK he hasn't got a dad um but he's got an uncle who's really nice guy you know so uncle can you take him fishing every you know couple of times a month and um Grandpa you know can you take an interest he's having a bit of a struggle can you take a bit of an interest in him um you know it doesn't matter who it's what you know the

the guys who the two guys who live next door you know if if um he can he gets this kind of palette of a lot of different styles of masculinity um then he can begin to to have a bit of that and a bit of this and and

you know learn what kindness looks like in a male and and um and that it's a combination of of kind of taken in the the this this the way of being male but it's also feeling validated as a male you know Grandpa and I hang out Grandpa thinks I'm alright even though I'm struggling at school Grandpa says I'm a great kid and I'm good company and I'm good with a fishing line and and so um and that that's what those mums did they made sure that the the boy didn't go up in a kind of hostile

a world hostile to males um yeah does that make sense Shawn it does well and I think that there's you know the the thing that we talked about in the very beginning where men aren't supportive of each other in the way that women are right my wife has eight friends that she tells every detail of her life to and I I really struggle to open up to even my closest friends and in that same way we're not we don't seek out you know young men to to to mentor necessarily

or we're not necessarily going to seek out mentors if we're a high school age boy or something like that and it's so critical and the cultural institutions that used to exist to make that happen your church or you know local programs and those sorts of things those are all gone now and so it's not gonna happen by default and that that means you have to take responsibility of it you have to design it yourself you have to be intentional about it now that also means that you can customize it

you don't just have to go to the Catholic Church on the corner where there might be some problems you can customize it for your own needs but you have to do it

yeah and and um knowing that I think people can get very intentional about it and and and and and and and it's not it's not rocket science it's not that hard the guys that are in the the terrific thing about the psychology of us as men is if someone points us to a job we'll do it yeah um and and and and we we have a a really great quality which is a we like to do heroic things and and if someone says my kid's in trouble you know can can you know it's I think it's it's

you know it's gonna be a year or two where he needs just someone a bit that that's a bit involved in his life um so you know we think OK well if that's what you like yeah I'll I'll give it a go and but we would have been there is a man on the planet I don't think that there is a man on the planet a decent man on the planet that being asked that question wouldn't love the opportunity to do that for somebody I I think I I just

if I just can't imagine anybody I know any decent man I know when come when having that question posed to them every single one of them would jump at the opportunity to do that is yeah yeah it's a hopeful message and Sean can I talk about a little part of this that will make it make sense to people more and and because it's um it's to do with um there are qualities that you would wanna have you know when we talk about um a good man or a life affirming masculinity um that that um

it opens up into some things and and for instance you know you would be patient you know he's always gonna grow up he's probably gonna be a dad and be a husband or a partner um so you want him to be patient you want him to be kind you want him to have stickability and endurance and want him to be a man of his word and those kinds of whole bunch of things now if we take take patience for example

that's it's actually quite a complicated thing to be patient yeah um yeah it's not you can't sort of say to a kid be patient and and I'll have it in a Powerpoint presentation and and because what it is it's actually it's a way of breathing you know when you when you're patient you kind of change how you breathe and you change how you stand and yeah there's a physiological component to patience yeah yeah there's and there's a whole um you you drop you drop your agenda that

you know and you say okay this is gonna take a bit I'm gonna listen to this kid while he unpause something out or I have to wait'cause he's really slow with this and so so patience is a very complex nonverbal multifaceted skill now the only way to learn that is it's a right brain thing you have to see it going on and you take and human beings it's called mirror mirror learning and and we our nervous system I you know I watch you and I and I take in your movements and your breathing rhythms

and your the the way that your face moves and your eyes move and I've got a kind of a Shawn sense that I can take on board if I if I spend it you know a couple of days with you I could do Shawn and qualities that you have that I don't have and I can put those into my masculinity for future you know use

and so so the the the role modeling is made up of you know the a boy we drink in what we are is we're a bundle of all the good people we've ever met male or female and so if your if your son has seen patience and he's seen forbearance and he's seen stickability and and vulnerability and and all those qualities then it's it's it's it's programmed into him and he can do it uh and and so we so they they need thousands of hours of male company um school teachers and coaches and guys on TV and and

and um and in the old days that was there you would yeah it happened by default all the yeah hmm yeah I wanna touch on one more really

really big subject and I know this is something we could probably go hours on but but I really wanna get your opinion about it and that is navigating the digital wild west I'm talking about like stuff like screen time and pornography and gaming and gambling in our pocket and all of those things I'm terrified about these things this is in fact one of the reasons that I started this whole project is because I realized that the world that my boy is gonna graduate into is so completely

it's a foreign territory for me it might as well be a different planet from the one that I grew up in and and because of these things how what is your advice to parents to navigate these boundaryless digital realities rather I mean I think a lot of us just stick our head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist or pretend it's you know a matter of force of will or something like that but they rewire your brain what do we do what what what is your advice about that very important question

