SoC1,CTIOØS

And by the way moms cling too much.

Boys are more independent than girls

TIME
at ages 5 and 6. To suggest something is
wrong with this is to "pathologize»
boys. Indignant about society's igno-
rance of male biology, Curia-n says
we're basing our expectations on
female modek
One of the biggest problems for
boys in our culture, says Gurian, is that
adults, especially female ones, need to
be educated about "what a boy is."

Is It More Than Evolved from hunter-gatherer pri-

mates whose main purpose was sur-
vival, boys' miquely fiagile brains are
not equipped to handle emoüve data in

Boys Being Boys? thé same way girls' axe. So boys are by
their nature emotionally insecure. At
the same åme, their several daily
IWo books examine the emotional development of boys surges of testosterone "hardwire" them
By HARRIET BAROVICK saddle them with the culture's outdated to be dominant and physically aggres-
notions of masculinity. 'Ihe result is Sive and to solve problems quickly It is
NTL OPENED FIRE ON what Pollack palls the ever present the job of parents—in paräcular,
his schoolmates in Springfield, uncornmunicative,
stoic, fathers or male mentors—to help them
..0re„ in May, everyone thought invulnerable stance that does not allow resolve this contadiction and channel
he was just a regular ldd. A little boys to be the warm, empathic human their natural attributes productively.
angry, maybe, with a gruesome sense beings they are. The "gender straitjack- Curiall concedes that a solid

of humora Mostly, just a boy. But even eting$ Pollack Says, during the relationship with Mom is important
before the frantic second-guessing early years, when boys suffer their during infancy and early chfldhood.
over the tragedy began came two first and most momentous trauma: But by age 10 or so, boy raising should
books to suggest that boys being premature separation from their well- largely be a man's game, where values
boys—or what the world-tries to,make meaning mothers. Fearful that main- such as honor,
of boys—may have been a big part of taining a close con- and respect for
the problem. Michael Gurian, a nection will result in women are handed
Spokane, Wash., the12pist and author the shaming of their down with discipline
and understanding.
psychiatry professor William Pollack from peers, disap- The ability to talk
author of Real Boys: Rescuing Our proval from adults), about feelings. is

Sons from the Myths ofBoyhood argue mothers disconnect, worth striving for, but
that boys are in crisis from emotional usually by the time boys don't come to it
undernourishment. Though our cul- their boys are five naturally. Besides,
ture views them as testosterone-dri- or six. When boys there are other,
yen demons, boys are much more frag- feel ashamed of equally important
ile than many adults realize. And thaes theif dependence on ways of achieving
about all they agree on; where they Mom, when they intimacy.
on fre origin of the diffculties
clash is are discouraged from So is there any
and how to avert emotional expression, agreement at all on
Both gapple with a universal truth: they vithdraw, cre- how to help avert
boys have complicated relationships atively and psychical- crises? Sort of. Both
Mith freir mothers. who is lye They become lost. advise boy-specific
alarmed by what he the "sflent 'cri- Not exactly, insists IRON JOHNNIES: Boys, says nurturing tech-
Gurian, love the rough and
sis" of"normal" boys, says we live in a the anthropoloöcally tumbie but need attention, too. niques, like engaging
confused society in which mothezs are oriented Curian;-twho• in action-oriented
afraid to cling to their•sons. On the one focuses boys. Boys—who activity that will lead to conversation
hapd, we ask 1990s boys to be sensiüve are just being who they are—are mak- instead of asking direct "How do you
and expressive, and on the other, we ing a natural, and critical, separation. feel?" questions.
 CA uses gobLÉM

