After watching the Netflix series Adolescence, I was left gutted, moved, and full of questions—just like many of you who reached out. “I watched it. I was shocked. I was moved… but now what do I do with these big feelings I’m having and this information?” Whether you’re raising a boy or a girl, this show forces us to reckon with disconnection, violence, and parenting in the digital age.

In this conversation, I sit down with Ruth Whippman and Dr. Zabina Bhasin to explore what the show reveals about masculinity, emotional disconnection, and how boys are often left emotionally starved in today’s culture. We talk about parenting, school systems, and online influences—and most importantly, how we can start doing better for our kids.

We discuss: 

• How the Netflix series Adolescence reflects the emotional isolation many boys experience—and why it’s a cultural crisis.
• How masculinity, parenting, school systems, and online influences shape how boys express (or suppress) their feelings.
• Practical, compassionate strategies to help parents, educators, and adults raise emotionally safe, connected boys in today’s world.

 

To connect with Ruth Whippman follow her on Instagram ⁠@ruthwhippman⁠, check out all her resources at ⁠http://www.ruthwhippman.com/⁠, join her Substack: ⁠I Blame Society⁠ and purchase her book ⁠Boy Mom⁠. Ruth Whippman has previously been on the PedsDocTalk Podcast: ⁠https://pedsdoctalk.com/podcast/masculinity-and-politics-exploring-the-connection-between-gender-ideals-and-voting-trends/⁠

⁠

https://pedsdoctalk.com/podcast/raising-boys-and-redefining-toxic-masculinity-and-how-it-impacts-friendships-and-emotional-health/⁠ 

To connect with Dr. Zee follower her on Instagram ⁠@drzee_md ⁠ and ⁠@listen2thekidz_⁠, and check out all her resources at ⁠https://www.dr-zee.com/⁠ 

00:00 Introducing Guests: Ruth Whippman and Dr. Z – Experts on masculinity, emotional safety, and parenting.

00:02:59 Themes from the Show: Masculinity, loneliness, vulnerability, school systems, online influences.

00:06:06 Cultural Crisis: Why raising boys today feels different—and the impact of modern influences like Andrew Tate.

00:07:28 Emotional Starvation: How boys are overstimulated but emotionally disconnected.

00:09:43 Nature vs. Nurture: Are boys and girls biologically different when it comes to emotions?

00:11:51 Raising Emotionally Healthy Boys: Early emotional development, societal pressures, and breaking toxic cycles.

00:15:17 Cultural Messaging: How families unknowingly reinforce emotional suppression in boys.

00:20:00 Behavioral Conditioning vs. Biology: Why mocking grief and detachment is a red flag—not normal behavior.

00:24:11 Friendships, Brotherhood, and Vulnerability: Why boys struggle to form deep emotional bonds—and how it shapes adulthood.

00:30:44 Teaching Emotional Literacy: How to build emotional resilience early—at home and in schools.

00:35:40 Hope for the Future: Redefining strength, vulnerability, and belonging for boys and men.

00:42:10 The Need to Be Seen: How shame and emotional hunger shape boys—and why connection matters.

00:50:11 Action Steps for Parents: Practical tips to nurture emotional safety, validation, and healthy masculinity.

00:56:00 Closing Reflections: Humanity, not masculinity—and creating a future where every child belongs.

Our podcasts are also now on YouTube. If you prefer a video podcast with closed captioning, check us out there and ⁠subscribe to PedsDocTalk⁠.

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on the ⁠PedsDocTalk Podcast Sponsorships⁠ page of the website. 

00;00;00;02 – 00;00;34;22

Ruth Whippman

I hope that people don’t take away from this like boys are terrible, that murder is that this and that, you know, and that we can we’re able to see them as children. And I think there’s something so heartrending about those moments when he obviously was starved of that validation. He was starved of feeling good about himself. He felt that, you know, and, you know, I think that’s also a really difficult thing in there about, you know, that there was some online bullying of him by ego, which is a really, really tricky thing to talk about because, you know, obviously we talk about these gender dynamics and patriarchy and the way that men oppress women and,

 

00;00;34;27 – 00;00;50;15

Ruth Whippman

you know, so it’s a different thing. And it’s a more subtle and harder conversation to address the idea that a teenage girl might be shaming and bullying a teenage boy. And I feel like my own feeling is like bullying is bullying. We need to address it. It shouldn’t be acceptable in any direction, and we need to call it out.

 

00;00;50;20 – 00;00;58;05

Ruth Whippman

Whoever’s doing it, which of course does not even go the slightest millimeter of distance to justifying murder.

 

00;00;58;07 – 00;01;20;02

Dr. Mona

Welcome to the show. It’s me, Doctor Mona, your trusted pediatrician, confidante and mom friend here to support you through every twist and turn of parenting. You’re listening to the PedsDocTalk podcast, where I host honest conversations that empower your parenting journey. Whether this is your first episode or you’ve been here with me for a while, I promise you’ll find insights here that stay with you long after you listen.

 

00;01;20;04 – 00;01;43;13

Dr. Mona

Make sure to subscribe and download episodes so you never miss a beat. And today’s conversation. Well, it’s one of those that stops you in your tracks. After watching the Netflix series adolescence, I was left incredibly moved with a lot of big feelings. So many parents messaged me saying I watched it, I was shocked, I was heartbroken, but now what do I do with this information?

 

00;01;43;15 – 00;02;12;17

Dr. Mona

Because adolescence isn’t just about social media influence, it’s about something much deeper. The emotional disconnection our kids are facing. It’s about how we raise boys and girls in a culture that often starves boys of emotional safety and connection. It’s about loneliness, vulnerability, identity, and what happens when kids don’t have the tools to support or navigate this all. To help me unpack these big themes, I’m joined by two incredible guests Ruth Wittman, journalist, cultural critic, three time Pedes Doc Talk podcast guest.

 

00;02;12;17 – 00;02;32;18

Dr. Mona

You can say I love chatting with her and author of Boy Mom Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity, where she dives deep into the emotional lives of boys today and doctors have on scene. Or doctor Z, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and parenting expert who’s been working for decades to bridge gaps in emotional connection for children and families.

 

00;02;32;20 – 00;02;59;15

Dr. Mona

Together, we’re going to explore what the show reveals about masculinity, parenting, school systems, online influences, and the cultural pressures shaping our kids emotional world. We talk about why boys, especially, are often left emotionally isolated, but also how these pressures ripple out to all children, regardless of gender. And most importantly, we talk about what we can actually do as parents, educators and adults who care to create a different, healthier path forward for the next generation.

 

00;02;59;17 – 00;03;14;26

Dr. Mona

This episode is powerful, emotional, and necessary. It is a must share conversation. So after you listen, make sure to share it. I am so glad you’re here. Let’s dive in.

 

00;03;14;29 – 00;03;22;26

Dr. Mona

So let’s get into it. But before we do, off the bat, you know if you want to introduce yourself, but also just your general feelings about the show before we get into it.

 

00;03;22;28 – 00;03;45;19

Dr. Zee

I think for me, adolescence and multiple shows that are out there right now, what is affecting is that this isn’t something that has happened now. This is culturally we’ve seen masculinity in many cultures around the globe. And I think what this has brought the show is the forefront that we’ve got to deal with it now. Yeah. You know, we’ve seen it within our homes culturally, in South Asian families.

 

00;03;45;19 – 00;04;11;03

Dr. Zee

It’s been there all the time. I think most Southeast Asians, maybe even, you know, other countries as well. But I know growing up I saw that I have four brothers. It’s a very common place where we’re then we see narcissism a lot within the adult male culture as well. So I think for me specifically, this was this outpouring of parents and adults and teachers and coaches and mentors saying, oh my God, this is real.

 

00;04;11;03 – 00;04;29;27

Dr. Zee

And now it’s really showing us. So for me, I was like, yes, because I’m constantly talking about this culture and changing it, and not just for men, but for women and for young girls and boys. But now it’s like, hey, we have something that shows us that this is happening because it has been there for centuries. But today is the thing.

 

00;04;30;01 – 00;04;35;24

Dr. Zee

And, Ruth, I’m ready to get your book because I’m like, you’ve already written about it. Yeah.

 

00;04;36;21 – 00;04;54;27

Ruth Whippman

I mean, I thought the, the show, like, as a piece of art and as a piece of television acting performances. I thought it was absolutely stunning, as did many people. And I think it touched on so many. I think it was very nuanced in the way that it touched on many, many different issues. It wasn’t like, blame the parents, blame the influencers.

 

00;04;54;27 – 00;05;17;18

Ruth Whippman

It was just like looking at, in the round at a range of things that are like affecting young boys today. And they’re kind of coming together in this really fraught cultural moment. So it’s partly parenting, it’s partly schools, it’s masculinity norms, it’s generational trauma. It’s screens, it’s influencers. It’s all of these things. I’ve got to say, that I think, you know, as a piece of television, it’s wonderful.

 

00;05;17;18 – 00;05;36;03

Ruth Whippman

I don’t think that. I think parents are like, so alarmed because that was like basically a good, loving family. You know, they had their flaws. And yeah, I don’t know, I think this idea that, you know, that you can have a kid that’s like in a very good, loving family and overnight he becomes a murderer. You know, I think that’s a little bit farfetched.

 

00;05;36;03 – 00;06;06;22

Ruth Whippman

I don’t think when you look at these cases in real life, that’s exactly what’s going on. I think there’s usually multiple complicated. I think they’re usually from very, very complicated families and backgrounds. Say I want to reassure parents a little bit. Yes. But so many of the cultural phenomena that I reported on and boy, mom, when it comes to masculinity norms, the pressures on boys, the pressures on girls, normalized misogyny screens and how they will play into each other, I think were touched on in that show in a really, really beautiful and, chilling way.

 

00;06;06;24 – 00;06;24;09

Dr. Mona

That’s exactly how I feel. And I mean, my thoughts will come through when I ask you guys the questions that I have for you. You know, we’ll go like section by section. I kind of organize this by my feelings and episode by episode, like, what are the big themes that I saw? You know, the show was inspired by real life knife crimes in the United in the Kingdom.

 

00;06;24;09 – 00;06;46;22

Dr. Mona

So there were some deaths of Eva White Line and, and Briana Gay, and this was something that I researched after watching the series, like what came up with this inspiration? This is obviously a fictional story based on kind of the events. As a reminder. And they wanted to examine the modern male masculinity rage influence of figures like Andrew Tate, which was never named but alluded to.

 

00;06;46;27 – 00;07;05;17

Dr. Mona

Just to be clear, and just kind of figuring out, you know, what was the impact of, of all of this, with these children in their, in their culture and like you said beautifully, Ruth, it’s not just one thing. I love that this show is only for four episodes. Went through the school system and the way that the teachers interacted, they went to the sibling relationships.

 

00;07;05;17 – 00;07;28;21

Dr. Mona

They went to the parent relationships. Like you said, the generational trauma. That’s what was so powerful to me. And you said it beautifully that I don’t think parents need to like, oh my God, I’m doing everything right, or my kid’s going to murder someone tomorrow. But let’s talk about this first for doctor Z. From your perspective, what is it about this moment in time that makes boys especially vulnerable to messages of anger, dominance and violence?

 

00;07;28;21 – 00;07;32;08

Dr. Mona

Maybe from what they’re seeing online or through others?

 

00;07;32;10 – 00;07;56;20

Dr. Zee

So I think I want to go back to Root’s comment as well, which is like we have to look at each family dynamic, right? Let’s make sure we understand that. But boys in general have an overstimulate and they’re emotionally starved. You know, I’m not saying girls aren’t, but there is a place where young boys in the age ranges of 8 to 14 years old have this place where they’re bombarded by messages that are powerful and more louder than young girls are.

 

00;07;56;22 – 00;08;25;01

Dr. Zee

And that’s a vulnerability and a weakness for them. They don’t want to look at that. Many boys don’t have any. Men don’t. Especially. But this crisis is what is really raging, this male dominance of, hey, you have to act like this. You have to talk like this. You have to be like this. And with the perspective of social media, YouTube, these video games, and a lot of places where you see this constant conversation with young boys, you’ll definitely see that they don’t feel seen.

 

00;08;25;01 – 00;08;51;12

Dr. Zee

And around the adults that they’re living with or teachers or coaches, their loudest voices are the online voices that they hear constantly. And many of these offer them powerful over the top instead of peaceful type of conversations. And that’s why we release say, and I release you all the time is we’ve got to do this real listening and watching of our kids, even as teachers and parents is like, what are they watching?

 

00;08;51;12 – 00;09;12;08

Dr. Zee

What are they hearing? And I think that messaging to them creates this dominance of powerful and violent type of structures. Again, I’m not saying this is every household, but there is a perspective that now, if it’s not at home or in social media, it’s their peers. Their other peers are having conversations with them in that aspect. Or it could be in sports.

 

00;09;12;10 – 00;09;30;19

Dr. Zee

I mean, I’m a basketball coach. I coached girls basketball. I know what that conversation is. I did this my first year is summer league for young boys. And you hear the difference. And when girls talk at that age of six, seven, nine and 11 versus when a boy talks and they’re having that car, it is the outside perspective.

 

00;09;30;23 – 00;09;43;20

Dr. Zee

And again, we still have to be adults to give them those guidances. And I think that is where they see those vulnerabilities because of their powerful level of their mind wanting to overstimulate and work.

