"Be A Man" Project Helps Us Understand Teen Boys

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SheKnows’ “Be a Man” project is an “exploration of what it means to be a man today,” says Erika Janes, a “boy mom” and SheKnows editor-in-chief.

Importantly, the project includes teen boys and gives them an opportunity to share their thoughts about manhood and masculinity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the boys’ responses reflect our still-evolving understanding of gender. Crying, for instance, is still seen as a term with strongly feminine connotations, “but almost every boy we talked to said that they did cry,” Janes says. “They still feel like there’s a stigma to boys and men crying, but for the most part, almost of all of them said, ‘I cry at times.'”

Boys, she says, “still get so many messages about traditional masculinity — ‘don’t cry, be strong, be a man.’ But they need to be allowed to express healthy emotion, to express vulnerability, to be able to cry and express sadness. We need to understand and accept that teen boys have all the same emotions as teen girls and that it’s healthier if they have outlets to express them.”

Takeaways:

The Be A Man project on She Knows provides a comprehensive look into the lives of teen boys, covering topics such as masculinity, mental health, and social media.
It is important to include and listen to teen boys in conversations about their experiences and perspectives.
Parents of boys may face challenges in understanding and raising boys, but it is important to provide support and guidance.
The project aims to provide advice and resources for parents navigating these topics with their teen boys.