What Curian and Pollack both bit-

to commit suicide as adolescent girls; and without proper guidance can go
terly lament—and corivincingly illus- adolescent boys are 15 times aslikelyas haywire. And Pollack says misdirected
trate—is •the peculiar pain, and the girls to be victims of violent crime; boys rage is a response to emotional repres-
potential loneliness, of being a boy in are more be diapaosed with
likely to sionandto societys massage that anger
ånerica today. Especially acute are the attention deficit disorder and mental is an acceptable male emotion. 'Jhe lat-
adolescent years, when boys look hulk- illnesses; and boys commit violent ter argument—like Pollack's overall
ing and powerful but are in fact needy crime at a higher rate than adults. idea—seems more expansive and more
and terrified. The stafistics are_ scary: Sure, Curiansays, boys can't process-
adolescent boys are five 6mes as likely i emotional trauma as well as $rls can, i ought to be paying more attenfion.

the book because her own practice

Surviving Your Teens was increasingly occupied

mostly white and- middle
by
class, she
says—coping with such problems as
Reviving Ophelia chronicles the traumas of troubled girls
eating disorders, depression, sub-
stance abuse and self-mutilation.
By EUZABETH GLEICK to friends and showing up to hear Pipher's view—and what, no
Pipher, a Lincoln, Nebraska, clinical doubt, helps make her work so popu-
N THE LAND OF POPULAR PSYCHOL- psycholo$st, speak, Reviving Ophelia lar—is that, for the most part, the
OGY books, nothing works so well has become a phenomenon. ture, not the parents, are to blame.
as a bunch of case studies, paired Originally rejected by 13 publishers, Pipher points out that girls enter
with a lot of enthusiastic word of the hard-cover book was published in junior high school faced with daunt-
mouth. The No. 1 paperback best sell- 1994 by Putnam. The book really took ing magazine and movie images of
er, Mary Piphers Reviving Ophelia: off, though, when the paperback came glossy, thin, perfect women. She
Saoing the Selves of Adolescent Girls, out last March. argues that pop culture is saturated
has the combination just right. Certainly the premise of Reviving with sex; violence against women is
Dozens of troubled Ophelia (which takes
rampant; and drugs and alcohol are
•

teenage • girls troop its title from the

-n
far. more accessible than they were
across its pages: com- 0 doomed hero- during her 1950s $rlhood in a small
posite sketches of ine) is a familiar one. Nebraska town.
Charlottes,- Whitneys Pipher believes ado- Pipher does• offér commonsensical,
and Danielles who have lescence is au especial- unthreatening solutions. She
faced taumatic psycho- Iy precarious time for that parents immerse themselves in
•logical issues ranging a fme when the their daufllters> life and take the trou-
from bulimia to endur- fearless, outgoing child ble to learn about the pressures at
ing their parents' bitter iS replaced by the school. And through therapy she tries
divorce. There's a girl unhappy and insecure to teach the girls to turn their pain
here for everyone: girl-woman. "Some- outward: to write their angry thoughts
either the girl the read-
thing dramatic hap- in journals, rather than cut, starve or
er once was or the )
pens to girls in early loll themselves; to get involved in
Silllen one now lolling
adolescence," Pipher charity work when they feel shunned
about the reader's PHENOMENON: Best-selling writes. "Just as planes by and to remind thém-
classmates;
house listening to Hole. author Mary Pipher
and ships disappear selves daily of the ways in which they
' 'The book put a name and a face mysteriously into the Bermuda are valuable and unique.
something I was already sensing," says friangle, so do the selves of girls go —Far the complete tect of &iEs arücie and related
Annette Davis, a San Jose, California, down in droves.".She decided to articles from TIME, piease visit www.üme.camaeach
mother of two, •who has även copies
of the book to her children's teachers.
"It iwasn't just about my daughter,
ANALYZING THE ARTICLES
though* It xx,ras about me. It spoke to
something in my experience in ado- 1, What is the "boy code"? Do you
think such a code exists?
leseence and some of the pain I still 2. CRITICAL THINKING According to the books
cany around." reviewed; what are the crises that adolescent males and
Thanls to readers Eke Davis, Who' females encounter? Are those crises really so different?
are buying the book by•the dozens to