Raising Better Boys with Uju Asika

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1:02Today, we are joined by Uju Asika, a multi-award nominated blogger, author, screenwriter, and creative consultant. Uju is the author of Bringing Up Race, How to Raise a Kind Child in a Prejudiced World, which was celebrated as one of the best books of 2020 by the Evening Standard. and her latest book Raising Boys Who Do Better, a hopeful guide for a new generation is a powerful and insightful exploration into being a boy mum and raising boys in today's world. Uju's work has been featured in Good Housekeeping, The Observer, Mary Claire, BBC Good Morning Sunday and BBC Women's Hour. Welcome Uju.

1:45So you are a boy mum, you have two boys. I'm a girl dad, I do. Jodie's a boy mum to you. And I think when we're younger, maybe we have this idea about what our family is going to look like. Maybe most people assume they're going to have one of each, maybe. Where's your family as it is now? Did you visualise this? And how did you feel when you knew you're going to be a boy mum? What was that like for you? Yeah, I definitely did not visualise having two boys. When I was really young, I had this idea of myself as a kind of Josephine Baker figure. I was going to adopt children from all over the world.

2:21I didn't know about Angelina Jolie by then. So this was just me ahead of the curve. I was going to adopt kids from all over the world. The dad was somewhere. He was like in the background, but it was basically me and my like brood of many kids just going around the world and like being this amazing family. And then after I had one child, I was like, maybe I'll just have one. Rather than adopting like a whole family. uh yeah so I didn't really envision myself as a boy mum and then when I got together with my husband and you know he already had a son and then I met his four brothers I kind of thought okay I think I'm gonna have a boy and I very much felt like I was gonna be a boy mum when I was pregnant as well I could just sense before I knew that he was a boy it's a shock though isn't it I felt i just expected i would have a girl i've got a sister and then when you find i found out i was having a boy i was like oh but i don't know what to do with them um and that's how this is i found it really weird that a little penis was growing inside of me when i was pregnant

3:32i don't know how i'm gonna carry on with this i don't know how to carry on this conversation now like should we just stop now how many things i could say i'm just gonna leave that one alone I feel like I should we should take a minute just to I've thrown the conversation haven't I you carry on carry on ignore me but you know it is funny though isn't it because I'm a girl dad that's right girl dad two girls and yeah you kind of feel like you're gonna have one of the one that you are right like and when I had the first girl everyone said to me oh do you want a boy next and I was all like I don't you know I don't I don't necessarily mind I've accepted I'm a girl dad that's fine but yeah I guess the the growing up experiences you're going to have someone like you and then when you don't have that um it's good disclaimer we love our children but there is a process to accept that we're going to be a girl dad a boy mum etc what would you say is the the best thing about being a boy mum and also what is the hardest the best thing for me um is the hugs the cuddles I still like cuddle my boy like my eldest is 19 now and even though sometimes he will just be like yeah just get off me but I like I really cherish those moments when he just comes in for like a long hug these days most of the time he's like patting the top of my head as well because he's he loves the fact that he's like you know over six foot and he was actually when both of my boys they were like the youngest the smallest in their classes when they were early in secondary school so now that he's like over six foot he's just I call him a heightest because he's obsessed with like I really he calls me Lil Mo like so he calls me Mo Lil Mo and I'm like yeah I'm not that little I'm average for women um but yeah so I just love I love hugging my boys I love the cuddles is the Mo mum little little mum my boy is for mum yes exactly it's either bro or Mo like so I'm lucky if I get Mo typically it's bro yeah my daughter tries to call me bro i'm like i'm not your bro okay it's like yeah bro like there's less no no no we're not doing that yeah cut that cut that there you know it's just i've accepted it i'm like fine i'm i'm lilmo at the moment um yeah i've been muv bruv muv um all of that but i just love it i love like the the tenderness that boys have that they get to express with their mothers most often because of just I guess social conditioning they're raised right often to like you know not experience that level of affection and tenderness and warmth from their dads which of course many dads love to show and can express but I guess it's taken generations to get to this point where more dads can open up and really you know hold their hold their son for that 10 20 second hug and feel like that's normal that's normalized yes I just love I love boys and their tenderness and their humor as well my boys are hilarious so that's one of my favorite things what is the hardest thing about raising boys I think it's just raising kids you know the expectations that we put on ourselves as parents thinking you know how am I going to get it right what have I done wrong you're constantly questioning yourself and I guess as a boy mum there's a lot of stuff you don't have the lived experience for so then you question yourself more and you're like constantly looking for guidance and there's just so much mixed messaging out there so I just love to like give myself grace and tell other parents you just give yourself grace you're fine you're trying you're doing your best and that's all you need i love that on that point around dads and showing effects and show their sons i've got um a friend he's my kind of age early 40s and his son is maybe 17 and it's really nice because he calls his son darling um even at home he calls his son darling and he said they they went to the gym the other day and he said to his son darling can you pass the weights over there and his son was just like so embarrassed i went to the gym my dad's calling me darling and his son was like dad not here in the house please so your book is incredible a really really incredible book I love it um you have an interesting chapter a chapter called how not to raise a chauvinist talk to us about like why that chapter was important for you to write and also what's your advice for raising a boy that's not a chauvinist yeah it's funny I mean I came up with that chapter title and I thought yes this is brilliant and then you realize when you put a title in your book how not to raise a chauvinist people are going to be like so how do you not raise a chauvinist I don't have the answers like don't ask me I'm not the expert um yeah I mean it was really important for me because obviously uh we're living in in the world in society where chauvinism and sexism continue to be rampant misogyny seems to be on the rise um unfortunately particularly amongst like gen z and gen alpha like it's on the rise and i think that you know we need to constantly be pushing back against um the messaging that you get and i always say that sometimes i feel like you know i'm in a house of boys i've got two boys i've got my uh stepson i've got my husband you know i feel like sometimes i'm an oppressed minority in my own home I am the one person like battling sexism by myself and so you know sometimes that's a bit of a weight on my shoulders but aside from that I just think it's really you know how do we just constantly disrupt the sexism whether it's um so there's there's hostile sexism which is what everyone thinks about but then there's also benevolent sexism And benevolent sexism is like those ideas of like, you know, men must hold the door open for women or women are much better caregivers and should stay at home.

