The Netmums Podcast - S10 Ep4: Dr Ranj: How To Be A Boy

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

Dr Ranj joins Wendy and Alison to talk about his new book 'How to Be a Boy and Do It Your Own Way' which was released last week. His last book focused on puberty for boys, but this next chapter is all about boys and their identities, and what exactly does it mean to be masculine? Ranj chats about everything from sexuality and gender to mental health and toxic masculinity, and his book is essential reading for all parents of boys. This episode is sponsored by Aldi.

This episode of the Netmums podcast is brought to you by Aldi. Wendy, I don't know about you, but buying everything we need in our weekly shop, it can all add up. And I'm starting to dread going to the supermarket in case prices have gone up even more. I know exactly what you mean. But do you know what my secret is? Oh, do tell. I shop at Aldi. They have an excellent range of great value products. They even have an award-winning baby and toddler range,

which includes weaning essentials, nappies and wipes. It's funny you should say that because another friend told me that she switched to Aldi Mamiya and it's giving her big savings. Yes, plus with Netmums and Aldi, new parents can get a pack of newborn nappies absolutely free So log on to our site and let your friends know about this awesome opportunity with Netmums and Aldi Perfect, I'm off to Aldi You're listening to the Netmums podcast with me, Wendy Gollage And me, Alison Perry

Coming up on this week's show There was one point when I was growing up that I felt suicidal and I couldn't talk to anybody about it. And I don't want any young person to feel like that now. But before all of that... Hello, hello everybody. I once again want to start the podcast with a rant. Because quite honestly it wouldn't be the podcast if I didn't start with a rant. This morning that thing happened to me. That thing that happens when you wake up, it'd be the bank holiday. And suddenly, your child announces that it's King

or Queen Day at school. And it's 6.40. So yes, this morning, I found, not only did I find her a queen outfit, I also found her a bloody corgi. So she went in with a homemade crown and a corgi and a queen outfit by 8.30. And I would quite like a pat on the back, please, Alison. I think you deserve, like, ultimate mum points. That is impressive. A corgi? A stuffed corgi.

Not a real stuffed corgi, obviously. Tell me you've done that before, though, where they just say, Manny, it's their day. And you're like, it's what? All the time. I usually find out on the school mum's WhatsApp group. One of them will have left a message that morning saying, oh, I'm having a bit of a panic.

And I'll be like, what? This isn't news to me. But yeah, we usually try and pull something out of the bag, even if it's a little bit kind of rummaging in the dressing up box and pulling something a bit pathetic it was full tudors going up to school there was loads of kids looking around going it is actually a day to dress up mom you've not just it's the fear as you're walking and then the relief when you see other children dressed up it's like oh okay okay it's all okay it's all good now your kids were

pretty excited about today's guest am i right they really were when i told my four-year-old twins that i'd be chatting to today's guest they gasped and jumped up and down with joy dr range is the co-creator and presenter of get well soon on cbb's along with a whole raft of other TV series and being a regular contributor to ITV's This Morning, BBC's Morning Live and The One Show. Ranch has previously written a Sunday Times bestselling book about puberty for boys, How to Grow Up and Feel Amazing. He now has another brilliant book coming out, How to Be a Boy and How to Do It Your Way. As if all of this wasn't enough, Dr. Ranj is also an NHS paediatrician. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Ranj. Hi you both, how are you? We're good, how are you? Yeah, not bad thank you and I think you deserve a

medal for pulling off your feet this morning, to be honest. Well, at least she didn't go in in school uniform. That's like the mum fear. It's only made worse by turning up on an inset day. That's the only thing you can do this week. And I've got a little confession. I have a dressing up box too. I love how parents and carers have dressing up boxes for those last minute emergencies.

I've got one. I don't even have kids. If you need to get your party on if some somebody suddenly invites you to a kind of 70s fancy dress party you're sort of I just I just hoard this really random stuff so I think I've got a pair of silver angel wings in there I've got a cape. I've got various masks, various sort of necklaces. I've even got like this big dollar sign belt. I don't know. And a feather boa, because you always need a feather boa. I'm disappointed, Rand, that you're not wearing some of this today, because you're wearing a rather natty jumper today, but I want to see the feather boa. Oh, we'll have to do that next time.

