Man-Child

S-s-s-u-u-p.

E. is on the phone. Even though he has initiated the call, he sounds put out, like I’ve interrupted him.

S-s-s-u-u-p. It’s the shortest shorthand possible for “What’s up?” or, as E. says when he’s really feeling chatty, Wuzup?

I don’t know what’s up, I say, trying to stifle my irritation at his pathetic phone etiquette. You called me.

Ite. (All right).

E. is a master of the monosyllabic conversation.

E., I say delicately, anticipating his annoyance, I’d like you to walk the dog before you leave for school.

Bet.

Bet. This could mean “You bet,” as in “No problem,” but in E’s universe, it usually means, “Don’t bet on it.”

As a little boy, E. was a chatterbox. He loved to talk about anything. He was always asking questions. He was especially eager to share his feelings: his anxieties about school, his fear of bullies, and his self-consciousness about being chubby. I felt doubly-blessed: Not only did I have a healthy, happy second child; I had a male child who could describe his emotional world and invited us in.

Then he turned 14, and the wall went up.

I realize that hormones, peers and popular culture’s images of what it means to be a man are powerful influences in what feels like E’s verbal and emotional retreat.  And I admit that assigning gender identity to personality traits, like communicativeness or silent stoicism, reinforces stereotypes. The unfortunate reality, however, is that the society in which our sons are coming of age continues to shame boys who are ‘soft’; who display any vulnerability by talking about their feelings.  And try as I have to raise a feminist man-child with nontraditional views on gender roles, the larger culture and its overpowering images of silent, grunting machismo have hooked him.

I’d like to think this is temporary. But even F., who is the gentlest, most communicative and sensitive man I know, is ambivalent about these very qualities that nourish my soul (and our marriage) and that society deems unmanly.

F. recognizes his struggle to reconcile the “feminine” qualities that I adore in him with the “masculine” qualities that society values more. I don’t doubt that part of him is relieved to see our 16-year-old free of this struggle. He says E. is where he should be, cordoning us off from the details of his life and the depths of his heart; and building an emotional moat around himself, so that his eventual separation from us doesn’t hurt so much.

During the perilousness of adolescence, when depression and drug abuse and violence can cut a young life short, I suppose I should be grateful for any words that come my way.