Life Kit - Raising Boys To Be Feminists

Episode Date: April 10, 2021

Author Sonora Jha shares insights from her memoir, How To Raise A Feminist Son, which includes practical to-do lists about how to handle some of the hardest conversations with sons.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Rachel Martin. When Sonora Jha gave birth to a boy, she was certain of one thing. She wanted to raise him as a feminist. She was living in India at the time, working as a journalist. She moved to Singapore and eventually Seattle. There was a divorce along the way, and Jha found herself a single mom. She's got a new book out about that experience. It's a memoir, but it also has practical to-do lists

about how to tackle some of the hardest conversations with your son. It's also a love letter, not just to moms, but to the next generation of men. This conversation first ran on Empire's Morning Edition. I asked Sanor Jha what it means to have a feminist son. It means having a boy who believes in the full humanity of women and girls around him, who knows how to trust his mother's voice, her anger, her love, and then extend that to other women around him. And also feminism for boys in particular is about, you know, things like feeling their whole spectrum of human emotion, right? Feeling sad, being able to cry, being able to have that feminine side. And then also as they grow to recognize that they can be led by women, that they believe women's stories. Do you believe that you are at the center of

everything or that you can sometimes follow and pass the mic or let them lead the way or get out of their way. Race is intrinsic in all of this, right? It just has to be part of our conversations about parenting and your experience in particular, raising a brown boy in America. But this is not just for families of color. You talk just explicitly. Teach your white boy about our world that privileges whiteness in the same way boys of color are taught about staying safe in that world. Yes, the privileges of a white boy, if you don't do that now, look at what is happening in society. Look at the insurrection on January 6th and look at the Atlanta shootings and the violence against Asian women's bodies

by this 21-year-old, which I think is, you know, just out of boyhood, which is not to say, oh, he's just a sad little boy, but it's to say that if we don't teach our boys that every human being matters and everyone is precious and we don't teach him how to express his anguish, how to, you know, see that you are just one person, and you might also need to struggle for what you have. And so once you start to de-center yourself, you're actually going to feel like you earned something. You make yourself vulnerable in this book in several ways. I mean, you open up about the sexual abuse that you suffered over and over as a child and a young woman. And you ended up sharing that with your son, Gibran, when you

thought he was old enough to carry the weight of that conversation. I wonder if you wouldn't mind just talking about the consequences of sharing that with him. Yes. So, you know, I was doing it by instinct. This was before the Me Too movement when he was 14 and 15 and he was becoming a young man. And I wanted him to know that women are vulnerable, that he needs to recognize what his place is as a man as he grows. And so it was important for me to tell him these stories and to give him the sense of the dangers that women face and that he needs to be sensitive to those dangers and that he'll also be a more loving partner if he understands that and believes them. And if he would listen to my stories, that he would listen and be open to listening to other girls' and women's stories.

So I told him about, you know, my sexual abuse. The only thing that I regret now is that I wish I had consulted a therapist and I had talked to him with language around sexual assault and things like that and say, like, we are safe now. Because he did tell me later that he felt a little vulnerable in the world and felt like, oh, my goodness, are we unsafe? Is my mother still unsafe? So that's something that I pass on to other parents and say, you can do it better than I did. But, you know, he's 25 now. And he understands that when these things come up,

how they can work as triggers for me and for other women. And I've given him that language and I get to now enjoy that solidarity from him. We should just point out, we've mentioned the to-do, the guidance that you give, practical guidance for parents, for mothers at the end of these chapters. And in that chapter, when you discuss the consequences of sharing those vulnerabilities with him, it was like, make a list of your regrets, and then forgive yourself for each one of them. Yes, that's exactly. It's just a 2.2 do list. Just forgive yourself. I wanted to read a little bit about the section on sex and our bodies, because these are conversations so many parents have a hard time

broaching. And it just doesn't have to be scary. Just that to-do list I thought was so useful, because it also has to do with how we as women, as mothers in particular, talk about our own bodies, right? Would you mind reading that section? Sure. To do. Stop your own body negative language and actions. Do not let your boy hear you saying negative things about your own, his, or anyone else's bodies.