We'll have to do a fancy dress episode. Yes, private viewings only for the feather boa. Oh, yes, of course. Now, Ranj, I've got to say, you're going to deny it, but you're a bit of an icon. Kids, parents, you are. You're the man. Do you get stopped in the supermarket for selfies every five minutes

especially in the me tile yes that's it's lovely though when people do that when people when I'm out and about and people recognize you and everyone's so nice about it especially the kids and the parents it's it's a really really nice feeling it feels like you've done something good I have to be really careful at work when I'm on shift. I can't really do selfies and I'm not being mean or anything like that. It's just, I'm being, I'm on NHS time. I can't really stop and have photos because my colleagues would absolutely tear me apart. But any other time, anywhere else, supermarket, you know, out shopping, whatever it might be, I'm going, go for it. That's so good. Now Get Well Soon is our go-to. Anytime I need to explain to anything medical to

my four-year-olds, before I took them for their preschool immunizations, I watched that episode. We've done the COVID one, the chickenpox one. I feel like you're providing a service here. That was kind of the idea behind it was to kind of take my day job and turn it into something a bit more fun and a bit less scary and something that parents and carers can use and schools can use in fact so I'm glad it's still going because I think we made that around 10 years ago the very first series well yeah that's right because my eldest is 11 and I feel like I've been watching it for years. And it's still going. It's still on repeat.

I'm glad it's still on. Someone tweeted me this morning about their toddler watching me on screen. I mean, I look slightly different 10 years ago, a lot younger, a lot fresher. You haven't aged a bit, Ranj. You haven't aged a bit. Stop sucking up. So do you still love the nhs doctor bit of it is it very important to you to stay working in the nhs as a pediatrician or will you one day let the tv work and the writing take

over it's strange i get asked this question a lot and to me it's really odd because i think of course i'd always stay in the nhs like that's my job that's what I do that's what I trained for that's what I dreamt of being when I was a kid I didn't dream of being on telly so for me I could never give that up although I do it part-time now to allow myself to do everything else and for my own mental health because I did suffer from burnout at one point and I had to make some serious adjustments but I wouldn't do any other job in the world. I love my job. I'm so lucky to be able to do it. I'm very privileged, I think, to share that kind of occupation with wonderful colleagues and being able to help people in some sort of way. Yeah, I don't want to do anything else. I don't ever want to give it up.

So I'll do other stuff alongside it. And I enjoy that very, very much. Writing, as you know, and then the TV stuff and everything that entails. But I will always be a doctor at heart, I think. And I will always look after kids. So you've written a book aimed at tween boys. What was life like for you at that age? Part of the reason I wrote this book and How to Grow Up was because I wanted to create a book that I would have wanted to read when I was that age. So I grew up, I mean, I was a teenager about 30 years ago. We're talking a long time ago, before the internet, before social media, before so much that kids have to deal with these days. And it was a very different kind of world

in terms of our attitudes towards, you know, people of different identities and backgrounds, our attitudes towards gender and sexuality were very different. I certainly didn't see people that looked like me or came from where I came from on screen or in the media. So it was a very different world. And in many ways, it was quite traditional. I come from a quite traditional Indian family, so my upbringing was quite traditional. Although my outlook on the world is very different now to when I grew up. It was challenging in many ways.

It was wonderful in lots of ways, but it was challenging because I felt like being the eldest of three boys and coming from a working class background with parents who instilled those sort of values in us, there was a lot of expectation on me to achieve educationally, first of all, and make the most of 80s and 90s, there were lots of expectations on being a certain way and being very masculine, traditionally masculine, you know, growing up, getting a good job, creating a home, getting married, good at sport, all of those kinds of things that we still hear, I think, to some extent these days with boys and young men, those were very much the thing back then. I'm glad the world has kind of changed since then. And we've opened up a bit, but that's why I wrote How To Be A Boy And Do It Your Own Way, because I think we need to

acknowledge that there is so much more to boys and young men than just that. Some boys do like that and that's absolutely fine. And that does apply to them. But you can be a boy in so many different ways. And it's all fantastic and it's all amazing. And you should discover and celebrate it and show the world how wonderful you are. So where did you get your advice from? Because I feel like girls, we're all roughly roughly to lump us all into vaguely the same

age bracket here girls had kind of magazines there were magazines and stuff that talked about puberty and growing up whereas boys it was a magazine about football or there was a sticker book or there were superhero books but they didn't have that I feel like girls were more exposed to advice back when we were young so where did you get your advice from? You're absolutely right. I think girls still are. There's so much out there for girls growing up, and there should be, absolutely should be.

But there's relatively little when you look at the stuff out there for boys, and that's always kind of been the case. When I was growing up, there weren't really many sort of growing-up guides or advice sort of thing. You couldn't go on the internet because it didn't exist. So I learned everything from peers and family. None of which is very reliable. No, exactly. So for me, I kind of had to work it out as I go along. And it wasn't easy. It really, really wasn't easy. I could, I, looking back with my sort of doctor's hat on now, as a doctor who looks after children and

young people, looking back, I went through some really, really tough times growing up. I couldn't open up and talk about what I was going through or the emotions I was feeling. There was one point when I was growing up that I felt suicidal and I couldn't talk to anybody about it. And I don't want any young person to feel like that now. And that's purely because the support systems weren't there. The advice wasn't there. sort of resources and of help available the things we have now are very different and more commonplace but part of my rationale and kind of passion for writing how to be a boy was to make sure that any boy whoever they are growing up if they're feeling like that they know that there is always somebody there for them there's always there's always somewhere they can turn and there's somebody who will help them and they will they are never, no matter who they are, what they're going through, they're never alone. And such a big part of this is what it means to be a man. What is masculinity?

And you've touched on that already, but we have phrases like man up and boys with boys so often. Is it important to you to shift our thinking and language around boys? Absolutely. I think firstly, we need to give boys permission to be who they are and to be open enough to just, you know, be whatever their identity is or whatever they, you know, whatever their passion and their love is and whatever they want to be. We need to give them permission to open up emotionally and talk about things and talk about how they're feeling. We need to encourage them to seek help when they're in trouble. And all of these things go against our sort of traditional ideas of masculinity. You're supposed to be strong. You're the leader, you know, buck up and,

you know, get on with it. And I think that narrative needs to change. I want to change all of that. And I want to encourage boys to be strong, but also be able to show their vulnerabilities and be able to ask for help. It's a real sad fact that one of the biggest killers of young men is taking their own lives. And that's a really sad statistic. It's factual. I'm not trying to scare people or shock them.

It is a reality and we need to change that. And I think part of the way we change that is how we allow boys to be and allowing boys to talk and shift those ideas of masculinity. phrase called toxic masculinity a lot these days, especially after sad situations like the Sarah Everard case and what happened there and still continues to this day. And then certain characters on social media, like the Andrew Taits of the world, there are other examples. And I don't think all of these are positive things that our boys and men are hearing. I don't think it is. I think we need to balance those things and show people that actually there are other ways to be, and there are better ways to be. And boys, we can be better. It's not about keeping, for instance, one example, keeping women safe is not about teaching

women how to be safe because they know. Keeping women safe in those situations is now about changing how our boys behave and what they learn and what they think of other people, teaching them respect, kindness, understanding. That's what I want to do. That's what this book does. And I think we all have a part to play in that. So how do we as parents tackle that? How do we take that culture of toxic masculinity and tackle it in our sons and our growing boys? Get them my book. Obviously. That would be a start. I think, firstly, acknowledge that you may not be the expert,

and that's fine. You don't have to be the therapist, the counsellor, or anything like that. You just have to be sort of a conduit, a team player, a team member, create that safe space where your boys and your young men and your young people can come to you and talk to you if they've seen or heard anything that's slightly troubling, or if they're going through a tough time. Kids are remarkably good at recognizing something that isn't quite right. They have great moral compasses and they know when something doesn't feel or sound

right. What they don't always know is whether they can voice those concerns and how to do it. So create that bit for them. They will know that they can come to you when they're worried. And then when they do come to you, be a team, acknowledge what they're saying and try to understand where they're coming from. Reassure them if you can. Try not to take over and impose your feelings necessarily about certain things, but open them up to the world of possibilities out there and what other people are saying. And there's so much information out there for you. Be careful of the resources and where you're going to get that information. But there's so much out there to

help you, I think, as parents to reassure young men and to guide them, but remind them that inherently they're amazing. We just need to discover that and give them a chance to show it. Boys and girls, regardless, everyone, I think, as a kid needs to be reminded of that because being a good boy or a man or whatever is first and foremost about being a decent human. And it's about being a good person. It doesn't matter who you are or what you may identify as. The overarching thing of all of this is just to be a good, kind, positive human being who's trying to do their best. And that's the key message I want to give through How To Be A Boy is to actually forget about being a boy, just be a decent human being. What you've said about, you know, acknowledge the fact that you're not an expert in this is such a valid, important piece of advice, because I think that toxic masculinity is one of those things that

strikes fear into parents' hearts, a bit like screen time or, I don't know, like disordered eating or things where it just feels like this is such a huge thing and I don't know how to tackle this. So actually, what you've just said there, I feel like is super, super helpful. And also, one thing we do is we need to contextualise these things. When we hear and see things on social media, they sound a lot louder than they might be in real life because certain things get sort of amplified. And we need to acknowledge that what we perceive or hear may not actually be how big it actually is. So it's important to kind of put things into context and kind of put your sensible hat on and sort of think things through. And I've tried to do that in How to Be a Boy for Parents to try to take some of that work away from me. So whether it's talking about things like body image with young boys,

I've tried to sort of demystify some of that and, you know, make that conversation easier. Talking about mental health in general, eating disorders, which we're seeing a lot more of, sadly, amongst young people, especially boys, demystifying some of that and opening up that conversation, right through to conversations about allyship and how to be respectful and understanding of other people, no matter what their gender might be, what their sexuality might be, what their culture and race might be. We talk a lot about, you know, anti-racism allyship and LGBTQ plus allyship and being a feminist as a boy and being a man and what that means.

That's all in there, right through to your own identity. You know, who are you and how do you feel and who do you want to be and how to sort of explore that? All of those sorts of conversations, there's great sort of pointers in there. I think there's great sort of guidance in there for parents and carers to to have those conversations and use it as that sort of trigger point to say right let's talk about this you've taken all of the big parental fear conversations basically and helped so going back to the explanations about sexuality that's something that's very hard as parents to bring up and you've

done it admirably how do you think your teenage years might have been different if your book had existed and this conversation these different conversations about accepting different sexualities had been around yeah so as I said the world was a very different place 30 years ago with regards to you know people's viewpoints on sexuality and things like that and it's and it's changed a lot thankfully still got a way to go um I guess I sort of discovered or understood who I really was later in life in my 30s and it took me that long to kind of work out who I was and you know who I wanted to be and who I love. If I'd had this when I was younger, I just think maybe it would have just made things a bit easier.

It would have spared me a lot of pain and a lot of heartache. I think trying to work it out, and that's what I've tried to spare other people now, it would have possibly just made me a happier person as a kid, I think. Oh, that makes me sad. It's, and I'm not, I don't mean to make you sad but it's but that's I think that's the fundamental truth of it is that when you're able to be yourself a hundred percent yourself that's when you're at your happiest and it took me 30 years to discover

that and if if somebody had told me when I was 10 11 11, 12, that, you know what? You don't have to be any particular way. Just be you and you're amazing. And it would have been hugely powerful for me. And I think I would have been a much happier kid than I was. Absolutely. And you've got a section in your book from transgender man, Jake Graff, which I was really happy to see.

I feel like we've got to a weird place where we're going a bit backwards with trans rights, and it's somehow seen as acceptable in some areas to be transphobic. How important is it to you that we teach kids early that all genders are okay? Children have this wonderfully beautiful and open outlook on the world and they are you're not born with prejudice it's something you learn from others so it's almost like everybody else messes them up unfortunately they come into the world and they're so wonderfully like understanding and open and interested um and sadly they they learn otherwise And I think we need to change that. And that's part of the reason why I wanted to include that in there. And it's important to remember that the world is so beautifully rich

and diverse that we need to see it for what it is and celebrate that. And part of it, even though the conversation and sadly the debate around transgender people is so loud, it's so, so loud because of things like social media, it almost makes it feel bigger than it actually is because remember, transgender people make up a very small proportion of the population. They're a very important proportion of the population, and they have been around forever, which is something I make clear in the book. This is

nothing new. But if you look at certain things online and on screen, if you hear and see certain things, you may get a very slanted viewpoint of it. And I wanted to change that. And I wanted to also hear directly from a trans person rather than speaking for them. And that's another point I make quite clear is the best way to learn about trans people if you've got questions is to go and speak to a trans person. And so Jake offers his brilliant advice in the book about how to be more understanding of people

that might be different to you and not just listen to what's going on in the book about how to be more understanding of people that might be different to you and not just listen to what's going on in the media. I think we've reached, unfortunately, a point where the existence of trans people is being challenged, it's being debated, it's being questioned, and it's unfair. All of that is unfair. And it echoes a lot of how gay people were treated back in the 70s and 60s, 70s and 80s. It's an echo of that. If people look back in history, they'll see that these are echoes of that. And look how far we've come there. will hopefully one day make the same progress I think with trans people and I'm really hopeful but in the meantime I do worry I think I do share a lot of empathy and sympathy with trans people for what they're going through and I'm trying to do my best to help wherever I can and a lot of that is educating ourselves and educating our young people who are already I think very open to listening.

Yeah, yeah. Now here at Netmums, we recently worked with you on a campaign around kids and mental health. You know, it was such an important campaign to be talking about the stigma around kids and mental health. I'm guessing that it's a problem that must affect boys more than girls, because so many of them think that they shouldn't be talking about their feelings. Is that the case? Is that something you've come across? Yes, absolutely. And I think it's something we've seen throughout the decades that boys and men just don't have that permission to talk about their feelings, especially when they're struggling. And there's a whole chapter on mental health that talks about the importance of emotions and

feelings positive and negative and why we have them and then and then being able to recognize when you're struggling and then being able and feeling like you can then ask for help all of these things are things we need to reiterate time and time again i think with boys it's universally accepted that you know girls are far more in touch with their emotions and are able to talk about them a lot more that's a societal kind of construct I think I think that's just the way I'm not sure that's entirely true I as the mother of a tween daughter I'm not sure she is able to talk about her feelings any better than a boy. I think the expectation we place on boys is equally as damaging when we place it on girls and say, oh, but girls can talk about their feelings because she's being flooded

by all of these. She's cross about things that she can't understand she's cross about. And her little sister is making her want to scream and she can't articulate that. It's just crap for them. You're right. It's expectations, isn't it? It's absolutely expectations and how we expect people to be, how we expect girls to be and how we expect boys to be. But I want to kind of make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak and have their voice heard and be able to talk about,

especially things like their mental well-being which is a big deal for kids and young people now but how do we as parents encourage that when often they're the we're the very last person they want to talk to yeah it's not easy it's really not easy that's not the answer i need it's not the answer you need and i wish there was i wish there was a simple way of doing it and it's different for everyone it's very much depends on That's not the answer I need. in a way for them to be able to come. So one of the most positive factors in any young person's wellbeing is knowing that there is someone there for them. It's not necessarily them doing anything, but knowing that there is somebody there that's hugely positive for their mental wellbeing. And I guess creating that safe space firstly is important. Checking in with them every now and again. They may or may not want to talk to you.

And that's okay. That's all right. But going one step further than saying, so one thing I've learned is rather than asking people, are you okay, is saying, what's the matter? Because normally when you ask, are you okay, you've noticed something and the immediate reaction is, oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Then you can either let it go or say, no, actually, are you OK? Or what's the matter? And then you've automatically given them permission to overcome that first obstacle.

So changing the way we talk about things and the way we phrase things. I think using the far there's so much online resource out there for parents and I think, and carers and for young people, I think there's some great stuff out there that people can use. Netmums have fantastic online fora. You can come back. Well done. The beauty is that you have these wonderful drop-in sort of clinics with professionals where parents can really ask, you know, the questions that they really want to know. I think one of the big things that parents and carers can do is talk to each other. There's this huge stigma about being judged or feeling judged when your young person may be going through

a difficult time and thinking that we're the only ones when actually everyone's going through similar sorts of challenges and sharing some of those experiences and advice and insights, I think it's helpful, makes you feel less alone at least. Yeah, I guess that sort of stuff is all helpful, but be guided by your young person. As parents and carers, we automatically want to fix things. If our little one comes to us and says, I'm going through this, your immediate reaction is, right, I need to fix this. I need to fix this. I need to make things better. Sometimes they don't want you to take over and make things better. They just want you to be there and help them work through it. So be a team, help them work through it and say, it doesn't matter, we may not be able to fix it straight away, but I'm going to do this with you. How do you want me?

What would you like me to do? Would you like me to just listen? Would you like me to go and speak to somebody for you? Do you want me to take you somewhere? Be guided by a young person as well. Don't automatically go into like, right, got to fix this, got to problem solve this because that's what we do, don't we?

Could you just come and move in, please? That would be fine. If I'm just going to have a little, what do you reckon, should we share him 50-50? Yeah, we'll do a timeshare. I'm sure you won't mind, Ranj. Oh, that sounds good. Timeshare Ranj. Now, finally, Ranj, if you could go back and tell 10-year-old Ranj one piece of advice, what would it be?

Oh, my word. Do you know what? I, I just want to tell him that he's loved. That's all I want to tell him that actually don't feel so alone. Don't feel so lonely. You're not, you're, you are not the only person who feels like this. You can, you can, you can be you, you can, you can talk to people about how you're feeling and it's okay and you know what not every day isn't perfect every day isn't going to be amazing every day isn't going to be fun but trust me everything gets better it all gets better the more you work it out the as you grow up and you'll figure things out and you'll find your friends in your tribe, in your community, it gets so much better. So don't worry. It's life is tough. It's not easy.

And there's so much, there's so many demands on you and expectations. And there's so much that you have to do and you have to worry about. Just trust me that it will all start to feel better. And you're going to, you're gonna you're gonna come into your own and that's when that's when life gets really good so just hang on in there oh thank you Ranj as ever you just come on and you say wonderful things and you leave me feeling like I can be a better parent absolutely you're already a great oh look I wasn't fishing for compliments no i wasn't thank you so much for joining us in your slightly too warm woody jumper you can go get changed now thank you thank you very much