 

00;09;43;22 – 00;09;52;06

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show.

 

00;09;52;08 – 00;10;07;24

Dr. Mona

And before I get to Ruth on the seventh, similar question is why do we why do we think that there’s that difference? Right? You see that when you’re coaching the girls versus the boys? Is it pressure? Is it just pressure from the like what their peers are saying? Is it something to do with their own development from being male or female biological?

 

00;10;07;24 – 00;10;12;25

Dr. Mona

Like where can you can we put an answer to that on the origin of why there’s a difference.

 

00;10;12;27 – 00;10;14;16

Dr. Zee

So here’s the thing where these three.

 

00;10;14;16 – 00;10;15;12

Dr. Mona

Female stood here.

 

00;10;15;15 – 00;10;35;21

Dr. Zee

Right? Yeah. I mean, you’re a physician as well. I feel like, yeah, like biologically men and women and girls and boys are different biologically. Like, okay, there is strength, there’s testosterone, there’s like but psychologically also we have to recognize they’re different too. They have a place of warmth, empathy and emotion. I’m not saying boys are not like that.

 

00;10;35;21 – 00;10;59;02

Dr. Zee

But generally, psychologically, you will see more and more young girls who have that perspective. Yeah, I have seen many boys who have that perspective as well, but they’re being torn down to not have that feeling. And it’s outside stimulants that do that. I mean, there are many boys in practice who were, you know, were kind and generous and wanted to pass the ball and want to give back.

 

00;10;59;04 – 00;11;18;20

Dr. Zee

But then you have these do not do that. You’re down, you’re played. I’m giving you basic words like kids are told, don’t do that, or someone’s going to stomp over you or someone’s going to, you know, look over you or you’re not going to the girls are going to take advantage of you. What are these conversations? But they’re psychologically manipulated to think that way.

 

00;11;18;25 – 00;11;26;17

Dr. Zee

Yes, they are psychologically different. Girls and boys are. We have to recognize that. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have those perspectives equally as well.

 

00;11;26;19 – 00;11;51;12

Dr. Mona

I think this might be a good segue to Ruth, because in Boy Mom, you talk about how traditional ideals of masculinity I isolate boys emotionally. So when I was watching adolescence, I kept thinking, these boys aren’t just angry, right? Not only in the school system, but Jamie. They’re lonely. And, I mean, there’s so many examples that we can go through, but have we created a culture and how have we done that, where boys lack the emotional tools and the community they need, leading to this increased loneliness?

 

00;11;51;14 – 00;12;09;27

Ruth Whippman

Yeah. I mean, I think the phrase that doctors said that really just stood out for me, and I just stand behind so much, is that boys are emotionally starved. And I think this is a process that starts at birth and in a way, the kind of biological differences, you know, how much is nature, how much is nurture, in a way?

 

00;12;09;27 – 00;12;31;26

Ruth Whippman

I think, you know, there are differences that are rooted in nature. And if anything, they are more to do with boys being more vulnerable than girls at birth rather than less vulnerable. You know, it’s needing more emotional sensitivity, more nurture, more, you know, a baby boy is born with his the right hemisphere of his brain around, a month to six weeks behind a baby girl is in development.

 

00;12;31;26 – 00;12;52;11

Ruth Whippman

And that’s in the sort of right hemisphere which deals with, like, emotions, emotional self-regulation. So they start off a little bit behind. But right from birth, we have this process where we kind of masculinized boys, you know, we starve them of emotional content. There’s all these sort of studies that support that girls get a little more nurturing care from parents and other adults.

 

00;12;52;18 – 00;13;12;15

Ruth Whippman

We’re more sympathetic with their emotions. We’re more sympathetic with, you know, we give them more kind of nurturing, positive touch as a rule. And over time they build up. And I think that we do not give boys the social permission or the tools to be emotionally vulnerable and to express, like these big feelings in ways other than anger.

 

00;13;12;16 – 00;13;39;15

Ruth Whippman

You know, we give them anger as their only option. And then we sort of we we fail to teach them these social, emotional and relational skills as they go on. So that’s a little bit under nurtured and a little bit starved of that kind of education in emotions and emotional self-regulation. And then we give them all these messages just, you know, it’s from the masculinity influences, but it’s also from the superheroes and from all the stories that we see about battles and all the stories about toughness.

 

00;13;39;15 – 00;13;58;22

Ruth Whippman

And it’s very, very normal things that happen in most households, you know, which is like, be tough, be strong, be a superhero, don’t be vulnerable, don’t show weakness. And you know, by the time the Andrew tights of this world and the algorithms and the YouTube videos come along, boys are already primed to receive those messages to see that as the measure of their worth.

 

00;13;58;23 – 00;14;20;16

Ruth Whippman

You know, their physical toughness and you know, their need to be dominant. And I think you know, my son is in middle school and you can see it now. Boyhood is quite a hostile environment. You know, the norm is like trash talk and insults and banter and it’s like, you know, whereas the social norm for girls is like, let’s support each other, let’s comfort each other, let’s be vulnerable together.

 

00;14;20;23 – 00;14;26;29

Ruth Whippman

And that’s not to say like boys, I mean, and girls are kind. I don’t think that’s the case. It’s more about the social norms that we hold them to.

 

00;14;27;00 – 00;14;28;00

Dr. Mona

Right.

 

00;14;28;03 – 00;14;34;00

Ruth Whippman

And, you know, I think that it’s no wonder in a way, that boys use the tools of anger to, to express themselves.

 

00;14;34;04 – 00;14;52;02

Dr. Zee

It was something that happened yesterday. It was just so mind blowing that you just mentioned this. Ruth, my son had a bunch of kids over for Easter yesterday, and I was in my bedroom and I could hear them in the backyard and he goes, I’m not a servant, I’m a man. And it blew me away because he’s seven.

 

00;14;52;05 – 00;14;55;02

Dr. Zee

And I’m thinking, Holy crap, where’d that come from?

 

00;14;55;07 – 00;14;58;02

Dr. Mona

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You doesn’t.

 

00;14;58;02 – 00;14;59;04

Dr. Zee

Have it. Yeah.

 

00;14;59;04 – 00;15;17;25

Ruth Whippman

And I’m when it comes from everywhere, it comes from absolutely everywhere all the time. And it’s like, invisible to us because, you know, girls get these stories of like, friendship and nurture and caring, and boys get these stories of dominance and battles and fighting. It’s just absolute baseline and our culture. So in a way, it’s no wonder that they pick that up, you know.

 

00;15;17;29 – 00;15;46;15

Dr. Zee

Well, yeah. And then I think I was going to add on to that was like, I don’t know about any of your cultures, but in our household sometimes I remember hearing my mom or my dad say, oh, don’t make him softy. And don’t make him yes, pansy, don’t make me. And my husband has said it a couple times and I was like, you cannot say that, you know, because you’re, you know, and there is a there is a space and I think we have to discuss this at some point as a mother really does feed into her son’s emotional, you know, buckets, right.

 

00;15;46;20 – 00;16;03;16

Dr. Zee

Where sometimes as daughters, we have those not that greatest connection with our mother, but we have it with our fathers. There is a space that we need to discuss that at a point, because sons tend to, fathers will tend to say, oh, don’t make him a mama’s boy. Don’t do this, don’t do that. And that’s within your own household.

 

00;16;03;16 – 00;16;06;00

Dr. Zee

You’re not recognizing those words that you’re saying.

 

00;16;06;02 – 00;16;06;11

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;16;06;11 – 00;16;29;26

Dr. Zee

And that also removes from their emotional bucket. Emotional dysregulation is a huge part of young men growing up to not have that. And then what they expect is not to have consequences, and also not to have the fact that they can do what they want but not express how they’re feeling. And I think that’s a place that we need to have a end time being a conversation that our boys need to recognize.

 

00;16;29;29 – 00;16;32;21

Dr. Zee

They have to show their emotions and talk about them.

 

00;16;32;23 – 00;16;58;24

Dr. Mona

Me and Ruth have spoken about that on our other episode, and I’ve shared stories about in my office. Right. Like I see this cultural I see the difference between parenting of boys and girls and the, you know, the stop being a baby, stop being a little girl. The like the the verbiage that parents use not in front of their child but the is why like you’re being a little y like that is already derogatory because you’re using a female derogatory anatomy term to describe your boy having feelings, right?

 

00;16;58;24 – 00;17;14;29

Dr. Mona

I mean, already there’s so many levels of that. But that is a huge issue that again, I agree from the parenting pediatric sense of what I see in my office and also me raising a boy and a girl. You know, you brought up the nature versus nurture Ruth about what is it? And I see nature y is my children are very different.

 

00;17;14;29 – 00;17;37;27

Dr. Mona

My daughter is very nurturing and we are very nurturing parents. Right. We are nurturing our son the same way. But by just like innate desire, she’s the one who wants to go over to her dolls without being prompted and just start cuddling with them or start to feed them a bottle when those same dolls are there. And my son likes to play with it, but then he likes to take his car and ram it over.

 

00;17;38;02 – 00;18;03;16

Dr. Mona

And so a lot of our teaching is, oh, do we do that with the baby? And he sees very nurturing father. He sees a nurturing mother. But it’s taking the biology which we know to be true, that boys like to roughhouse and be like that. And maybe they’re into superheroes, but also, how can we foster the same sort of emotional vulnerability and being okay with that teaching that we do not ride a truck over a doll and, you know, all this stuff?

 

00;18;04;02 – 00;18;31;04

Dr. Mona

And yes. So I’m not trying to make him nurture a doll like my daughter does, nor am I trying to make my daughter do things that maybe she doesn’t want to do. But, like, you can still teach sort of normal etiquette. But the biggest bottom line, and I agree, is that we are not allowing boys, especially girls, to, but boys more, more so than girls to have that emotional vulnerability because of the stigma and the you’re going to be a little girl and you’re acting like a little girl, or you’re acting like a pussy.

 

00;18;31;04 – 00;18;49;25

Dr. Mona

And that is coming from generations above us, and that is coming from many fathers like. And I don’t see a lot of women feel this, but the dads, like my own husband who grew, is a South Asian father. He feels it because he grew up in that sort of toxic masculinity culture where he’s like, Moana, are you sure that we should be doing this?

 

00;18;49;25 – 00;19;10;10

Dr. Mona

Like, sometimes he just cries for stupid reasons. I’m like, I cry for stupid reasons. And no one taught me how to learn about that. So we are teaching him so that when he’s 20 years old, he won’t cry about the stupid reason. He will learn to cope because he’ll have coping skills like he’s not going to learn it unless a parent, an adult in his life, is teaching him they were okay.

 

00;19;10;10 – 00;19;29;11

Dr. Mona

Feeling the feelings that you are feeling lonely, you are feeling unattached. You are feeling you didn’t like that mommy left today that went to like a work event. What are we doing with these feelings and that lack of what is the feeling? How are we coping with it is not being taught to many children, but I think more so with boys because of the the messaging we get for sure.

 

00;19;29;13 – 00;19;43;23

Dr. Mona

Yeah, and that’s a hard but it’s a hard reality. And you know, I want to go into like episode two because we’re bringing this to like the culture at school that, you know, Ruth, you alluded to that it’s not just one thing here. So in episode two, we see the detectives or the police officers go to Jamie’s school and the staff.

 

00;19;43;23 – 00;20;00;26

Dr. Mona

I think a lot of it could be due to stress, but they’re cold, they’re impatient. The students are joking about the murder like one of the boys was like laughing. Another boy gets beat up and he’s being mocked by, like, the fact that a girl, like, kicked him. And it’s more than just to me, boys being boys, there’s something deeper going on.

 

00;20;00;26 – 00;20;20;07

Dr. Mona

You know, it raised for me the question, are they being boys, being boys that they like to just roughhouse and goof around, or are we watching something more disturbing, something cultural? That’s been passed down, reinforced and rewarded? Like the way I saw the girl get emotional, losing her friend, feeling you saw that the connection was so important to her, right?

 

00;20;20;07 – 00;20;40;12

Dr. Mona

That she lost her best friend and she felt sad. And then she walked across the street alone. Like the show depicted a woman feeling sad because she felt disconnect, like losing someone she connected with. Whereas the boys were just, okay, it’s it. She just died or whatever, like it seemed. So the juxtaposition just seemed so, so like so there for me.

 

00;20;40;16 – 00;20;55;11

Dr. Mona

So doctor Z, developmentally, what’s normal behavior here like is that typical that you see a boy is and what’s a red flag. But how can we really start shifting group dynamics earlier in these school settings and like, you know, shutting this down or do we let it happen or what should we be doing here?

 

00;20;55;14 – 00;21;24;13

Dr. Zee

So the myth is, that and it’s a very dangerous myth, is that boys shut down, they mock others and they’re joking, like you said, or about violence or that this is developmentally normal. Boys will be boys, right? That’s what we were saying. It is not. This is not the truth. Yeah. As a psychiatrist and also as a physician, you’ve probably also seen that behaviors that we see detachment, ridicule, suppression, these are all at red flags.

 

00;21;24;13 – 00;21;54;10

Dr. Zee

And these are large systematic problems. These are not developmentally normal. What we are seeing actually isn’t biological. It’s called behavioral conditioning. Right. So in behavioral conditioning, boys are learning early and often that their emotional distance equals the social survival that they need to put out there. Now I’m being very constricted to a psychiatric type of thing. So when we say that is when they mock someone or they mock grief or they say, oh, it’s no big deal, someone just died, move on.

 

00;21;54;10 – 00;22;22;07

Dr. Zee

You know, that kind of feeling that is them having an emotional armor, like you’re protecting your emotional feelings. But they again, let’s go back to it. Maybe they’re seeing that they’ve been taught that or they see it within their peers. I’m going to give a very simple example, going back to something Ruth was saying, her own son or my son, you know, where I see a lot of emotional dysregulation in him that, you know, he’s working with someone, but I he goes, oh, you know, his grandfather passed away.

 

00;22;22;07 – 00;22;39;12

Dr. Zee

He’s like, he was old, he died. And I see my daughter who’s having this, you know, and I’m not saying it’s wrong. Another but we had to sit down and have that conversation. But what’s interesting is when my our dog died, he still. And this was in May of last year. Yeah. He still hasn’t been able to deal with that.

 

00;22;39;14 – 00;22;41;00

Dr. Mona

 

00;22;41;03 – 00;23;03;11

Dr. Zee

But it was something that his father didn’t have a moment with him, you know, like my father passed away. Now, over time, this armor becomes hardwired into them, right? It’s how the world they see and how they see themselves. And then what I’ve always seen also is there’s this shift of dynamics where we need to intervene. And, you know, before middle school or before high school.

 

00;23;03;17 – 00;23;24;22

Dr. Zee

So in kindergarten, I’ve worked with kids in preschool, in kindergarten where we’re teaching emotional literacy, where we’re giving them active listening, where we’re relating accountability to their emotions and their feelings. Again, going back to the grandfather passing or, you know, in this middle school arena, if the parents or the school. So this is where my other issue is, is the schools don’t have these conversations.

 

00;23;24;22 – 00;23;25;24

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;23;25;26 – 00;23;29;19

Dr. Zee

Even when we have school shootings we do it for a temporary basis.

 

00;23;29;19 – 00;23;30;02

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;23;30;06 – 00;23;51;24

Dr. Zee

This doesn’t this needs to be an ongoing continuous conversation and programs that are built not only for the emotional regulate or, you know, for the kids have to help the adults. Because if we’re not teaching us ourselves as adults, then we are not having a safe expression for the kids to have a place like that. So that’s that’s my thought within the cultural aspect of it.

 

00;23;51;24 – 00;23;59;07

Dr. Zee

You know, where boys have to have a space of that. Again, there are girls out there I do want to really emphasize we’re not just talking about one gender here.

 

00;23;59;09 – 00;23;59;25

Dr. Mona

Yes, there are.

 

00;23;59;25 – 00;24;11;25

Dr. Zee

Girls who are raised in that, that specific place as well, where they’re not regulating their emotions as well. And we have to give them that. And that comes from a home life or a cultural life as well.

 

00;24;11;27 – 00;24;36;08

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show. So, Ruth, what are your feelings about that in terms of that mocking vulnerability dynamic? You know, is this something that we’re culturally modeling boys versus girls? And I love that you just talked about how this is not just a conversation about boys, because we do get into a lot more of that in this episode about how this is applicable to all boys and girls.

 

00;24;36;25 – 00;24;42;18

Dr. Mona

But what do you see in that? Ruth, in terms of that mocking vulnerability or that dynamic that we see in young boys?

 

00;24;42;21 – 00;25;01;03

Ruth Whippman

I mean, I interviewed many, many boys for research for boys, mom, you know, many adolescent boys and kind of college age boys. And they all said this across the board. It’s just just like they cannot show weakness. They cannot. But they all use the same phrase actually, which is really an interesting one, which was like, you can never let your guard down.

 

00;25;01;06 – 00;25;21;21

Ruth Whippman

I need a kid to really different. Like everything from very, very privileged kids to kids who are living in really difficult situations where saying the one thing you can never let your guard, that it’s like this performance of masculinity, you got to be tough. And it’s this, this banter, this trash talk. Often it’s like insult after it after insult, and it’s like, oh, like you can’t be shown to care about anything.

 

00;25;21;21 – 00;25;37;20

Ruth Whippman

You can’t be shown to, you know, you can’t show weakness. And I think, yes, there’s a little bit of this for girls and for teenagers in general, but I think culturally, girls like, I see this, you know, I coming back to my son on his school, he’s on a week long, residential school trip at the moment and eighth grade.

 

00;25;37;23 – 00;25;55;21

Ruth Whippman

And the girls are like, they cry in front of each other. They support each other. If someone’s having a hard time, you know, that is culturally normal for the worse. The boys, it’s just like this rigid. You cannot show a moment of weakness. And it’s really stressful for him. And I think he’s he’s really, you know, and he’s quite a sensitive boy.

 

00;25;55;21 – 00;26;13;13

Ruth Whippman

And, you know, everybody experiences this in different ways. But I think it’s just like it’s very hard to form deep connections with another human being if you can never show them vulnerability. So I think it’s that there is this epidemic of loneliness with young men in particular and with older men. And I think this is a big part of it.

 

00;26;13;13 – 00;26;31;03

Ruth Whippman

And this is what the boys were telling me over and over. It’s like they have mates. They have friends. It’s not like that. Isolated. Although many of them are isolated, you know, many of them do have friends. They have people to hang out with, but they can never show that vulnerable self to them. And it really gets in the way of a deep connection.

 

00;26;31;05 – 00;26;51;23

Dr. Mona

And I think that scene with Jade, so Jade was like the best friend of Katie, who died, right? So she was the one that was being interviewed and she was very sad. And she would then was talking to, I believe, a therapist or a teacher at the school, and she was very overwhelmed. And then she was walking alone, like, to me, that scene really embodied what you just described as that female connection of feeling so connected to a friend.

 

00;26;52;00 – 00;27;08;00

Dr. Mona

And that’s not to say that if a male had died, what would have been the reaction? I have no idea. But I think that that scene, and especially her walking alone, I’m very big on cinema like that was intentional to show her walking alone after her friend had died, you know, like how sad she was. Yeah.

 

00;27;08;02 – 00;27;28;18

Ruth Whippman

Right. And it’s really I mean, this is something that like I looked at a lot in the book, which is like these cultural representations of friendship. Yeah. And books and movies and TV shows and there are, you know, hundreds upon hundreds of representations of girls having these very emotionally intimate friendships and, in books and movies, you know, and it’s very normal.

 

00;27;28;18 – 00;27;53;18

Ruth Whippman

That’s just culturally extremely normal. And in with boys, you know, you see it. And it’s interesting that Disney mentioned her son and the dog. It’s like you see cultural representations of boys being friends with an animal a lot. Well, that’s my girl. But like really intimate portrayals of male friendship where two boys are friends with each other. You know, I’ve asked around so much and I asked, a woman who covers books for the L.A. times, children’s books for the L.A. times.

 

00;27;53;22 – 00;28;12;17

Ruth Whippman

And I was like, can you think of a single one? People keep asking me for examples of this. And she was like, racking up right now I cannot and I think, you know, it would have been hard to imagine, you know, like the movie Inside Out, you know, there’s this girl and we’re all, you know, you could see this sort of deep emotional like vulnerability between girls and checking each other’s emotions.

 

00;28;12;22 – 00;28;25;03

Ruth Whippman

It’s really hard to imagine a boy character in that role. It’s hard to imagine a boy character, you know, in the role of the best friend. You know, I think it would have been portrayed very differently had it been a boy who’d lost his best friend, you know.

 

00;28;25;05 – 00;28;25;26

Dr. Mona

Yeah, I agree.

 

00;28;26;03 – 00;28;49;10

Dr. Zee

Well, I think if we go back to that too is, medically speaking, boys and girls are they’re born with the same emotions. There’s no they don’t come out differently. They eat. Right. But that’s exactly what you’re saying. But by the time they hit a puberty or brutal or like an adolescence age, they’ve been socialized to it, right? I mean, I think that’s what I’m hearing, Ruth, and I agree with you is that we’re just seeing a gender difference.

 

00;28;49;12 – 00;29;11;09

Dr. Zee

And these have these are cultural consequences to us. You know, I really title the, I don’t care where we come from. This is going to create a huge difference of opinion. I mean, I remember fighting for the fact of, you know, physical abuse in marriage between men and women and then having this as our thesis we were writing about, why does it happen that men are the abusers so consistently?

 

00;29;11;09 – 00;29;33;06

Dr. Zee

Not always, but but there is that growth from that age group when they’re in there, you know, 13, 14, 15 scene something that is happening, you know, by the time kids hit their puberty level, especially boys, they have now internalized these messages. And so girls technically like we see what Jade has it, right. Yeah. You see the sadness in her.

 

00;29;33;08 – 00;29;44;14

Dr. Zee

Yeah. So is this typical? No. It’s trained. Right. And that’s that’s the change we have to do as adults, or as parents or as teachers is take untrain that or untrain ourselves first.

 

00;29;44;17 – 00;30;05;08

Ruth Whippman

And show you can see the difference between the relationship between the mom and the sister versus, yes, the son and the mom and the sister. There’s a scene where they’re sitting side by side in the bedroom. They’re talking, they’re sharing. They’re like talking about their feelings that they’re like that. They’re emotionally open. They’re talking about. So whereas the dad, you can see like, this is a loving dad and you know, he’s not a bad dad.

 

00;30;06;00 – 00;30;12;18

Ruth Whippman

He’s but you could just see just all the way through the police station, all the way through that he just cannot talk to his son.

 

00;30;12;18 – 00;30;13;13

Dr. Mona

About what? Yeah.

 

00;30;13;15 – 00;30;31;16

Ruth Whippman

It’s just this silent stoicism, the like, you know? You remember his face when his son was being examined is strip searched, and he’s just got this, like face which is just teeming with emotions. But he can’t express them. All he has available to him is rage, you know? And that’s what he got from his father. That’s the only thing in his emotional toolkit.

 

00;30;31;16 – 00;30;44;25

Ruth Whippman

And and it’s you can see how that’s handed down from his father to to the to Jamie start to Jamie. You know, that’s all they have. When things feel bad and feel wrong, you know, and the contrast with the mom and the sister is pretty stark.

 

00;30;44;28 – 00;31;06;11

Dr. Zee

Yeah. So the kids call it toughing it out right. Because we have normalized grief. It’s tough it out. Make sure I mean, I share that so much with boys. I have to tough it out. I have to be strong. You know, even with young boys that are six, seven, nine, 11 years old, I have constantly heard that. But because if they show their emotion or support for someone else, that is no, no, no, we’re not, we’re not.

 

00;31;06;13 – 00;31;23;19

Dr. Zee

But I do want to go back to one point was you said about boys having relationships with boys to build like that. You know how we say sisterhood? Yes, I have actually been focusing when we see kids is like a brotherhood. Yeah, but when you call it in adult world, I don’t know if you guys know. Jealous the bromance is.

 

00;31;23;19 – 00;31;26;18

Dr. Zee

Oh, he’s got a bro. It’s got made fun of.

 

00;31;26;18 – 00;31;28;07

Dr. Mona

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

00;31;28;09 – 00;31;55;28

Dr. Zee

We also is women are not normalizing that. We’re making fun of it or men make fun of it. But as children, if they keep hearing that you could have a brotherhood, is great. Now, I do want to make one. One really point here is it’s unfortunate because in lower socioeconomic classes where we see that the boys do go towards other boys to have a secure feeling, that level, they’re not still not allowed to be emotionally normal.

 

00;31;55;28 – 00;32;20;04

Dr. Zee

That’s where the gangs and these other effects come in, because they’re looking for a manhood. Yeah. Outside of Andrew Tate, let me just explain to you when I say we go back another 20 years, the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, growing up in Southern California, especially in Norwalk and South Central L.A., we saw this already. The manhood piece was, you have to join a gang or you have to be protected.

 

00;32;20;06 – 00;32;41;19

Dr. Zee

And that’s how you. So this, this man, masculinity or toxic masculinity that young boys are seeing now, young boys at that time saw it very clearly. There was no need for that. So again, let’s let’s know that this isn’t new. It’s just in a new format that it’s been put out, you know, and you had to do that.

 

00;32;41;22 – 00;33;00;05

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And I think, you know, every I feel like every grown up that is responsible for caring for a child, we should all take a parenting course that talks about, hey, we are going to teach about emotional intelligence to the developmental capacity of our child. And this is important for boys and girls. I know that’s not a pack that I can get everyone to do, but I think it’s important because I know I mean, I’m in.

 

00;33;00;05 – 00;33;16;18

Dr. Mona

And again, we say boys and girls because it’s not just a boy problem. It’s but we know that culturally it leans more towards boys having the issue and going back to this mocking of vulnerability. Right. These boys in the school, they when we are teaching them that that’s okay, they just start internalizing this idea, that feeling anything makes them weak.

 

00;33;16;18 – 00;33;35;25

Dr. Mona

But we know that the truth is that when we respect their emotions, when we model what’s safe to that, it’s safe to cry. Like using your example of the dad. He finally cried when he realized that of what he did right. But before that, it’s safe to cry. It’s safe to care. It’s safe to connect. We give them tools to belong and not having to feel like they have to dominate.

 

00;33;35;25 – 00;34;02;02

Dr. Mona

And I think you’ve talked about this to Ruth, is that, you know, we spoken so much about what it is about what we don’t want for the boys. Right? We don’t want this toxic masculinity, but we haven’t given boys a new model of what it means to be a man. Right? We’ve torn down the old notions of we don’t want the stoicism dominance, but we haven’t replaced it with something meaningful or figures out there that are going to say, hey, let’s have belonging, let’s have identity, let’s have self-worth in the right places.

 

00;34;02;02 – 00;34;21;06

Dr. Mona

Like, you know, you talk about a boy hood. One thing that comes to mind is in Dallas, there’s these men that do stroller walks, okay? They’re fathers and they do stroller walks. And I think I love that. Like, I saw that story, and I love that it’s being a story. Right? Because women can sometimes look at that and be like, how come we don’t get the press when we go on stroller walks?

 

00;34;21;12 – 00;34;40;23

Dr. Mona

We need the press to show that men are capable of doing that, that that is not girly, that that is awesome, that dads can connect with other dads by pushing a stroller and taking care of their kids. You know, let’s show these boys what it means to be real men without you know, saying that you you can still be strong.

 

00;34;40;23 – 00;34;59;26

Dr. Mona

We’re all strong. I think the biggest strength we have is being emotionally healthy and also being able to go through our feelings. But that label of like, nope, you’re weak, you’re weak, you’re weak. That feeling of shame, right? We’re not we’re not helping them cope. You know, we’re off. We need to offer them a version of masculinity that’s rooted in connection instead of control.

 

00;34;59;27 – 00;35;19;18

Dr. Mona

Because I think this is out of what’s happening so much now. And vulnerable vulnerability will then become strength and not weakness. Right? That you are you are in control because you are connected. Whether it’s to me or Guardian, whether it’s to your friend, that’s your one guy friend, whether it’s a girlfriend of yours that you really connect with, and that it’s okay to be able to talk about those real feelings.

 

00;35;19;18 – 00;35;37;17

Dr. Mona

And it’s so hard to see that, you know, I love feeling discussions. I am that type of person, and I want that for both my son and my daughter. Whether one of them is going to just be more aligned to it than not, it’s just so important to see. And we all should have a pact. Let’s just raise these kids with like emotional, emotional safety.

 

00;35;37;17 – 00;35;40;06

Dr. Mona

That’s what I want for these boys. Emotional safety.

 

00;35;40;08 – 00;35;53;04

Ruth Whippman

You know what was really interesting to me with the boys that I interviewed was that, you know, I thought that they would just say, oh, we don’t want that kind of friendship. Like, we don’t want to sit around and talk about our feelings, you know, we don’t want and, you know, we just we like to do our own.

 

00;35;53;04 – 00;36;07;28

Ruth Whippman

Right. But actually, that wasn’t what they were saying at all. They were like, we are starved of this kind of yeah. Once you scratch the surface and I feel it’s safe to admit that, then they they felt like they would love to have someone to listen to their feelings. I would love to have support. They would love to have that connection.

 

00;36;08;04 – 00;36;18;24

Ruth Whippman

And maybe they don’t know when they’re 7 or 14 or whatever, but by the time they were like adolescents, they were like felt that, really felt the lack of it and were really sad about it, you know?

 

00;36;18;26 – 00;36;37;02

Dr. Zee

And I think that’s the work we have to do now. I think it goes back to what you’re saying. Mona is, is most importantly is and this is why we’re launching what we’re doing is we’ve got to start having them that opportunity to listen to them. Judgmentally not asking them questions and just letting them like us, we need to vent sometimes as adults.

 

00;36;37;07 – 00;37;02;14

Dr. Zee

So two kids, seven year olds do. Six year old kids do, but we don’t. We need to just be quiet and listen and let them just send out their feelings. Then we are only going to know how to guide them in the right direction. Here’s the other thing I think we have forgotten culturally. If we look at generations before us, people always want to fix the parents as teachers and coaches, but you just want to walk in and be like, here, this is how you do it.

 

00;37;02;15 – 00;37;23;24

Dr. Zee

Now go do it. But that’s not always for every kid. The same way, whether we’re talking about a boy or a girl. I remember one part. And if I’m not mistaken, Jamie was just sitting there, and the moment he just was, he just wasn’t sad, right? You didn’t see him sad at all, but he was mirroring an emotion for what he saw.

 

00;37;23;24 – 00;37;50;13

Dr. Zee

Right? What he was saying. And I think that for me is what? Nobody heard him before. Nobody sat down and had a conversation with him. Again. This is a show, right? But. Right. But in real life that happens unless we think, oh, our kid needs to go see someone and talk to them. Well, the easiest way for adults and parents to do it is to just sit down and start with lists of questions that are already out there that doctors have given you, but undistracted.

 

00;37;50;13 – 00;38;13;01

Dr. Zee

No phones, no TV, just sitting at a table having an ice cream. And I get everyone is so busy, but we’re constantly blaming and shaming these kids, and we’re not seeing where the respect is that we need to be adults. Yeah, we need to become adults again and have those conversations with them again. I’m saying conversations, but it’s more of a listening tactic.

 

00;38;13;03 – 00;38;32;12

Dr. Zee

You know, we have to go back and listen to them. So they have that space to to sit down and have their emotions. I did like I want to go back to one thing you said about fathers, actually, whether it’s showing their emotions. Right. I don’t know if you saw a 60 minutes the other day, the bugaboo chief executive’s husband and wife, she is a chief executive or she’s not the CEO, but she’s a big executive there.

 

00;38;32;19 – 00;38;46;07

Dr. Zee

Her husband is a stay at home dad. Okay. Stay at home dad raising both kids and he’s seen the backlash of being a father sitting at home being like what are you doing. Be a man. What does that mean.

 

00;38;46;09 – 00;38;46;19

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;38;46;20 – 00;39;11;12

Dr. Zee

Be a man. Like I really want to ask that question over and over again to society is what are we trying to say. What is it being demand. Because that is what we’re showing our young boys, you know. And he was like, I am the man. I’m raising my kids. We have a one household income. I’m home doing homework with them, I’m feeding them, and I’m taking care of my family.

 

00;39;11;14 – 00;39;12;02

Dr. Mona

Right.

 

00;39;12;05 – 00;39;19;03

Dr. Zee

Do I need to have an income at a high level just to say that I’m a man? He goes, I’m doing it all.

 

00;39;19;05 – 00;39;19;27

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;39;19;29 – 00;39;35;04

Dr. Zee

And and a lot of the Danish do that that way too. There’s a lot of European nations who actually have stay at home dads as a great thing. I went back to your straw thing. You know, it’s that’s the point. My husband is closest to me is like, you travel. I travel all the time. My husband says this all the time.

 

00;39;35;04 – 00;39;39;09

Dr. Zee

We’re a team, guys. It’s not one or the other doing something.

 

00;39;39;11 – 00;39;52;01

Dr. Mona

Yeah. My husband wants to be a stay at home dad, and I’m like, let’s do it. Let’s figure out a way to make this happen. Because I’m like, you burnt out from your job. I love mine so. And you’re good at it, too. What do you think? So I want to ask you, doctor Z, and then I’ll ask you root the same question.

 

00;39;52;01 – 00;39;56;15

Dr. Mona

What? In your dream, what would healthy masculinity look like in 2025?

 

00;39;56;17 – 00;40;28;14

Dr. Zee

Wow, that’s a great question I would want I think I would want four healthy masculine to be where there is not a place that boys feel like or girls feel like they can’t have an emotional feeling. It doesn’t matter what it is. Yeah, angry, happy, sad, frustrated, argumentative. Not being called a bit because you’re being bossed y. I mean, or a boy crying and being called, you know, the possessed by word.

 

00;40;28;16 – 00;40;41;25

Dr. Zee

Yeah. I want it to be normalized where you can feel a thing and a father, grandfather, uncle, whoever it is, we’ll show that same emotion. And a boy could feel like I can do what I need to do.

 

00;40;41;29 – 00;40;53;08

Dr. Mona

Gosh, how do we get all this generations involved? Listen to this episode. Right, Ruth. Woman is better for your dream for 2025. If we.

 

00;40;53;10 – 00;41;15;04

Ruth Whippman

My. I’m not as keen on the framing of healthy masculinity in general, because I think it just sometimes ends up reinforcing this idea that masculinity is the most important thing. Like, it’s so important to be masculine. So I would rather just, you know, rather than saying that certain traits are masculine and certain traits are feminine, you know, that it’s like, I think all humans need all of these things.

 

00;41;15;04 – 00;41;37;00

Ruth Whippman

We all need to be strong and, ambitious, to have agency and these, like, traditionally masculine kind of things. We all need empathy, vulnerability, relationships, caregiving, all this sort of more feminine kind of things. I’d rather we saw it as kind of full humanity, and we allow kids of all genders access to all of it, rather than reinforcing this masculinity paradigm over and over.

 

00;41;37;07 – 00;41;54;04

Ruth Whippman

But in terms of what I want to say for boys, absolutely. I want boys to have the tools and the social permission to show up as their full, vulnerable selves, to be able to take care of their own emotions and to take care of other people’s emotions, to show up for their friends and to have their friends show up for them.

 

00;41;54;04 – 00;42;10;14

Ruth Whippman

And, you know, in those ways and to have access to all these other things as well, like strength and toughness and, you know, and for kids of all genders to have, you know, courage, bravery, all those traits for kids of all genders to have access to their full spectrum of human flourishing.

 

00;42;10;26 – 00;42;15;14

Dr. Zee

I have a dear friend, E Brodsky, and she wrote the book Fair Play. Oh, yeah.

 

00;42;15;14 – 00;42;18;15

Dr. Mona

And she she I remember.

 

00;42;18;17 – 00;42;37;27

Dr. Zee

When the book came out, it was early 2018, 2019. She came up with these cards and she sent them to all her friends to use at home. And my husband and I sat down and my husband at that time, I love saying this story because he was very South Asian and masculine like that. I mean, and I say this comes in every culture.

 

00;42;37;27 – 00;42;56;20

Dr. Zee

It’s not just ours, but in multiple cultures. You see that, you know, the man who takes care of the house takes. So when he and I sat down to do the game, it was what is fair in the household that we do. And I kept playing the cards and doing this, and he was just like, wow, I didn’t realize just these little, little things.

 

00;42;56;22 – 00;43;04;00

Dr. Zee

And he said, because we are kids, we’re young. At that time, he was like, I don’t want Zane to think that he can just bow out of everything.

 

00;43;04;04 – 00;43;05;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;43;05;25 – 00;43;26;12

Dr. Zee

And that for me was so eye opening. And and that change is literally that 2025 of like or moving into the future that men see that these are the little changes that we need to make to create healthy humanity. Right? A woman can do whatever anything a man can do, an a man can do it, or any gender can do any gender.

 

00;43;26;12 – 00;43;44;21

Dr. Zee

Like again, going back to gender, we don’t know what gender exclusivity like. What is inclusive, excuse me, is because we want to make sure everyone just feels equal. And those little pieces or what, it will help us, is by adult showing the youth and the young that you can do this. If dad can cook dinner, mom can take out the trash.

 

00;43;44;21 – 00;43;46;12

Dr. Zee

I mean, I know these are really basic.

 

00;43;46;12 – 00;43;49;07

Dr. Mona

Yes, gender stereotypes, right? No, but it’s a great. Yeah.

 

00;43;49;09 – 00;44;09;17

Dr. Zee

Right. Or if your, you know, son or daughter turns out to have another feeling of what their emotional stability is for their gender, we can accept that as well to because that’s another place later in the love, maybe another episode to discuss. That’s another place that boys also are fearful to show. What do they feel about themselves internally?

 

00;44;09;20 – 00;44;10;10

Dr. Mona

Yeah, on.

 

00;44;10;10 – 00;44;11;16

Dr. Zee

Their own gender.

 

00;44;11;18 – 00;44;12;20

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;44;12;22 – 00;44;12;28

Dr. Zee

Yeah.

 

00;44;12;29 – 00;44;13;19

Dr. Mona

This is so great.

 

00;44;13;23 – 00;44;20;07

Dr. Zee

So that would be a I like that what you said, you know humanity because that’s what we want. We want our kids to be kind to one another.

 

00;44;20;09 – 00;44;40;04

Dr. Mona

Oh I love this conversation so much. And we’re like halfway through my questions. I can’t believe that because more than halfway. Because the next I again, I kind of organize this based on like the episodes. And the next part is about this sort of concept of the need to be seen. And it’s episode three, which, if you’ve watched the show, which I hope you are by this point, because we’re giving away a lot of this episode, a lot of the series.

 

00;44;40;20 – 00;44;58;07

Dr. Mona

One of the most haunting moments in the series is episode three, where Jamie is with the therapist and, you know, there’s a lot of back and forth, there’s a lot of dominance being played, there’s a lot of standing, there’s a lot of threatening in these subtle ways and showing dominance. But one of the things that really stuck with me was the pleading of like, why don’t you say I’m not ugly?

 

00;44;58;07 – 00;45;16;20

Dr. Mona

And later, do you like me? When she tells him it’s their last session, like he’s constantly trying to get out of her? This validation of like, well, I’m not ugly when he says that he’s ugly or my dad did this. Well, why aren’t you saying that my dad loves me? Or do you do like me? Like he was hellbent on making sure that he was being told that.

 

00;45;16;20 – 00;45;40;28

Dr. Mona

So he’s not just talking here. In my opinion. He was like reaching. He so badly wants this therapist. And I thought it was very, very particular that they used a female therapist. Right. Not a male therapist. To see him, to reflect back something kind, something affirming that maybe he was lacking and we even going back to episode two, the female detective at the school had said, you know, all kids really need is one thing that makes them feel good about themselves.

 

00;45;40;28 – 00;45;55;08

Dr. Mona

Like it tied in that that quote really well for me. But what I wanted to ask, you know, about this whole need to be seen. And I’ll ask Ruth first, is that what does this tell us about the emotional needs of boys, especially in cultures that still don’t give them space to be vulnerable?

 

00;45;55;09 – 00;46;14;15

Ruth Whippman

I think coming back to this phrase, emotionally starved, I mean, this poor kids, you know, and it’s it’s complicated saying this poor kid when you’re talking about, you know, accused murderer. But I think that was the the tension of the series that you see him as this, you know, obviously he’s accused of doing this like horrific, horrific thing.

 

00;46;14;20 – 00;46;33;25

Ruth Whippman

But you also see this very, very vulnerable boy, you know, you see him with his teddy bear. You see him wet himself in the very opening scene because he’s so scary still, you know, he’s 13 years old. This is a child. And what I worry about is I think in this particular political moment that we’re living through, there’s this tendency to kind of demonize boys a little bit.

 

00;46;33;25 – 00;46;51;09

Ruth Whippman

You know, it’s like, you know, in the post MeToo era, this whole conversation about toxic masculinity, I think there’s this idea that boys are kind of almost these villains, you know, and this is why I worry about the conversations around adolescence, the show in general. It’s like, I hope that people don’t take away from this. Like, boys are terrible.

 

00;46;51;09 – 00;47;23;13

Ruth Whippman

They’re murderers that, this, that, that, you know, and that we can be able to see them as John. And I think there’s something so heartrending about those moments when he obviously was starved of that validation. He was starved of feeling good about himself. He felt that, you know, and, you know, I think that’s also a really difficult thing in there about, you know, that there was some online bullying of him by ego, which is a really, really tricky thing to talk about because, you know, obviously we talk about these gender dynamics and patriarchy and the way that men oppress women and, you know, that’s it.

 

00;47;23;13 – 00;47;45;20

Ruth Whippman

So it’s a different thing, and it’s a more subtle and harder conversation to address the idea that a teenage girl might be shaming and bullying a teenage boy. And I feel like my own feeling is like bullying is bullying. We need to address it. It shouldn’t be acceptable in any direction, and we need to call it out. Whoever’s doing it, which of course does not even go the slightest millimeter of distance to justifying murder.

 

00;47;45;20 – 00;48;04;12

Ruth Whippman

But, you know, I think I feel that boys in this moment are feeling extremely shut down and shut down by an old narrative which is like, suppress your emotions, don’t be vulnerable, don’t talk about how you’re feeling. And they’re sort of shut down by a newer narrative, which is like, you know, toxic, you’re harmful, you’re a predator, you’re a murderer.

 

00;48;04;14 – 00;48;21;19

Ruth Whippman

You know, it’s time for you to shut up. You’re privileged, you’re powerful. You have everything. Everything works for you. And as Richard Reeves puts it, you know, you don’t have any problems. You are the problem. And I think, you know, boys need to be seen and heard and validated in the same way that absolutely every human does.

 

00;48;21;21 – 00;48;40;01

Dr. Mona

I feel that and doctor Z, you, you know, obviously we’re going to get into more parenting tips because a lot of the feeling is, what do I do with this information? Right? I, I said that at the beginning, or they feel overwhelmed and I, I feel that I felt that too. But I also have the understanding that, like we said earlier, that this is not a overnight thing, that this happened.

 

00;48;40;01 – 00;48;57;19

Dr. Mona

This isn’t like this is a show, right? We know that. But off the bat, like, what can parents do to create this kind of safety and connection where boys don’t feel like they have to, you know, earn worth or feel like they have to silence parts of themselves, but at the same time, not putting the blame so much on parents because we are busy, right?

 

00;48;57;19 – 00;49;05;23

Dr. Mona

Like, what are some just kind of actionable things you wish parents would understand about connection and safety? When it comes to teenagers?

 

00;49;05;26 – 00;49;26;12

Dr. Zee

So I think we have to also, one thing have to remember is that we have to stop telling boys or guiding boys are raising boys to perform like we have to just yeah, that we have to teach them how to feel like they’re belonging. I have so much to say on the bullying piece, and that because I wrote in my social media when I did that was the psychiatrist saying, you know, Jamie saying, do you like me?

 

00;49;26;14 – 00;49;48;01

Dr. Zee

They’re yearning, like they’re yearning for attention, you know, through that. So belonging really initially when we want to teach them is not their grades or how their goals are or what they’re doing in school. Are they making the basketball team? Are they, you know, like that? That’s not what belonging is. It means you can cry and still be strong.

 

00;49;48;08 – 00;50;11;04

Dr. Zee

I’m I’m keeping it so simple like that, you know, and and when I child ask then this goes back to my thing with the second is, is do you like me? Which was the most powerful moment for me in the whole show is they’re not being dramatic. They’re not, I think, yeah, adults and parents, and they are literally asking you for proof that I matter to you.

 

00;50;11;07 – 00;50;30;25

Dr. Zee

They’re they’re what they want to hear. Whether you’re again, I’m going to say nine, 11, 13 and even older. They want to have safety as well. Yeah. They want to create a space that I matter to someone. And I’m actually here. So so I think that’s one of the things we need to do is create these safe spots for them.

 

00;50;31;05 – 00;50;49;11

Dr. Zee

And I’m going to go back to that. No feeling is too big for them. Silence is important for them. So they can actually hear their voices and know that they’re validated in their feelings. I know we see that a lot. I saw a video of yours, I think yesterday or today, which you were talking about, validation for young kids, but we have to consistently do that.

 

00;50;49;11 – 00;51;09;20

Dr. Zee

It’s less five. It’s not at seven, it is at 13, it is at 19, it is at 25. Because we know the prefrontal cortex isn’t ready till they’re 27 years old. And the limbic system and I’m being medically in this is the limbic system is part of that fuel. And the emotions of rewards and feeling good and having someone tell them.

 

00;51;09;20 – 00;51;32;19

Dr. Zee

And that’s always an overdrive, especially for boys. So this manosphere that we’re talking about, yeah, hijacking their wiring just to let you guys know if we, the adults aren’t putting their emotional buckets and having that place where every child is asking me enough and my job is to say, yes, that’s it. Yes, you’re enough. That is one thing.

 

00;51;32;19 – 00;51;39;07

Dr. Zee

A parent, an adult, a teacher, a coach, a mentor. And I like to say this this isn’t just a parenting job, guys. It’s just an adult job.

 

00;51;39;14 – 00;51;41;01

Dr. Mona

Yes. Grown ups and like.

 

00;51;41;02 – 00;52;02;03

Dr. Zee

Yes, exactly. Starting school for eight hours. This is an administration job. This is for all that same thing with the bullying thing. I, I don’t know if you know this. One of my specialties was, was bullying for kids in the school, which I still work with them. And one of the reasons for that is that young girl, obviously, I wish, and I’m hoping season two is about that is the story of the young girl, yes.

 

00;52;02;06 – 00;52;20;18

Dr. Zee

Who got killed and was being or was the bully. Because I say this opening at bullies are not created. They’re not born. There is something going on in their situation, whether it’s a boy or girl, you know, that is an another conversation to have because I.

 

00;52;20;20 – 00;52;24;20

Dr. Mona

Would I don’t yeah, I don’t know what it’s about but I hope yeah.

 

00;52;24;22 – 00;52;34;19

Dr. Zee

Yeah I talked about it more, but I understand where they were going with this. But I hope that’s the conversation because adolescence isn’t about a boy or girl. Adolescence is about a human being.

 

00;52;34;21 – 00;52;35;14

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;52;35;16 – 00;52;47;05

Dr. Zee

And and like you said, bullying is like I live, you know, in a school district that has this whole construct of doing this. And I’m like, it’s not working.

 

00;52;47;08 – 00;52;47;18

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;52;47;19 – 00;53;02;21

Dr. Zee

We have more and more bullies are more and more kids who are doing this, but we’re not looking into why they’re doing it. We have no help for these kids. We’re not giving them social and also psychological help. We’re not doing any of that. We’re just saying, take the phones away. Don’t go on social media. Great. Now what?

 

00;53;02;23 – 00;53;03;08

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;53;03;08 – 00;53;24;19

Dr. Zee

That’s what remember we didn’t have all that. They went to the games. They went to those kids who were not giving them the right to boys because the adults are still not being adults and they are not sitting down and having these real conversations and just saying, I hear you, I see you, I know you have feelings and you matter to me.

 

00;53;24;21 – 00;53;34;10

Dr. Zee

That’s really where we have to start. 20 minutes, guys, 20 minutes a day. I mean.

 

00;53;34;12 – 00;53;51;11

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show. Oh, you talked about it earlier. You’re like, you know, at the dining table, like we are busy, but we’re never busy enough to do this work. And I will say this flat out like I am busy. I am very busy.

 

00;53;51;11 – 00;54;08;03

Dr. Mona

Even when I was full time, like like burnt out. Yeah. Like I, I know to me this emotional conversations, even with my three year old and four year old, were always a priority to me. Like debriefing when he had a tantrum at three. And why is it so important for me to have a debrief with a three year old?

 

00;54;08;09 – 00;54;25;19

Dr. Mona

Is that these are foundational, right? This is not going to stop when my son, my son, 13, turns 14 years old, right? This is foundational that our family, we talk about our feelings. We talk about tantrums. We talk about things that didn’t sit well with us so that we can learn to process. And that way when all of a sudden you’re a teenager, you can learn to do it.

 

00;54;25;19 – 00;54;41;22

Dr. Mona

If you weren’t already. But this is part of our life. Like we are going to continue to do this whether I believe it’s going to be useful. But this is what we’re talking about here, and I want to get to our next session section because you kind of alluded to the manosphere, sorry, a term. No, this is good because I wanted to talk about this.

 

00;54;41;22 – 00;54;56;19

Dr. Mona

Like and again, we can do this section briefly, but the metaphor is not a term that I actually knew before the show. Like I didn’t know about that. I didn’t know about that term because I’m not with it on this on this culture. But you can read more about the manager here. We’re not going to go into, like, a lot of detail about all of it.

 

00;54;56;19 – 00;55;21;27

Dr. Mona

But the show never explicitly explicitly names people like Andrew Tate. But it doesn’t have to. We see Jamie’s dad allude that he’s scrolling through, you know, his phone and sees videos of this guy talking about masculinity or whatever it is. So we know the influences there. We know this manosphere is there. We know that they see this multiple times in the show from Jamie, Jamie and also his friend says it that 80% of women only want 20% of men.

 

00;55;21;27 – 00;55;41;11

Dr. Mona

Like this was a fact being thrown out online in these groups. And this whole incel culture, the sort of men who are not desirable and they feel more safe with these men like Andrew, even though he’s not part of like, particularly in incel culture, but like, he’s like leading this like you’re the man, you’re dominant. All of this.

 

00;55;41;13 – 00;55;55;27

Dr. Mona

I’m asking you, can we have this? You know, about the 20 rule. Like what is real, what is not, what is why is this happening? And is this also international? Is this in the UK like I’m trying to learn here. Yeah I it’s new information for me.

 

00;55;55;27 – 00;56;19;28

Ruth Whippman

So I looked into the manosphere in quite a bit of detail. When I was reporting for Beaumont, I have a whole chapter on incel culture. I want to make a distinction between Andrew Tate side of things and, and so that two sort of related phenomena. But they are very separate, as you said. Yeah. So Andrew Tate is like part of this kind of masculinity, influencer culture, which is basically saying there’s such a thing as like alpha male, you know, that there are these like highly successful men.

 

00;56;20;01 – 00;56;49;05

Ruth Whippman

And if you follow me and all my rules and all of my misogyny and you do everything that I say, then you too can become an alpha male. So it’s kind of almost this like self-improvement vibe, the Andrew tights. But like in this really toxic, horrific way, the incel culture is like they have the same sort of ideas and value system, which is this like there are alpha males, men are better than women, all the rest of it, but they’ve given up hope of achieving it themselves so that incels are men who, like they define themselves by this idea that.

 

00;56;49;13 – 00;56;49;21

Dr. Mona

They’re.

 

00;56;49;21 – 00;57;09;19

Ruth Whippman

Hopeless, that they’re never going to have sex, they’re never going to have a partner. It stands for involuntary celibate. So men literally who don’t have sex, who are lonely, and they congregate in these forums so they, like, they buy into the same value system as the Andrew Tates of this world. But unlike the Andrew Tates, they never think that they themselves are able to, like, rise up in this hierarchy.

 

00;57;09;21 – 00;57;13;03

Ruth Whippman

So their groups are like founded basically.

 

00;57;13;05 – 00;57;13;21

Dr. Mona

Right? Yeah.

 

00;57;13;22 – 00;57;34;01

Ruth Whippman

It’s a day that’s interesting. They’re groups. It’s our culture is founded very much on like loneliness, hopelessness, rigidity and misogyny. So it’s basically we hate women. Women have wronged us. Women are shallow. They’re terrible. They only want 80 at 20% of the men. They call them the chats, the alpha males. You know, these like highly successful, good looking men.

 

00;57;34;08 – 00;57;58;06

Ruth Whippman

And they’re like, we’re the incels. We’re, you know, we’re unattractive, we’re short. We can’t, you know, nobody wants us. And then they get into these incredibly toxic conversations. But what’s fascinating about them, I spent a long time on their chat boards and, like, listening, you know, on their forums, reading their content. And I also went very, very deep and interviewed over many months to self-identified incels.

 

00;57;58;09 – 00;58;23;24

Ruth Whippman

And what I found was that on the one hand, these are some of the most toxic spaces you can possibly imagine. There’s like misogyny, there’s violence, there’s racism, like every horrible thing. It’s that in spite. But there is also this unbelievable sense of belonging and connection in these spaces to so these men. And it’s one of the very, very few places that these young, young men felt that they could be emotionally honest and vulnerable.

 

00;58;23;27 – 00;58;43;28

Ruth Whippman

So on these, you know, when you’ve got the most misogynistic, repulsive statement and then you write alongside it, you have this like intense vulnerability and brotherhood where they’re like supporting each other emotionally. They’re showing up as their most emotional selves. And these guys I spoke to were like, there is nowhere else in this world that I can do that as a man.

 

00;58;43;28 – 00;59;03;00

Ruth Whippman

As a young man, I was nowhere in my real life that I can be a man. It’s honorable, and I think this is the piece that a lot of people are missing, that they are finding this belonging and connection in these online spaces. It’s very tender. This is like there’s some serious, serious mental health problems among these young men, very, very high suicide rate.

 

00;59;03;00 – 00;59;23;16

Ruth Whippman

And and I read, you know, many, many, many hundreds actually, of suicide notes written by incels on these forums. And these are like profound depressed people, and they are some of the most emotionally vulnerable documents. You know, it’s not they’re actually not saying I hate women and I want to kill women. There is a there is a part of that on this for sure.

 

00;59;23;22 – 00;59;50;26

Ruth Whippman

But they’re saying I hate myself. You know, I am so lonely. I’m so isolated. And like all thank the like incel brotherhood. That’s like, thank you for being there for me. You’re the only people who showed up for me, I love you. You know why? Ways that men often don’t talk to each other in real life. And so this was like this fascinating paradox, this belonging and connection on the one hand, and this like, extreme violence and, you know, toxic thinking on the other hand.

 

00;59;50;26 – 01;00;04;26

Ruth Whippman

And I think, you know, if there is a moral to this story, and I think that is it’s like if we do not want our boys and young men to find belonging and connection in these toxic spaces, we need to give it to them elsewhere. They need to have it in the real world. We need to hear them.

 

01;00;04;29 – 01;00;22;21

Ruth Whippman

Okay. Well, okay. One thing that one of the interns I spoke to was saying was that he felt like he couldn’t actually even seek help in the real world. He couldn’t go to a therapist is false thinking. But I see how it got there. So he says, you know, when I ask for help in the real world, nobody cares about me, you know?

 

01;00;22;21 – 01;00;45;08

Ruth Whippman

No. But they all think I’m so privileged as a man. I’m so powerful that I’m great. You know, my problems like matter. I go and they’d be like, well, you know, why should I listen to you? Women have much worse problems in it, which in many ways is true, but also everyone deserves, you know, we’re sort of somehow preventing these young men from seeking help that they need that could actually set them on a better pathway, I think.

 

01;00;45;10 – 01;00;58;19

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Yeah, it goes back to like this. It’s not enough to just say, well, don’t listen to Tate or don’t listen to, Logan Paul or whoever it is. Exactly. Yeah. Build something better. Like you were talking about what you’re doing, doctor Z, with all that work and connection, the mentorship, you know.

 

01;00;58;19 – 01;00;59;12

Ruth Whippman

Yeah, absolutely.

 

01;00;59;12 – 01;01;20;26

Dr. Mona

Scott Galloway is Ruth. Yeah. So I listen to a podcast that he was on recently, and he was talking about this whole lack of like, male adult figures, right? Like this sort of community building, this connection, this mentorship, the, you know, the Big Brother big sister program. Like, how many little young boys need mentors that are males? Also, like, it doesn’t have to be a father if they don’t have a father.

 

01;01;20;26 – 01;01;36;03

Dr. Mona

But all this sort of like, you know, this sort of manly hood. I’m curious what you guys feel about that. Like, do you think that there’s a lack of good male role models that is leading to this? Or can we as females be these role models that teach them this connection and mentorship and belonging?

 

01;01;36;05 – 01;02;00;19

Dr. Zee

So there’s three parts to this. And I’m going to single moms or parents who are. And again I’m going to speak from what I have experience with patients. And people who’ve come to us is, is that there is a fear factor with sending your son out at a young age with other older men or men, and that this is just a blanket notion that I have heard.

 

01;02;00;22 – 01;02;24;00

Dr. Zee

Now, obviously, finding those right groups that will help mentor, whether it’s through athletics, through through all this. But again, there’s this fear internalized within women and moms right now within the culture we live in. Does that mean everybody doesn’t do it? No. Is there a lack of these people? Yes. Who do you go trust with your child that you feel will give them the right connection?

 

01;02;24;03 – 01;02;50;08

Dr. Zee

The boys and girls clubs that we had back in the day, the YMCA, the Big Brothers, Big Sisters, there’s a lot of controversy that was there for that to, you know, and we’re talking about different demographics here. I’m talking about a lower socioeconomic class. There’s a middle. So, you know, and there is also I’m just going to say out there in schools now, we’re we’re seeing more and more coaches who were supposed to be mentoring these kids have actually taught them the other opposite of two things, right?

 

01;02;50;11 – 01;03;08;11

Dr. Zee

Why I say some of this stuff can start at home with moms and dads and especially women, whether it’s grandmothers. And this is because we want to give them that place, that, first of all, this belief that that you just brought together that they have. Ruth is soul crushing for me. I did not know or either. I didn’t want to believe it.

 

01;03;08;18 – 01;03;22;12

Dr. Zee

I know it’s out there. It’s actually I’m in my heart right now. I want to cry because we haven’t done anything for them. And again, they’ve grown to be young men and young adults and don’t have belief in us anymore.

 

01;03;22;12 – 01;03;23;06

Dr. Mona

Right.

 

01;03;23;09 – 01;03;28;20

Dr. Zee

And they’re all in these things. So as women, can we do it? Yes.

 

01;03;28;22 – 01;03;29;02

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

01;03;29;04 – 01;03;47;28

Dr. Zee

Do we need more men because they need to see that. Yes. Can you be, a friend of a dads. And like I can say this right now like my son has, or my husband has friends who I would be able to trust. Yes, you can do that moms. You can find those people too. It doesn’t have to be through a youth group or through a church or through, a coaching thing.

 

01;03;47;28 – 01;03;57;16

Dr. Zee

There are men out there who will give the place of that. This is the unfortunate fact we’re so afraid of for our kids to be on social media. Do you know that shit.

 

01;03;57;16 – 01;04;02;03

Dr. Mona

I don’t, I know, I know, yeah, I’m sorry, I could use that word.

 

01;04;02;05 – 01;04;22;16

Dr. Zee

But that’s the my algorithm is and of course, that’s the work I do is in sexual trauma and bullying and and kids is do you know the kind of stuff that’s out there that these, these experts are putting out? Don’t send your kids with people who you don’t think are safe. How you’re putting fear to these children.

 

01;04;22;18 – 01;04;23;10

Dr. Mona

Yeah. I’m not.

 

01;04;23;10 – 01;04;42;01

Dr. Zee

Saying don’t. First of all, women are the best people and so are fathers on your gut. If you don’t feel this is an appropriate place for your child, do not send them to it. But then be an adult and be in front of them. It can’t be up to someone else. Also, you have to be the advocate for your child.

 

01;04;42;04 – 01;05;00;16

Dr. Mona

Yeah, you’re right about the quality of the person. I mean, we’re talking about, obviously dismantling a lot of this sort of narrative. And so if you just said there’s coaches that are teaching them the opposite and, and pushing them into this, there’s no I mean, we need a proper vetting process. And that’s not something that women have the time for or know until you actually get into it.

 

01;05;00;21 – 01;05;16;01

Dr. Mona

So it is so much more as to the quality of the messaging versus is it a male or a female or just to have the male figure? But I, I listen to that podcast and I was like, I get what he’s saying. But I think, like you said perfectly, I think this is more of a conversation about lower socioeconomic classes.

 

01;05;16;19 – 01;05;43;13

Dr. Mona

Because we have a lot of our listeners that I, I believe that one of the biggest messages is that whether your mom or dad or grandma, it is about what are you bringing to the table in terms of undoing this narrative in how you already said both of you said, and all of us have said the conversations we’re having around feelings, around emotions about what it looks like to be vulnerable, how it’s okay to be vulnerable, how that you are no less of a man or a woman if you are vulnerable, so that we can teach you how to process vulnerability.

 

01;05;43;19 – 01;05;54;16

Dr. Mona

That is like the ultimate goal in my parenting, is that I can’t teach coping skills unless we label the feeling right, and that’s what boys are losing by just brushing it under a rug.

 

01;05;54;19 – 01;06;15;08

Dr. Zee

Well, I think it’s also validation. It went back to your post the other day. It’s you have two boys have to feel validated in what they’re doing instead of living in this authentic world that they think they’re supposed to live in. Right. It’s believed that they don’t have to be alpha, or if they’re not Alpha, they’re going to disappear, right?

 

01;06;15;08 – 01;06;31;19

Dr. Zee

Yeah. That’s I think I’m guessing these these group chats are like, if you’re not this way or if you are this way, then you’re not worthy of anything. Right. And I think that as adults, we must interpret that as that. We have to give them worth. And worth is not to be earned. Worth. You’re worthy. You are period worthy.

 

01;06;31;19 – 01;06;50;27

Dr. Zee

And and yeah, I think that’s grounded in the dignity we have to give to them. I mean, again, I, I’m personally feel it has to start from home. It has to start from anybody who’s within the household. I don’t care if there was a man or not a man in the house. I think women have it raise amazing men in this world, and that is still a possibility that we can do right now to.

 

01;06;51;04 – 01;07;07;26

Dr. Mona

The last few things I want to go over, because I know we could talk about this for another two hours, but then, you know, we all have things to do. We got to empower the future. So one of the biggest things that you’ve already talked, you’ve alluded to is the, the season to how you would love for us to see the angle of a girl who was the bully.

 

01;07;08;11 – 01;07;22;25

Dr. Mona

But one critique that I’ve heard through this four episode mini series is where are the girls? You know, we see a murdered girl, and although yes, she did bully Jamie online, she is a victim of murder. So we also hear a male employee in the hardware store say to Jamie’s dad, like, oh, I’m on your guys’s side.

 

01;07;22;25 – 01;07;40;14

Dr. Mona

Like, there was this sort of I’m on your side, their side, whatever. But even in death, it felt like, well, these girls are being sidelined. We should tell their story. And yes, she was the bully. But where is she? She was only in photos now. I think this was for various artistic reasons and powerful messaging. Ruth, have you heard this critique?

 

01;07;40;14 – 01;07;55;20

Dr. Mona

How have you processed it? Does it mirror the minimization of what grew out like girls being largely victim of violence towards men? Or do you think that it made sense for the show? Just kind of a general critique of that. I know that came up a lot in.

 

01;07;55;22 – 01;08;14;28

Ruth Whippman

A lot as well. And I think, yes, we want to hear that story, too. I think, I think we want to hear that story. Absolutely. And we want to hear a really in-depth, similarly nuanced picture of what girls and women are going through in terms of male violence and gendered violence, and what it is like to be a teenage girl in this moment.

 

01;08;15;05 – 01;08;23;28

Ruth Whippman

I don’t think that invalidates that. There can also be this story, which is a very nuanced, in-depth look at a boy’s story. You know, I would yes, I would like to see both. I think.

 

01;08;23;28 – 01;08;25;00

Dr. Mona

That.

 

01;08;25;03 – 01;08;44;17

Ruth Whippman

I think it’s okay that this particular story was about this particular phenomenon and this particular, you know, in the same way that I have, because my reporting on, boys and I know many people who have done wonderful reporting about girls, I have a list of those books as well. You know, I think it’s okay to focus on one phenomenon and one thing, but yes, absolutely.

 

01;08;44;17 – 01;08;56;18

Ruth Whippman

I would love to see series two of adolescents made from the point of view of Katie and that whole story. From there. I think it would make a great piece of art. Anything else? But yes, it’s such an important story to tell.

 

01;08;56;21 – 01;09;11;18

Dr. Mona

And I think it would bring up the bullying aspect that doctors you mentioned, right? I mean, we know bullying has gotten worse and bullying has always existed, but I’ve said this, that it’s I feel like it’s gotten worse because you can’t escape it. Right? I was bullied as a child. I was bullied on the school ground. But when you go home, it’s not online anywhere.

 

01;09;11;20 – 01;09;28;21

Dr. Mona

You don’t have to think about it until you go back to school. And that was hard. Don’t get me wrong. I really struggled with the bullying and I had a lot of tears. I had a mom who really was supportive of me and uplifted me and thank God for her. But now we’re seeing this new realm of social media bullying that adds so much more.

 

01;09;28;21 – 01;09;46;01

Dr. Mona

So that’s a whole different conversation. I agree, because the last segment I want to talk about is the parenting responsibility. I want to circle back to that because on the last episode, the one where me and my husband were crying for about ten minutes in silence after Jamie’s dad, you know, tuck the little teddy bear and apologize to his son.

 

01;09;46;03 – 01;10;05;07

Dr. Mona

So I found myself feeling something I rarely do during stories like this. It was heartbreak for the parents, and to be quite honest, I have never really considered the emotional perspective of the parents of a child who commit a violent act. But this show brought that forward in such a painful and honest way, and I appreciated that. So it stirred this deep fear that the sense of culpability.

 

01;10;05;07 – 01;10;30;21

Dr. Mona

Right? Is it bad parenting? Should they be held accountable? And it reminded me, which is a completely different story. But of the Oxford High School shooting in Michigan, where the parents were actually charged for buying their son the weapon that killed four people, and it opens up this like question of what if we don’t do enough, right? And so when we were crying because we saw the father say in that scene, I, you know, my dad used to beat me and I knew that I wouldn’t do that for my son.

 

01;10;30;21 – 01;10;48;26

Dr. Mona

But look at what happened. And I felt so powerful because my dad used to hit me, and I told myself that I’m going to not do that for my son. And I think we do a good job raising our kid. But it opens up that little thing of what is enough. So and even you hear that ask like he asks his wife, like, you know, how did we make her?

 

01;10;48;29 – 01;11;06;08

Dr. Mona

And I get and the wife says, just like we made him. And I love that that that scene as well as episode three were so powerful to me. Because you do see these loving parents, you do see these parents that were doing what they could with the information and resources they had. The dad, you could tell, worked a lot.

 

01;11;06;08 – 01;11;23;29

Dr. Mona

You could tell that he was working on his internal rage that he probably got from his father. And that was very heartbreaking. So, you know, my question for doctor Z first is how do we help parents listening face that just reality. Again, this is cinema and that even with love, being a loving, well-meaning parent, we can miss something big.

 

01;11;23;29 – 01;11;40;13

Dr. Mona

And what do we think the teens really need? Like we said, to kind of reiterate so that we can say that this this we’re doing our best here with everything, with all the factors at play. We can’t control what they’re doing all the time. But what is it that we can do to remind all of our listeners that you’re doing great?

 

01;11;40;13 – 01;11;48;06

Dr. Mona

Like, don’t think that you’re going to send your kid down a path of becoming, you know, a murderer. But what can we do here and process this?

 

01;11;48;08 – 01;11;50;08

Dr. Zee

So we’re talking about teens specifically.

 

01;11;50;08 – 01;11;51;10

Dr. Mona

Yeah okay.

 

01;11;51;13 – 01;12;11;05

Dr. Zee

You need to be reachable. You need to be available to them. That’s the number one thing I think as we grow up if we’re showing like you just specifically said you know that we’re there, we’re sitting, we’re having the conversation. They’ve done something wrong. We’ve given them a consequence. Now we go back and have the conversation. All of these things are being reachable.

 

01;12;11;12 – 01;12;30;16

Dr. Zee

If they see a pattern of that, then they know that they’re able to have a conversation with you, understand what happened in that conflict. And now the resolution is this and let’s move ahead from it. Right. So that is the growth process. But if you’re already a teen and you’re facing this situation, first of all, there’s no right or wrong answer.

 

01;12;30;16 – 01;12;58;11

Dr. Zee

I want parents to know and adults to know you are all doing the best you can. We have to recognize that that in itself, because the moment we forget that, we give up. Yeah, we’re like, I can’t do anything. I’ve given up. Well, even as parents, we can miss signs. We can miss any little sign. But what we have to make sure we do is we have to have these consistent conversation sessions with them, you know, and again, even in those conversations, you’re still going to miss something when they’re teenagers.

 

01;12;58;14 – 01;13;10;13

Dr. Zee

You have already passed a a configuration of the point where peers are having conversations with them outside of social media. Again, I want to really good away from the fact that social media is the only thing to blame here. Yes there is.

 

01;13;10;13 – 01;13;11;16

Dr. Mona

And last question I have.

 

01;13;11;16 – 01;13;32;26

Dr. Zee

Right. So so so I got bully like you did. It was horrific growing up. You know, one of the reasons I’m a youth advocate is because I feel like the youth don’t have voices out there, and they have so much to say in any situation that they’re in, but they don’t have the right people to go to. And the first people they should be going to is the ones that they’re closest to, whether it’s our grandparents, their parents.

 

01;13;33;11 – 01;13;59;24

Dr. Zee

You know, again, here’s another thing. Older siblings, older siblings have to have that place for them, too, because they already know what’s going on. If you recognize younger kids, actually watch older kids on YouTube two recognize what they’re looking at. They listen to the older kids. So if there’s an older kid that they feel that they’re mentoring, maybe even bring that child, whoever that older cousin is or someone and have that conversation with them too.

 

01;13;59;27 – 01;14;18;12

Dr. Zee

So I don’t I don’t think we should say parents are not doing what they’re doing. I don’t think we have given them the right tools to give their children the right guidances. And that’s the help that I think these conversations will have. I think adolescence did a great job to say we didn’t do anything wrong. We just miss certain things.

 

01;14;18;19 – 01;14;38;23

Dr. Zee

Yeah, we miss certain signs. And I think, again, I’m going to say back to is what can we do? We have to be reachable to them. We have to be available to them. Even younger kids don’t think that. They don’t think that we’re sometimes available because mom’s busy. She’s working. She’s doing this. Well, when you’re done, we all take five minutes to pee.

 

01;14;38;26 – 01;14;39;15

Dr. Mona

Right? You can.

 

01;14;39;15 – 01;14;41;28

Dr. Zee

Take five minutes to have a conversation.

 

01;14;42;00 – 01;14;42;15

Dr. Mona

And connect.

 

01;14;42;15 – 01;14;47;20

Dr. Zee

Did you eat something? I know you were at the office door. Can I help you? You sent me a text.

 

01;14;47;23 – 01;14;48;19

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

01;14;48;21 – 01;14;51;14

Dr. Zee

That five minutes is going to make a difference to that child.

 

01;14;51;17 – 01;15;09;12

Dr. Mona

As Ruth, you’ve spoken about Helicoptering over, correct? Yeah. So kind of this balance of like raising kids where we’re not by accident, pushing them towards these ideologies that we don’t want them to. Right. Like, I believe that that’s a reality that we don’t want to like. Honey, what do you need? What do you need? But we also don’t want to overcorrect.

 

01;15;09;12 – 01;15;11;07

Dr. Mona

So where does that kind of middle ground for you?

 

01;15;11;14 – 01;15;28;29

Ruth Whippman

Most of their parents? Well, when I say parents, I actually talking really about moms often that I think we live in this constant state of self-flagellation, you know, as parents in this moment. Oh, you know, I mean, I’m sure that our moms who don’t care and like, I, I don’t know any of them. Everyone I know is like, did I do the wrong thing?

 

01;15;29;02 – 01;15;43;13

Ruth Whippman

Am I doing too much that am I doing too little of this? And, you know, and you go one way and you’re like, I just, you know, there’s all this pressure to like, let them, you know, be independent and don’t intervene and don’t be a helicopter parent. And then you go the other way. And this is like pressure not to like, neglect them and not to miss a thing.

 

01;15;43;13 – 01;16;04;20

Ruth Whippman

And I think in a this kind of mom I don’t think is actually like or parent guilt but often expressed through mothers. I don’t think it’s so helpful. You know, I think and I think you can drive yourself crazy and not actually get a better outcome. You know, I think I’d rather see us focus on supporting parents rather than shaming parents.

 

01;16;04;20 – 01;16;24;21

Ruth Whippman

You know, rather than saying like, you’re making the wrong decision. We did the wrong thing. It’s like, how can we support each other and everyone in our community to to do a better job? I think parenting in our moment, in all sort of cultural moment is extremely hard, where like generally don’t have a village to support us. Yeah, we don’t have a lot of like social safety nets.

 

01;16;24;21 – 01;16;44;07

Ruth Whippman

We don’t have affordable childcare. We don’t, you know, so I rather than focusing on, you know, shaming parents for certain outcomes with kids and as we all know, like they said, you know, the same as they said in the show. Like we might have the same way we might have those of us with multiple children know that, you know, you think you’re doing the same thing and they’re very different.

 

01;16;44;07 – 01;17;05;02

Ruth Whippman

You know, I’ve got three boys and they’re each extremely different, you know, and I feel like I’ve parented in the same way, even if I probably haven’t. So I think, yeah, it’s focus on connection. Focus on building the best possible relationship with the child that you have, showing up authentically as yourself, you know, with the actual talk that you have, not the one you want or the one you thought you should have had, or the one that you know.

 

01;17;05;05 – 01;17;30;24

Ruth Whippman

But just like the very real right feel unconditionally accepted. I think with the screen time thing, my focus has been on not letting it replace real life connection. I think it’s unrealistic to just take away at this point for most of us, you know, for a million reasons. And they do use them to connect. And as well, I think, you know, just making sure that it’s not anything that’s like replacing their their connections and lives.

 

01;17;30;24 – 01;17;55;24

Ruth Whippman

And I think that, you know, there’s data to show that that’s a particular problem for boys. You know, that they are my great in their social lives online. So there’s that piece of it, I think curiosity about their experiences. And just like nonjudgmental curiosity, I think, you know, all kids, but perhaps especially boys in this moment, I think they have this very strong sense that we’re trying to constantly trying to, like, fix them or reform them or that we have this agenda.

 

01;17;55;24 – 01;18;11;14

Ruth Whippman

And I think if we can show up with, like, non-judgmental curiosity about their experiences and their lives, I think that goes a huge way and making them feel unconditionally accepted. And, you know, just that, that kind of nurture correcting for that under nurture that that boy sometimes got.

 

01;18;11;18 – 01;18;32;08

Dr. Zee

Can I add one thing to something you just said, Rose, which is so powerful, I think adults and parents, I want everyone to hear one thing. You will not parent your children exactly the same way because every child is different. Yeah, and I want parents to understand this very clearly. There are multiple experts out there, fantastic experts.

 

01;18;32;08 – 01;18;57;17

Dr. Zee

Like like like, you know, Mona herself who give you very medically approved, scientifically approved advice, but the don’t the down thing, like the underlining thing, excuse me, in this whole thing is you have to see what your child’s needs are to base how you will parent them. I have a daughter who is extremely strong. She is very loud, like her mother.

 

01;18;57;17 – 01;19;19;25

Dr. Zee

She talks a lot and I’m proud of that. My son, on the other hand, is loud also. But he’s got a little bit of a, you know, undiagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity. And I have to parent him differently because his needs are different. His emotions are different. The way he talks to me is different. The way she is, you know, they’re both highly, you know, in my mind, smart and can go out there and live life.

 

01;19;19;25 – 01;19;43;17

Dr. Zee

But I got to parent them differently. I have to guide them. And I don’t really like using the word parenting or raising because we’re not raising cattle. We’re not raising chicken. You don’t have an outcome ready for this child or this human being. They will create their own outcomes. We have to give them the right guidance based on what their needs are and what their wants are, and what their expectations for themselves are.

 

01;19;43;20 – 01;20;03;13

Dr. Zee

And to do that, it goes back to the logic. You know, the whole reason psychology and psychiatry is there is we have to hear them. We’ve got to listen to what they want to give them those right pieces again. Boy, girl, any binary doesn’t matter to me. Human beings need to be heard. And again, you’re right, Rose, you can’t.

 

01;20;03;15 – 01;20;17;24

Dr. Zee

You think we’re going to parent them the same way? But they’re all different, you know, they’re human beings are not alike. If we were all alike. It goes back to the fact that the rainbow shouldn’t be different colors. You know, that’s what I tell the kids all the time. So, yeah. So we you guys are all different. Your emotions are different.

 

01;20;17;24 – 01;20;37;16

Dr. Zee

Your feelings are different. Your physical, biological, psychological pieces are different. So parents are doing nothing wrong. You just have to figure out the way to give your children the right guidances. And I think that if we we look at that and say, hey, we’re not doing anything wrong, we’re just going to figure it out together. Let’s do it together.

 

01;20;37;23 – 01;20;44;01

Dr. Zee

Because I think our kids can we can learn a lot from our kids. I have I learned a lot from them every day.

 

01;20;44;03 – 01;20;57;09

Dr. Mona

Yeah, I feel like I’m a better pediatrician and like I become a better mom with the cycle of learning from them, and I agree, I mean, you know, we talk about how kids are so different. And to me, it’s not even just about the, okay, you’re going to do this to stop the tantrum. Are you going to do this?

 

01;20;57;09 – 01;21;16;23

Dr. Mona

It’s are they feeling safe? And I think people forget that safety is not just physical or health safety. It’s emotional safety. So are they feeling emotional safety with you? Are they feeling respected by you? Because I think there also is still this one way authoritarian, you know, authoritarian sort of. You do what I say because I’m the grown up, but is there a respectful discord happening?

 

01;21;16;23 – 01;21;38;19

Dr. Mona

Whatever age your child is, but especially in the teenage years and connection, right? They’re more likely to listen to you if they feel safety, respect and connection. And I love what you said, because if love feels conditional, any child is going to look for acceptance somewhere else. And I think what happens is a lot of people like enter into the teenage years, or even parenting in general.

 

01;21;38;19 – 01;21;53;17

Dr. Mona

I see it with a lot of young kids where they’ll be like, if you don’t do this, then we’re not, you know, mommy’s mad or, you know, I, I’m mad at you and like, or you pitting our emotions with our children’s behavior and making it more personal. When I get it, our kids will do things that drive us up a wall.

 

01;21;53;23 – 01;22;10;21

Dr. Mona

But they need to always know that, obviously, you know, barring obviously something like, like legal. Like I asked my husband, like, what if our son did something like this and he’s like, we raised him good. He would pay the consequences. That’s what would happen. The legal system would take care of him. And I’m like, that’s exactly it.

 

01;22;10;21 – 01;22;27;08

Dr. Mona

There’s no judgment. He literally was like, yeah, well, he’s like, you know, we hope it doesn’t happen. But it was right, right. That our love is not conditional. But if they feel that they’re just going to start searching for where they they do have that sort of unconditional acceptance, the incel culture online, where they can feel that they can be themselves.

 

01;22;27;08 – 01;22;51;04

Dr. Mona

So that to me is where, you know, make your love, that you love your child, that you are going to walk them through. Let them make mistakes, stay close, but let them fail. Let them figure it out like you said, see? Like we don’t need to be there to like, helicopter and do all this stuff. But they need to know that if they make a mistake, they can come back to you, that you are their safe home, that you are the lighthouse that’s going to bring them back, and that you will be there and you are not going to.

 

01;22;51;07 – 01;23;11;04

Dr. Mona

Yes, there might be consequences because they did something, but you have to always know that. They always have to know that you love them. And that’s key. The last question I have for you all, which is the big thing. So we talked about this. The beginning is the problem. Social media is the problem. Toxic masculinity is is something deeper disconnection, loneliness, invisibility in a elevator pitch.

 

01;23;11;04 – 01;23;27;12

Dr. Mona

Like if you had to, you know, ride up an elevator and tell a parent what they hope, what you hope that they would take away from this episode and even this conversation that we’re happening are having, and the adolescent series, what would it be? What do you want them to know? And maybe I’ll go with doctor Z first.

 

01;23;27;15 – 01;23;55;19

Dr. Zee

I hope with this series or with everything that we’ve talked about, that they walk away understanding that silence isn’t always safety like like that. Just because your child isn’t talking doesn’t mean they’re not screaming inside for some sort of emotional attachment. Physical attachment, you know, psychological type it. But more than anything, I hope that that the most powerful thing is that parenting tool isn’t the advice isn’t just attention.

 

01;23;55;19 – 01;24;22;12

Dr. Zee

It’s really sitting down and having in UN judge mental sacred space of conversation and that, like you said, they can come to you for anything. And that no matter what they do or feel that you’re their safety, you’re their safety, that. But this has to happen consistently and all the time where you give them not all the time, but like you give them that amount of time you can to them.

 

01;24;22;15 – 01;24;39;06

Dr. Zee

Again, I usually start with saying, you know, start with 5 minutes or 10 minutes and giving them 20 minutes a day. Even with teenagers, guys, even with teenagers, you can start now. They’ll maybe look at you and go, what are you doing? Why you’re saying that to me. But truly, it comes down to what we’ve taught it. Listen to the kids.

 

01;24;39;06 – 01;25;03;15

Dr. Zee

You know, we’re we’ve learned that adults stop trying to fix the situation, labeling the situation, managing the situation, and instead choose to truly listen. It changes the thought process within that child’s mind. They. Wait a minute. You didn’t interrupt me. You didn’t give me a look. You didn’t yell at me or scream at me. Well, and that that you know, that that behavior, is it toxic to them anymore?

 

01;25;03;18 – 01;25;26;00

Dr. Zee

They’re not fearful of you. They’re actually going to come and have a conversation with you. And I think when we when I talk about we’re not raising kids to fit this world, we’re guiding them to create them to the help that they are leading themselves into. I think that’s what listening also is going to create. And, you know, we’re doing something really great on the 30th that if anyone wants to come with us, is we’re going to have a social media gathering.

 

01;25;26;13 – 01;25;37;21

Dr. Zee

If any of you have seen social studies, which goes back to your social media thing, it’s now that makes conversation, you know, so I’m hoping that that listening is is what takes parents to that next step for their for their kids.

 

01;25;37;28 – 01;25;43;14

Dr. Mona

And Ruth, what would be your, you know, hopeful message after watching the series and listening to this conversation?

 

01;25;43;15 – 01;26;05;26

Ruth Whippman

I think your original question was like, is it social media? Is it schools? Is it parents? Is it this? Is that is it masculinity? I mean, it’s all of them. I think, you know, my own little piece of this, I guess, that I’ve looked at, and resonates for me is I think boys especially, starved of connection in this moment for a very wide variety of factors.

 

01;26;05;26 – 01;26;32;14

Ruth Whippman

It’s kind of almost a perfect storm for loneliness and lack of connection in this moment to do with masculinity norms, to do with the post MeToo era, to do with, social media, to do with masculinity influences, to do with the political climate. And so I think we need to, you know, as doctors, they were saying, I think, focus on connection of building the best possible relationship with the you know, this is true for all kids, but I think it’s particularly true for boys.

 

01;26;32;14 – 01;26;45;09

Ruth Whippman

I think, you know, when it comes to social norms and masculinity norms and the rest of it. So, yeah, I think it is focusing on that connection with, with your boy and with the boys in your life.

 

01;26;45;11 – 01;27;00;10

Dr. Mona

I love this conversation, and I love the Take Homes, and I love the insight. I learned so much about incel culture. And just about, again, I was like, that was eye opening to me because I again, I that opened up a lot of the DMs of like, what does this even mean? Like, what am I supposed to do with this information?

 

01;27;00;10 – 01;27;15;10

Dr. Mona

And I, I just think it’s so great, and I know it goes down to the sort of meaningful connection, right? It’s not just about attention, it’s connection. Right? We we always think about, oh yeah, I’m paying attention, but are we really listening? Are we really giving them that space to talk to us and not always fix things for them?

 

01;27;15;10 – 01;27;29;18

Dr. Mona

Right. That sort of okay, so and saying that phrase, do you want me to listen or do you need my help? Right. Like teenagers love that. I mean, every human being loves that. I love that when my husband is trying to give me millions advice, I’m like, can you just listen? Today I heard.

 

01;27;29;24 – 01;27;30;28

Dr. Zee

Counseling one on one.

 

01;27;31;05 – 01;27;52;01

Dr. Mona

This is it, this is it. So I would love, you know, for everyone to stay connected with you both. Doctor Ruth, where can everyone go to stay connected? Where can they get the book? I’m asking again because it is a amazing resource and I am also linking the last episode we talked about in detail more about this sort of, you know, the MeToo movement and everything around, you know, toxic masculinity that really aligns well with your book.

 

01;27;52;01 – 01;27;53;28

Dr. Mona

But where can people go to stay connected with you?

 

01;27;54;12 – 01;28;17;02

Ruth Whippman

So I on Instagram as I read Whitman two is in my name and I write a Substack, I host regular discussions about, masculinity, boyhood, raising boys, and South culture all the rest of it. Once a month. If you come to my Substack, it’s called I Blame Society and You Can Find Me there. And the book is Boy Mom reimagining boyhood in the age of Impossible Masculinity.

 

01;28;17;05 – 01;28;18;00

Ruth Whippman

Thank you.

 

01;28;18;03 – 01;28;23;20

Dr. Mona

Thank you, Ruth. I mean, three times the charm. I know it’s not going to be the end. I’m always bothering you, but I really appreciate it.

 

01;28;23;22 – 01;28;25;23

Ruth Whippman

I really appreciate you. Next.

 

01;28;25;25 – 01;28;41;09

Dr. Mona

This mutual, this mutual appreciation. I really love, you know, the work that you do. And I will be linking the Substack, the Instagram handle, as well as the book so people have that. And for doctor Z, I know you said you have an event coming up, which is actually this episode is being released on April 30th. So is the event on April 30th?

 

01;28;41;11 – 01;29;11;14

Dr. Zee

Yeah. Does this mean I do live? But what we’re doing is we’re, Okay, so first you can catch us, me on Instagram, which is doctor Z underscore MD. I have all of the same on all of my social platforms, which is, you know, what are the TikTok links? I don’t even know all the names anymore. But, we also have listen to the kids, which is listened at, listen to the kids underscore, and that is also in my bio, if you want to come look at all of what we’re doing there, but we’re hosting a social or an Instagram Live on the 30th.

 

01;29;11;17 – 01;29;28;19

Dr. Zee

And what it is, is there is a program on Netflix which is called the Social Studies, and we’re going to go through each episode and it’s basically on the social media. So these kids were in Los Angeles and they were documented and talked about what they went through in these social medias. And there’s a lot of stuff about bullying, a lot about what they went through.

 

01;29;28;26 – 01;29;44;28

Dr. Zee

And it was it’s a four episodes and we’re going to watch each episode and we invite everyone to come on and actually ask questions and have these conversations live. So I don’t know if you have a minute, we’d love for you to come on and talk to our, you know, our the following about what we could do with these social media platforms.

 

01;29;44;28 – 01;30;05;03

Dr. Zee

And it’s, we’ll do four, four episodes and our first live is on the 30th. And guys, all I can say is thank you for this morning. You have a fantastic platform and the work you do. And I’d love to go order your book, because I have to read this thing because, you know, it’s important, you know, that we yeah, we support one another.

 

01;30;05;03 – 01;30;07;21

Dr. Zee

And if there’s anything else I can do, please let me know.

 

01;30;07;23 – 01;30;23;26

Dr. Mona

I am so grateful for your time. I mean, this is officially the longest podcast episode that I’ve recorded, and I want to thank you because it was needed. Right? I know, I know, we have busy lives. I always am so appreciative of my guests. I know I have this platform, but I use this platform to elevate these conversations that people aren’t having.

 

01;30;24;05 – 01;30;40;22

Dr. Mona

Always. And this is the point of this, right? If I have with great power comes great responsibility, as they say in Spider Man. And like my son, my son will appreciate well, appreciate that reference because he’s a spider man fan. But like I, I really want us to elevate these conversations. And for everyone listening, I’m adding all these links.

 

01;30;40;22 – 01;30;57;00

Dr. Mona

And it’s so important to remember that whether you are raising a son or a daughter or, you know, our job isn’t just to protect our kids from the world, it’s to help them feel seen and they have to be part of this community. And how are we showing up to raise our kids? You know, you’re not powerless. We matter.

 

01;30;57;00 – 01;31;20;15

Dr. Mona

Our kids matter. And your presence and that connection really matters. So let’s keep the conversation going. Please make sure if you like this conversation to tag us on Instagram, you can tag Ruth Whitman to PS doctor Z, underscore MD, and at the Doc Talk podcast. We’d love to hear what you have to say. Leave reviews. So I know that you guys like these conversations and we can continue to bring on Doctor Z.

 

01;31;20;22 – 01;31;32;14

Dr. Mona

Doctor doctor Z, as well as Ruth, to have future conversations because these three people conversations are my absolute favorite. I did it, this is the third time I’m doing it. I love hearing the perspective. So thank you both again so much.

 

01;31;32;14 – 01;31;34;08

Ruth Whippman

So much. Fender. Pleasure.

 

01;31;34;10 – 01;31;38;07

Dr. Zee

Thank you.

 

01;31;38;10 – 01;31;56;02

Dr. Mona

Oh, I told you that this would be an important conversation. Thank you for tuning in. I know conversations like this can feel very heavy, but they’re also filled with so much hope because change starts with awareness. If there’s one thing I hope you carry with you after today, it’s this our boys and our girls. They don’t need perfection.

 

01;31;56;02 – 01;32;17;12

Dr. Mona

They need the three things I talk about often safety, respect and connection. They need to feel seen. They need to know that their emotions are welcome. They need to believe that who they are is enough. And every small moment we choose presence over pressure. That’s the work, that’s the healing. If you want to dive deeper into this idea, I have a full episode called The Three Things Every Child Needs from the Grown UPS in their Life.

 

01;32;17;20 – 01;32;41;27

Dr. Mona

I’ll link it below if you haven’t listened yet. I’d also love to hear what your thoughts were on today’s conversation, what resonated with you the most, and what’s one takeaway you’re holding on to? Let’s keep this conversation going. Head over to my socials and drop a comment on the latest post about this episode. And if this conversation moved you, please share it on your stories and tag our amazing guest at doctor Z underscore MD and at Ruth Whitman.

 

01;32;42;03 – 01;33;00;03

Dr. Mona

You never know who in your circle might need to hear this message today. And if you haven’t already, please follow us at the PedsDocTalk podcast on Instagram. And it would mean so much if you hit that subscribe button and download a few episodes. It’s one of the best ways to help the show grow so we can keep bringing you important, honest conversations like this one.

 

01;33;00;06 – 01;33;08;25

Dr. Mona

Thank you for being here, for showing up for the next generation, and for being such a vital part of this community. Have a wonderful week ahead and I’ll see you all next time. Stay well.