Sean and it's a it's a combination of two things um one is just restricting the the whole phenomenon you know putting the brakes on um and the other is giving them some giving them some guidance and and tools to use when they do encounter it um and I can spell those out a tiny bit now in in my country Australia I don't know if you know this but about I do I love it go go ahead and tell everybody four weeks ago

the government passed a law legislation that social media companies are not allowed to subscribe under sixteens and so under sixteens and are not are not able to go on not able to have a um a Facebook account an Instagram account a whole bunch of the of TikTok all of those they can still do YouTube's but they can't have an account so that they can't be algorithmed and because it's the it's when you have an account the algorithm steers you into you know the matter sphere and the

and the toxic stuff and so already parents are incredibly um relieved and and it meant that you know if I mean if you had a involved mum or dad they were already putting those brakes on but if you had a a kind of deadbeat parent who didn't just was too exhausted or didn't care or whatever it meant you didn't miss you didn't have a horrible childhood because the government had solved that problem for you yeah um and this is sweeping the world now there are countries in Europe are just following

quickly they're watching our you know the experiment here and they're pretty much bringing it on board but meantime yeah I mean and it's just it's the kind of thing the government has to step in and do because I mean you could say oh well you know just don't let your kid use social media until they're 16 alright good luck that's somebody who doesn't have kids that's somebody who isn't getting pestered day by when can I get a smartphone when can my kid my six year old boy is asking me

when he can have an iPhone already he's already pushing me on it and yeah I mean I don't it's tough

yeah and so so it's like um we're a herd animal and and and it's very hard to stand against the herd and so um so it helps um you know there's it's called in Australia there's a thing called the Heads Up Alliance and it's kind of heads up from your phone from your device yeah and it's a school communities it tends to happen school by school um that the school will say look can every let's all get on board let's none of us give kids smartphones till they're fourteen um and and and and our whole

let's all do this so it makes it easier on the individual um and I know we're running out of time Shawn and so I'll come around to the other part really quickly for you um yeah that um the the other part is that particularly with pornography um kids they will see it um and there'll be some kid in the in you know usually by the age of 10 some kid in the school will have shown them some horrible thing on their phone or or in a photograph and so we have to let them know you say look

there's this thing around it's called pornography and and it's people doing things with each other's bodies and um and you'll be if you see you'll be kind of you know like wow what's that you know you you wanna have a look cause you're curious and that's alright and if it's a you know picture of a you know girl with no clothes on of course we're attracted to girls and they're they're beautiful and um but there's some problems with this stuff and it's in particular the

what happens in pornography is different to real life and um and in in our books we have we list the differences um

that you can teach your kids for instance people are not up for sex the minute they first meet each other um and um that um and the most specific one is that um real girls don't like being strangled they don't like being slapped and they don't like being um put down you know with put downs and and verbal abuse because I think it's 70% of pornography depicts those things wow and and and the actresses are are are paid you know they and you explain to your kids the actresses are often really poor

and they have a lot of trouble you know paying their for their food and their kids and their apartment and so sometimes they make this these movies to make some money and it's really sad that they have to do that and they have to pretend to like it uh and so trust me girls don't like that stuff and and if you do that stuff to girls they won't like you and and so you know so pornography is is mis miseducates you and and so this is the sort of thing you talk to kids about when they're about 12

Shawn um when their age you just look what a powerful way to to communicate that and I I love that trigger of when they see it they're gonna come to you I mean you've got to have that kind of relationship too and then you have you get prepared for that conversation hmm yeah

and and so and because the effects of all of these things are are to do with exposure with it's a dose related thing the more you see the worse you are was is is you don't have devices in bedrooms and um and and and only in in the public parts of your of your house that where everyone sees what each other's doing um yeah and and very you know very important because the kids get so messed up with this and there's huge companies making a lot of money from messing your kids up

and so you have to fight back yeah wow that's that is tremendous advice I appreciate it now I always love I like to finish off every single one of these discussions by asking the same question of everybody you know I'm gonna put you on the spot here feel free to take as much time as you want to think about it but um give me one principle that you think is important for raising strong powerful uh excellent men okay look I think it's a paradoxical thing Shawn that tenderness is um is the secret of

of strength and that what happens if we if we tender and gentle with our little guys um including when we wrestling with them and fighting with them and things like that where we where we never ever hurt them yeah and and they know that they can um that they're deeply loved um then their natural empathy will stay and so so when they see someone hurting they'll wanna help them and they'll never be the cause of hurt to somebody else and so it's the stuff you do in the first two years

you know where where you're gentle with them and and patient and and um

and even when they're just impossible you know and you gotta kind of you know hold them you know carry them back to the car in a screaming heap um um don't get angry don't hurt them because when you when you put hurt into a kid the hurt will come out on someone else down the track you know kids kids who are hit will hit when they grow up kids who see their dad hit their mum will hit their wife as well and you know if if you hit your kid and you hit your wife

it's almost a guarantee your son will end up in jail

guarantee and so um so that that those are things if if you're a dad you know and this is not just a minority it's all of us all of us dads me too we had to learn how to be safe and and how to to manage our strong feelings to walk away when we're when we just don't know what we're gonna do and so that so that a kid can say I always feel safe with my dad um he's he's my safety go to guy that's the foundation of everything yeah yeah that's what I mean half of masculinity is being a protector right

you're being a you're a protector and you're a provider yeah and you're not a protector if your kid can't say that about you right you know he's not protected he's protected from you that's right yeah yeah

I love that that is a fantastic principle thank you for adding that to my list I I that is that is tremendous the books are raising boys and the new manhood check them out this you can learn more about Steve's work at Steve bedoff.com the link is in the show notes if this episode moved you please share it with another dad or a mentor a teacher or or another parent who's in the fight for the soul of our boy Steve thank you so much for joining me today great interview Sean thanks very much and

and love to everyone who is watching or listening see you later bye bye

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino