Demo

On February 9th, Paul, Nina and I tested out some of our curricula with local friends and their sons.

The goal was to learn what worked, what didn’t, and then incorporate those learnings into our curriculum moving forward. When we pilot, we will hire a research company to test the efficacy of the program.

The three main takeaways:

1) The four-and-five-year-old boys were much more open and receptive to talking about their emotions. The six-and-seven-year-old boys were much more closed off. They didn’t want to share their feelings.

“Do I have to?” one boy asked.
“Of course not, but why don’t you want to share?”
”I don’t want to be made fun of.”

This confirmed Judy Y. Chu’s study with young boys and how early they start to contort in order to fit into the “man box.”

2. The men were open and expressive and seemed to like talking about being men and fathers. I’ll let Paul say more on this since he ran the fathers’ group.

3. The women expressed a deep desire to have their sons grow up differently. They wanted their sons to be equal to women. They wanted their sons to see examples of men sharing in the domestic load. One woman made sure her husband did the dishes. Another woman noticed she was asking her daughter for help, not her son, and then made sure to change that. There was anger towards men in general and some resentment towards the men in their lives. The conversations reaffirmed my belief that women need safe spaces to talk about men and unearth their biases in order to make more conscious parenting choices.