9:46That's known as benevolent sexism. And all of it actually contributes to the inequity we have in society. So it's finding ways to interrupt the hostile sexism, which is really obvious, but also the benevolent sexism, just like with a question like, huh, what was that? what did you say and not letting it all slide of course you can't do this all the time because you know like I said I'm in a house of boys that would be a full-time job for me but um you know you you do it where you can and yeah I think that's that's my sort of message from that chapter is like we need to constantly be disrupting and changing the narrative and what does that look like for you on a day-to-day basis how do you disrupt and change the narrative in your in your household?

10:31Yeah, I mean, it looks like, I mean, part of it is just from modeling. So I think even the way we share the household load, sometimes is very culturally, I think, very traditional. And also because we come from Nigerian background, I'm Nigerian, my husband is Nigerian New Zealander. And so culturally, and I find it's interesting, like in different contexts, if we go to my father in-laws house for instance I find myself more like going to the kitchen you know serving and doing all of that kind of stuff just because of the cultural expectation but because my boys have seen us you know their dad cooking and you know he'll bring the food to me and all of that they've seen that in our households I feel comfortable with it because I feel like okay they have a wider frame of reference for what it means to to be a dad or to be a mom or to be the parent or to be the caregiver or the person who looks after the house so all of that I think just comes to bear in like what they learn I think it was Jim Henson from he the Muppet show Jim Henson he said kids don't remember what you try to teach them they remember what you are and I always like have that in the back of my mind I think it's really powerful like because so much of what I do is conversation and talking but then there's also what they see and that's what I try and think about when you know challenging the constant sexist and yeah the the cultural element is really interesting like so my wife's from Zimbabwe she's um British she was born here but her parents grew up in Zimbabwe and came over here and so when we first started dating I would go to her house and there's one cousin that she had which I knew pretty well you know when we went out her cousin was there and whatnot so we went to my wife's family house at the time and we're getting ready for dinner and I was sitting down and this cousin who I knew pretty well like kneeled down in front of me and had a bowl of water and kitchen roll and I just looked at her like what's going on here like what do you what's going on I was like you're like you're my friend like why are you kneeling down in front of me with this bowl of water I just couldn't understand what was going on and basically in in the culture and the tradition the men sit down and the women serve the food like as a man you wouldn't go to the kitchen and serve yourself like you get served you wouldn't even go to the bathroom to wash your hands they come with a bowl and you know you wash your hands and whatnot i get it it's a tradition in the culture but i guess like living in the western world it's interesting where we try to navigate some of those cultural norms which we have to respect as as their culture and whatnot but also what we're trying to build in our house and how do we marry the two and how do we also teach our young boys that like yeah you should also like serve and cook and and whatnot and we're trying to create this equal world but also there's that bigger cultural thing going on and i said to the cousin i was like i can't do this with you man just please stand up this is just super awkward i don't feel comfortable with this you've got to lean into it elliot that's your moment like when else are you i tell you your wife is not going to do that for you so just take it where you can get it my wife is a feminist and she's like i'm not marrying a man that's not cooking i'm not marrying no man that's expects me to do everything like her growing up she was like my my partner is going to be an equal parent and so hence why we're married and whatnot hey elliot here as you may know as well as co-hosting this lovely podcast i also run parenting out loud the workplace coach change program that supports dads to be loud and proud about their caring responsibilities at work and equal parents at home.

14:12Well, I have some exciting news. In September, we are hosting the UK's first ever Working Dads Summit. Sponsored by Universal Music Group UK, the one-day online event will bring together fathers, thought leaders, employers and change makers to explore what it really means to be a dad in today's world and how we can create workplace environments where dads can parent loudly. expect real stories bold conversations and practical solutions so whether you are a dad an employer HR leader or dad advocate this summit is for anyone who believes in equal parenting and gender equality at work and at home 23rd of September online 1 p.m to 5 p.m completely free so register on workingdadsummit.com and join the community over on LinkedIn just search for parenting out loud right back to the show so how do you talk to your kids about about privilege you've got you know some some content in your book about privilege how do you go about talking like male privilege and just privilege in general with your children yeah I mean privilege is such an important conversation and that's why like I wrote a whole chapter on privilege and raising boys who do better because I just feel like it's such a loaded word it's become a very loaded word but especially in the current context, you know, back in the day, it would just be like, oh, privilege.

15:39You know, you've got a fancy house and you've got fancy cars, but actually privilege isn't really about like the luxuries that you enjoy. And that's the message I'm constantly trying to share. It's not about like, you know, I'm so privileged because I've had this and I've had that. Privilege is really about the barriers that you don't face. And so that's like the lesson that I've tried to teach my boys, mainly through, I think, trying to make it relatable. So for instance, my eldest, he's left-handed and sometimes just pointing out to him or he points out to me the things that he can't do that I just take for granted because he's left-handed.

16:20You know, even as simple as like a pair of scissors, you know, actually he's not even left-handed. Let me correct myself. He's cross-dominant because he writes with his left hand but then he plays sports with his right hand but either way he's had challenges um especially in school you know I'm right-handed so that didn't occur to me things like how he would cut his paper would be would be tricky so making it relatable pointing out to him like you know what would your life be like if everything was just built for somebody who didn't quite look like you and they can understand it from a certain angle because obviously they're black boys and they're being raised in a white majority society so obviously they understand privilege to some degree and I think the main thing for me when I talk about privilege it's not about like pointing out oh you've got privilege and then it's like blame it's really about accountability it's like I have privilege we all have privilege we'll have some kind of privilege so what are you going to do with it how do you use your privilege as a force for good do you get um any pushback from them because as you say it's such a loaded word and i have seen videos of people on the internet trying to twist this notion of privilege and point out that it's all nonsense and so if you come up against any resistance when you've used the term privilege with them yeah 100 so half the time like I'll try I'll try not even to use the term so that's why I say just trying to make it relatable and like look at an example or you know we watch a lot of shows together for instance and you know it's like oh what would happen if we reversed the roles and that was a man and that was a woman how do you think that would come across so I started watching this show forever and I just watched I started watching it last night and then uh my son he's kind of watching it in the background so he's like commenting on it and I'm like listening to some of his comments and like countering some of his comments and agreeing with some of them and uh there's a scene in which the I don't want to spoil it for you but anyway there's a the girl in the show she is caught in like a sex tape situation where they basically, I think her ex-boyfriend shared a video of her, leaked a video of them, and it's being shared around.

18:53And then there's a moment where she confronts him, and she's like, we were both in that video, yet somehow I'm the only one who's dealing with the negative effects. She had to change schools. She's had this horrible time, whereas he's off to sort and go and be like a basketball star anyway so things like that you know I then like will just point that out and and then have that little discussion there so that's about privilege that's about you having a certain status based on um nothing that you've actually earned just who you are and you know that's yeah so that's how I try to discuss it not not to use the word privilege all the time but to show it yeah yeah I really like that because sometimes going to our children with data and stats and the macro issues across society is not going to resonate with them but just picking out the day-to-day things that are going on that they're seeing in content or in life or in school and just trying to make it as real as it is as possible in their life I think is such a powerful way of of getting those messages across um so on this podcast you know we talk a lot about obviously the need to support boys because we know that boys can cause harm to women in regards to violence against women and girls and stuff like that but also we focus on like what are the challenges that boys are facing and and how are they potentially causing harm to themselves and how are they impacting their own well-being and how are ideas of masculinity really negatively impacting them so from like you know your experience being a boy member also your research and your book what have you found now to be the challenges that you see boys facing um god I mean where do I start I think one of the big challenges for boys especially a boy in today's world is grappling with what it actually means to be a boy you know I had a question in my book and it's really interesting I've had people who've read it and they're like oh you know I was reading it in fact someone said to me I'm not even a boy mom I don't even have boys.

20:59But, you know, when I was reading the book, I just asked this question to my partner, to my other half. You know, what what do you think of when you think of the word boy? What does the word boy mean to you? And like really trying to understand, you know, what does it mean to be male in today's world? How do you sort of cope with the pressures of being in a patriarchal society where you're still expected to have all of these man box? I don't know if you must know about the man box, but these sort of man box codes of being like stoic and strong and being the provider, being the breadwinner, etc., etc.

21:39That's what you're going to grow into. but at the same time you're also meant to be emotional and more vulnerable and speak up but you're also told boys don't cry but you're also told you know be softer like I think they're in a really like weird nebulous time and what I find with a lot of boys and I think this is why the the manfluencers are able to target them is because boys are just searching they're searching for that place where someone will say to them, this is who you are, this is what you are, and to elevate that and to make it feel like, you know, yes, I can be this type of boy and I can follow that direction.

22:22So I think just having that very sort of blunt but clear message is really powerful for the likes of that man named Andrew. I don't like talking about him. we all know who we mean um yeah I think it's really powerful for the those types of people uh to to get a hold of our boys like mental space and even their their heart space as well it's such a simple message isn't it so it's so easy to latch onto it to say it's going back to um the definition of a man like 50 60 years ago and that resonated i guess because it is such a you are the provider you are strong hammy is so simple that's okay that's easy to follow i get that and whereas somebody said this on the podcast recently but women have always had to fall back on the fact that we repopulate the human race so no matter you know we can go out and do things and if that all fails we're like oh but i just repopulated the human race so i'm you know i'm all right i'm doing all right and don't have that to fall back on and so they're looking for these um what's the right word they're looking for sort of their value much more potentially than women are and now that that the definition of what a man is is in flux because of all these new messages inevitably they're going to feel a bit confused and lost and perhaps potentially that's why we're finding things are just feeling so sticky at the moment and tricky for everybody yeah as i said i think like the the riot and the reform and the the influences the manosphere they're giving those young boys a very easy to understand template of what a man looks like it's like you can understand this it's not good for them or for anyone else but it's easy to understand and digest and I think on the other side on the flip side it's like what messages I'll be giving boys about who they can be which they can also understand and are realistic and they can grow into and they can be still be successful and I think like us on this side we're still like figuring that out and it's a nuanced difficult conversation um but you know your book is is part of that conversation.

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25:41What would you say are the unique challenges that black boys face now, especially in the UK? Yeah, I mean, black boys, I think, you know, they're facing challenges everywhere in the West, you know, to be a boy in this day and age is difficult. And then obviously, when you add race into the picture, and all the, you know, we spoke earlier about privilege, you know, all of the barriers that black boys face. In the UK, we look at things like, you know, what is it, nine times more likely to be stopped and searched in the street, facing school exclusions still, I think school exclusions, I read that it was slightly down, but it's still almost three times more likely for people.

26:31for a Black Caribbean boy to be excluded permanently from school. So there's all of those things. And then I think just for me as the parent of Black boys, I've always worried about the armour that they have to put on to just go out into the world. I think that a lot of our boys, they're wearing armour, they're wearing masks. And for Black boys, it's like they wear these masks for their peers. They wear these masks just to move through the street safely. They wear the masks at school to try and fit in and be kind of palatable. Because, you know, the racial element is just always there. It's an undercurrent.

27:19And I think it's really, really difficult. You know, one of the things that I love, so my eldest is there at uni and going to uni outside London. and he said to me he was like what's been great for him he's got now quite a big friend group of black black boys you know who are similar to him you know different backgrounds and all but they're all just like he just said mom they're just regular boys they're not trying to prove anything to anyone they're not trying to be like too street you know they're just they're just regular boys and it's been such a joy for him and like a real um boon for me that he has that as well That's lovely.

28:00Through the education system, have you had any experiences like navigating free boys through the education system as black boys? What's that been like for you? Yeah, I mean, I count myself very lucky because for whatever reason, my boys were like, especially in primary school, not so much in secondary, but in primary school, my boys were like model citizens. I would go to school and they would like give me these reports and I'd be like, wow, well so you are capable of behaving well this is like I don't recommend who are these people um so most of the time they they sort of sailed through primary school but there were occasions where um you know their behavior would be like a teacher would say something about their behavior or they'd be like punished in a certain way and I'd have to go and question it because like I said they were very model citizens.

28:54And so it's like, well, actually, why have you been singled out in this situation? And I know one of the pieces of research I had in my book is that they've studied, so for instance, with teachers in schools, they've studied eye tracking, where teachers in in a class with Black kids, their eyes are actually looking to the Black kids and specifically the boys and specifically the darker skinned boys. They're looking to them, expecting and anticipating bad behavior. And so there's already all of these elements of sort of unconscious bias and conscious, you know, conscious racism that is there as like a big challenge for for black boys I'm very very hyper aware of it and I had friends who um you know friends whose whose sons had real struggles in school because they were labeled quite early on as troublemakers and problem kids and it's really scary how that label sticks all the way through like all the way through school and these are boys that I knew you know out of school and they were not remotely troublesome or problematic so um yeah it's a it's a big thing I think there's still a lot that needs to happen in schools around just basic racial literacy and training for teachers head teachers staff and students as well I guess if you're told you're a troublemaker as well by adults repeatedly you're going to absorb that yourself as well aren't you and you're gonna feel like you are the problem you I suppose you go one way or the other you'd either feel like you are the problem and you are trouble or you become what people tell you you are because that's that's how we behave right you you do as you're told you are so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy as well yeah I love what you're saying there Idra about your your boys kind of growing up and then going to uni and finding other black boys are just like normal try not to be too street just like you know not trying to impress anyone just trying to live their life and I definitely kind of relate to that as I've got older I think when you're younger as a black boy you can also you can definitely feel like an added layer of pressure to be really good I think to work twice as hard because you know that you might get singled out if the class is being bad or you're getting in trouble then that pressure at home because your parents are worried about you as well so you have you have that to battle with and then you know getting older and just being able to be a bit more free um and be yourself and not have to be on hyper alert all the time like it's a really freeing experience so yeah I love that your you say your son's experience in that university that's lovely in terms of like mental health and boys mental health we know that all children you know are struggling now um a lot with friendships and isolation and mental health outcomes are worsening and cams nhs hospitals are really struggling with the intake have you ever worried about your boys mental health and if you have how have you gone about kind of addressing and supporting them yeah I mean it's been it's been part of our story recently because my uh so he he turned 16 February but like last November my youngest he broke his leg just really shocking accident in the school playground and you know had to have surgery and he was really off school for weeks because he had a lot of pain and you know slight complications around it and definitely it's impacted him you know we could see it he's he's a lot better now and he's like back in school he's doing GCSEs and all that but we could see the he was holding a lot in and what's really difficult.

33:00Like with my eldest, my eldest is, my youngest will call him a yapper. He's just yapping away. So he like will just chat and, you know, nonstop. And my youngest is more sort of measured and contained. And I think he's just a lot more like me. Like I'm very similar. I hold my emotions inside. I'm quite stoic. You know, if you ask me what's wrong, it might take a while to tease it out of me. So reintegrating him back into school and all that was a little bit rocky. so what we did was we spoke to his physiotherapist because he he's been having physiotherapy so we spoke to them also went through the gp you know had a chat with him and the gp they gave us some resources mental health resources there's one i like called koof k-o-o-t-h and that's like an online counseling i liked it because they said he can just sort of message you know just send a text to them if he likes and they'd respond um that way I don't think he's actually used it yet but I've given him all the resources and you know spoke to him about it and every now and then just check in I spoke to his brother you know said to him this is what I think he might be going going through so if you have an opportunity just check in with him and sometimes he'll be like oh he's not listening to what I say I'm like actually he does you might not think he does but he listens to absolutely everything you say and he sort of models himself after you um i'm not going to play this part of the podcast to them i'll be like no way but i mean he does you know he's he's three years older he's his role model to some extent um so i think just making sure that we felt that he felt that he was supported was was the main thing and yeah i mean he's he seems all right at the moment that it's tricky what your thoughts on on social media how do you think parents should be helping their sons to navigate social media usage and just their social media presence and and how they engage with things online yeah I mean I often wish that I was in like a sort of I don't know I don't wish I was in a black mirror episode but if I did if I was in a black mirror episode I would rewind rewind the clock and I would definitely ban social media for under 16s that's my belief that it really should be banned for under 16s I think I know there's the sort of online safety bill and all of that it's just not going far enough and I think unfortunately the cat's out of the bag now like my I don't even know my youngest was on Twitter but he because he could be on Twitter he just went on Twitter like I'm like what are you doing on Twitter and he's like because I saw him you know because he's sitting next to me and he was like with his thumbs going like really fast on his phone so I'm like what is happening and he's like I'm just responding to a comment on Twitter I was like what what are you doing how old is he at the time this is now like he's uh this is when he was 15 so but still I was just like when since when have you been I knew he was on TikTok I know that they use Snapchat from time to time I was like do not be on Twitter don't do that it's just it's because of the football you know he goes on there and like some football thing and that you know he's like arguing with people in the comments and he's like yeah it's just fun mum it's just fun so I'm like okay fine um but I think that the main thing for me with parents I just say just try and be aware so I'm like I don't even know my child was on Twitter but anyway try and be aware parents where your children are doing um yeah just try and have some kind of awareness of what they're doing try and set some kind of limits um you know that they feel are fair but for us it's always been about having that discussion with the boys and letting them sort of feel part of the decision making process so for instance all throughout childhood our boys have never been allowed screens in their rooms no phones no laptops no gadgets nothing but then when my eldest turned 17 he sat me down and he was like mom listen I want to have my laptop in my room and I'm like well you know that's the household rule that doesn't happen and he's like yeah but guess what and he like gave me this little like head talk definition of why he should have his laptop in his room he's very persuasive and then I thought well okay fine you've persuaded me and so he had his and obviously now I mean he's at uni he's got a computer in his room and what he said to me then was that at some point you're gonna have to trust me to have this in my room and to have it not impact me negatively because I'm gonna go off to uni and I'm gonna have my computer in my room so I was like okay that makes sense and so now my 16 year old was trying the same thing I'm like listen you're still 16 the the fight I'm having with him now is that he said he was going to delete TikTok from his phone because he's doing his GCSE so he's like as soon as my exams start I'm going to delete TikTok from my phone so I'm like okay the exams have started and then he's like yeah I'm going to do it after half time so I'm like so basically to the end of your exams then you'll finally delete TikTok from your phone so yeah so we have different conversations with the different boys but I think it's really just about conversations awareness some kind of boundaries as well and then just getting them to also engage critically with what they see people go oh I need to have this safeguard and you know this like safety setting and I'm like well you can put all the safety settings you want on your phone or on your laptop whatever and your kid's going to go out the to their friend's house and you know watch whatever they want or look at whatever they want so the real tool that you have is that conversation and that critical thinking so that they can question you know if they see like that man named Andrew chatting some nonsense they can be like yeah that's just ridiculous and they can move on um yeah so that's how I handle it do you do you think it would have been difficult to say to your kids no to social media before they're 16 because it's it seems to me I mean I'm heading into this period now which is why I'm interested because my eldest is 11 um and he is he really wants a phone a smartphone and we're holding off at the moment and holding off as long as we can but he has said to me after watching stuff on tv that he thinks social media should be banned for kids up to the before the age of 16 but at the same time I know he'll go to secondary school and they'll want to be on it because all of his friends are on it and it feels very much like with the phone thing with social media you have a choice between giving them something that you think could be really harmful for them or socially ostracizing them you know and so there's no winning either way and yeah so I wonder with you having teenagers older teenagers reflecting back how easy do you think it would have been to say no you're not going on social media until you're 16.

40:10Yeah I think it would be really really difficult and that's why I think it should be something that's like a rule, like across, you know, that's why the government or whatever, that intervention should have been there. We know that the social media companies are not the ones to rely on to sort of put up all those safeguards and control. So there should have been those measures because it's very difficult for parents to say, oh, no, I don't want you. I mean, when they started secondary, before they started secondary, I was like, oh, you're just going to have like a simple uh like nokia phone uh no smartphones and they were like yeah yeah that sounds good because they were just excited at the thought of having a phone then as soon as you get in secondary it's like oh i can't be on the whatsapp group because i don't have this uh i can't you know make plans with my friends because i don't have that so you find yourself like giving more and more ground i mean it's normal you know we all want to be part of the circle we want to do what our peers are doing um and so it shouldn't be down to just parents individually to make these choices there should be clearer measures i've got a big question now something that i'm very interested in and our audience very interested in and it's the s word sex how do you talk to your boys about sex um so i'm just interested to hear from from your perspective and your work you personally how have you approached it but also like what would you say is good for for approaching the conversation about sex and relationships with your with your boys this is part of the podcast you're not going to play for them as well to tell you something funny so um like when i was recording the the audiobook for raising boys who do better and so I've got a chapter how to talk about sex and um you know so I'm reading and the funny thing is like when you're sitting by yourself and you're writing away and you don't think about all of the things that you're gonna have to read one day so I'm sitting there and um and as I read the the chapter and then afterwards I said to the producer I was like god I never imagined that I'd be sitting in like a booth and I'd be talking about like um you know clitoris like words like that it just didn't occur to me ever in my life but somehow here I am I've been sitting I've sat in the booth and I've read this chapter and I've spoken about sex and I've spoken about you know wet dreams and I've spoken about clitoris and so I mentioned this and then my eldest was like yeah I'm not gonna meet that yeah I was like yeah fair enough fair enough yeah so I mean how do we talk about like for me you know how do I talk about sex with their kids with a very dry mouth I would say and sometimes like a little bit of a knot in my stomach but I think we've been having these conversations since they were really little and I think when I say talking about sex I mean just like sex in the sort of wider context of like everything so we started off with like consent bodily autonomy safe touch when they're really little naming their body parts using the correct language to name their body parts because you know I remember reading back then and then also when I was writing the book as well if you don't name the body parts properly it can leave kids vulnerable not only are they sort of like a little bit lost but it can also leave them vulnerable because if a child can't name what a particular body part is and they can't explain to like an adult a trusted adult if something you know god forbid is happening to them so yes I would give them these proper names and then of course they'd run around the house shouting the proper name which was great I'm like why did I do that so there's that and then yeah and then just having these ongoing conversations as they got older and my husband told me that when he was a boy he had a single mom and when he got to around 12 13 she bought this book that was just all about like everything you know from puberty to sex and all of that and she just left it you know out there for him to read and I thought this is a really really good tactic and so we had that same tactic my husband went out and he bought this book on sex and body image and whatever and we just left it I think we left it in the bathroom and you know we could just see that they were just reading it coming through it and I think that was quite a nice tactic because you know obviously I'm always like promoting you should talk to your kids and you should make sure that they can talk to you but you don't have to do it all you don't have to be the expert or the sexpert like there's people who've written books there's people who've done so if you find like resource materials that you really like you know just bring it out you know have it out there let them have access to it at their own space and their own time and um yeah so that's one of the one of my tips my mom gave me a book when I was in primary school and I remember taking it to primary school and hiding in the toilets with all the girls to flick through it and one of the images was a couple having sex on the carpet and the cat was watching and we thought it was the funniest thing that why is this cat watching this couple having sex on the carpet and that's all I remember from the book like what why have they drawn this cat because it wasn't that it was it was drawn image but it was really useful the book So I've got two quick questions before we finish.