Tell and show your boy that your love is unconditional and that your love will stay steady for him no matter what his body looks like or what it is able to do. Respect your child's bodily autonomy and boundaries. Speak about your own body autonomy. Ask your child's physician to speak to them. Teach your child to say no. And speak to family and friends about why it's important to respect that for everyone. For the most part, issues of health and safety aside, they get to decide who touches their bodies and how. How did you broach those conversations with your own son? Did you just go right into it?

Did you take his lead? Yeah, I was taking his lead as well. Because I was sensitive to the way my body had not been allowed its own autonomy growing up as a girl, I began to realize that even as a boy, it doesn't mean all is open and everything is game. So when we used to play this lovely game called the mama clinch, where I would hold on to him and he was supposed to kiss me in order to, to free himself. And, and so I used to love that and he loved it as a child. And then when he was about eight or nine, he started to not really enjoy that game and he would not jump into it. And I realized, oh, he's growing up and he wants his own autonomy and, you know, picking up on those cues. And I talk in another chapter about

how important it is for us to pick up on those cues from our kids. And then that way they learn to pick up those cues from others. What about social media, Sonora? I mean, with all, we can talk and talk about how our intentions about arming our sons with a feminist sensibility and approaching people with kindness and giving them self-esteem that also creates space for other people. And then they just get on their phone and it feels like it's all just blown up because of the toxicity there. Yes, absolutely. And I think too, that we have to realize that we are not the curators of our kids' lives after a certain age, you know, just kind of be open and

say, of course, I know you're on social media. I'm on social media too. What are you finding that's interesting? What's going on there? Anything that I should know about or, you know, make fun of things or look at some of the dangerous things out there and say hey I saw this thing and I'm wondering what you think about this guy who's saying this thing about Asian women or saying this thing about black women and I know I find that very disturbing and sort of casually bring up these conversations and maybe push a little bit and just listen a lot because we won't know what they're looking at. You know, like my son goes online and he's in these chat rooms and he's,

you know, for a long time, he's been looking into a lot of misogyny, but he comes back and he tells me about it and he says, oh my God, you won't believe what's out there. And because I laid that foundation of being open instead of shutting it down and saying, oh, I don't believe what's out there. And because I laid that foundation of being open instead of shutting it down and saying, oh, I don't want to listen to this. It's horrible. He is able to talk about it. And I'm one of the people that he talks to these things about. And that just feels like such a gift. You wrote that the idea of vulnerable masculinity was the biggest gift you assembled for him. Do you think he is living that out? I think so. You know, when he had a heartbreak, he called me,

but I wasn't the one that was going to serve him best in that. So he called his friends. And these boys, these young men are talking to each other about heartbreak. They're talking to each other about, oh, maybe you should see a therapist. And they are talking to each other about missing their families, missing their moms. And what should they say to a girlfriend, et cetera. And I think that is so unusual for among men in my generation that it just feels like, my goodness, you've got it. You're able to be vulnerable with your male friends. Then that way he's healthier. You know, I know that he's fine out there because he can pick up the phone and call

someone. The book is called How to Raise a Feminist Son, Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family. It's written by Sonora Jha. Sonora, it was so lovely to talk with you about this. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me and love to your boys. Thank you. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. The team tackles how to teach your kids kindness and how to be a good citizen. You can find those at npr.org slash Life Kit. And if you love Life Kit and you want more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash LifeKit Newsletter.

And if you've got a good tip, leave us a voicemail. We're at 202-216-9823. Or you can email us a voice memo at lifekit at npr.org. This episode was produced by Jivika Verma. Megan Cain is the managing producer. Beth Donovan is the senior director. Our digital editors are Beck Harlan and Claire Lombardo. And our editorial assistant is Claire Marie Schneider.

I'm Rachel Martin. Thanks so much for listening.