46:13So first one is, as a boy and mum, you have a partner, a husband. Really interested in just the choice of conversation. Is there particular conversations that you will purposely lead on or that your husband will take the lead on? Or is it just like who's around at the time and who's kind of best equipped with their knowledge? yeah I think that uh to be honest like most of it probably falls on me just because of like time wise like my husband's an entrepreneur so I probably spend more time with uh the boys um but then there's some stuff like lived experience you know where I can't I might say something from one perspective but it's gonna make more sense coming from him or he's gonna have a little bit more insight but my husband has let's say a very edgy sense of humor so I like to be involved like I like to be present because I just want to be able to be like at the very least roll my eyes whatever he said I can be like yeah okay that's one way of doing it is it like on Twitter when there's that like the truth at the bottom someone will say something there's like a disclaimer actually for more information yeah fat check here you're the fat checker in the house exactly you know not always but sometimes it's just like reality checker I think more than fact checker so it's like yeah and I think that's the way you should do it this will just ramble on the whole thing so um yeah but we yeah we mix and match and And my main thing is just for them to know that they can come to us is really, really important.

48:00And I find it really valuable because now, like I said, my eldest, he's in uni. He's just about to finish his first year. And he, you know, he talks to me about pretty much everything. It's not like I'm sort of deeply enmeshed in his life that he can just talk, you know, whether it's sex or drugs, alcohol, relationships. whatever it is he's saying we speak about it and I really really appreciate and value that relationship that we've built lovely and just to close I know it's like the one piece of advice but if there was one piece of advice that you would give um to parents with boys who want to help them grow into happy and healthy human beings what would you say is the thing that you found to be effective um gosh I would say you know start I think just start with the assumption that your boy is just a precious being filled with wonder and joy and magic and light and humor and charisma and playfulness and silliness and daftness and all of this stuff like just start with that assumption that your boy is just a whole human being trying to become the best person that he can be because I think there is so much negativity that filters through whether it's the media social media all of this around boys and males and masculinity and I think if we just start with that assumption that boys are just fantastic people to be around you know I've seen this in my own life with not just my sons but most of their friends are boys and these are just wonderful people you know I love it like the last time I went out with my youngest I think it was for his 15th birthday and it's like seven of his friends and we go out you know all boys and they're just such fun to be around and listening to them and they're lovely people the last time one of his friends came by and he like bought me a pack of monster munch like something and he was like yeah he said uh that his friend um that my son had told him that I like monster munch and so he bought some for me he just brought it around I'm like this flaming hot flavor or spicy no pickled onion I don't know what you're talking about the purple pack that's a good choice that's a good choice only pickled onion please um yeah so I think just start with that assumption that they're just wonderful people to be around and then lead with that and no matter what is going on in their lives or in your relationship hold that as kind of like the main image that you have of the boy in your life that you're trying to raise so start with that and um I think also just lean into your community is something that I I wrote about in Raising Boys Who Do Better this whole idea of community and communal support and building uh like a coming of age team so I have a chapter on coming of age and you know the fact we don't have these rituals in modern life, but you can actually build your own coming of age team for your kids, which can be anyone.

51:27It can be like family members, it can be friends, it can be teachers, sports coaches, whoever, people that your kids can trust and that they can turn to. So they don't always have to rely on you. They know that they've got like that village around them to support them. It's really, really important, not just for them, but for you, you know solidarity with other other people who are raising boys and particularly boy mums I think boy mums are the best yeah no incredible I love love that I've referenced your work around the village many many times um so thank you for that thank you for your book I think those words that you've ended with around seeing your boy as a precious fun little boy I think is actually quite profound I think everything else that comes from that that framing helps us to see them and see their humanity so I love that thank you so much time has flown thank you we've loved it great conversation so thank you so much for joining us it's been a pleasure thank you it's been brilliant so much fun