In the wake of the news and discourse around an alleged gang rape at Cornell University, social media has been flooded with content about raising boys: videos of mothers explaining how they’re teaching their sons about consent, threads from mums sharing scripts for having tough conversations with boys.
Those conversations matter. But experts say another piece of this work often gets left out: the role of dads and other men in these children’s lives.
“Emotional and relational work has long fallen on women and parenting content is largely created by and marketed to mothers,” Chloë Bean, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told HuffPost.
But this dynamic comes at a cost.
As psychologist Colleen Reichmann wrote on Threads on Monday: “Mothers can talk to their sons from their earliest years about consent. We can talk with them about the importance of speaking out against harm. We can discuss body boundaries daily. But the work is incomplete without fathers and other men ALSO stepping up and modeling all of this.”
While mothers play an important part, she emphasised the importance of an active partnership that includes fathers and other male role models as well.
“Boys learn who they’re allowed to be by observing men they’re attached to or surrounded by,” Bean said.
“Before a boy can even understand the meaning of the word ‘consent,’ his nervous system is taking in information by watching how Dad speaks to Mum, how Dad expresses anger and emotions, how his older brother treats his sister, how an uncle reacts when a woman says no.”
He’s also watching what men do with their own hard feelings, she added. “Does it turn into violence or shutdown? That will be a pattern he unconsciously takes on.”
That’s not because men hold some magic power over boys, said Adam Stanaland, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Richmond who studies masculinity and gender development.
“Kids learn what their gender ‘does’ – or ‘should’ do – largely by watching people in their own group,” he told Huffpost.
“Boys look to men the same way girls look to women,” he explained. “This is especially true in the early years, when young children tend to think about gender in rigid, black-and-white terms. You can see the same pattern for girls.”
The actual views and behaviours that parents, including and especially dads, display for their sons thus make an impact.
“Children gather information based on what they are told, but also on what they see modelled by the people in their lives,” Steven Meyers, a psychology professor at Roosevelt University, told HuffPost.
“Boys learn from watching how masculine behaviour is demonstrated, and what then happens when it is enacted in different ways. As children age, boys learn increasingly from peer norms and how they are enforced through social rewards and punishments.”
Although things like media, digital environments, culture, religion and community play a role as well, research suggests these sources are less direct. Boys look to the men in their lives to learn what’s “normal” and expected as they move through the world.
“In my own research with boys ages 10 to 14, the boys who felt the most pressure to prove their masculinity in adverse ways had parents who believed that a key component of manhood is that men should have power over people of other genders, including women,” Stanaland said.
“Whether that belief comes from a dad, a mum, an uncle, or a coach, you can imagine how boys might internalise and act on it in less-than-ideal ways.”
Meyers agreed that dads aren’t the only ones sending those messages.
“Gender roles can also direct parents into believing that fathers’ attitudes and behaviors are the chief source of boys’ masculinity,” he said. “They aren’t – boys are learning from all of the people who care about them, model for them, and can guide them.”
Still, when it comes to talking about consent and relationships, fathers are often missing – and not just from your social media feed.
“Part of the answer here is simply that mothers are still doing more of this work,” Stanaland said. “In a study of 341 parent–teen pairs, mothers reported talking with their kids about sexual health more often and about more topics than fathers did, including consent, and they felt more comfortable and confident doing so. In fact, there wasn’t a single topic fathers reported covering more often.”
That tracks with broader parenting dynamics as well.
“Mothers are typically viewed as being primarily responsible for parenting in our society,” Meyers said. “They also traditionally bear more responsibility for highlighting challenges, strategising solutions and spending the time to remedy them.”
A lot of mothers also unfortunately have lived experience with harmful attitudes toward women, which makes the issue personal.
“Many men are raised without the language to identify and express their feelings and without a model of a man embracing his own,” Bean said. “So when the topic of consent or emotional safety comes up, some fathers feel unsure and lost about where to start or worry they’ll get it wrong. It might feel safer to just step back.”
Stanaland also believes this is part of a deeper issue.
“Conversations about feelings, relationships and consent are often coded as ‘women’s work,’” he said.
“Being expected to do ‘unmanly’ tasks is one documented trigger of masculinity threat, according to a meta-analysis of 123 experiments, and being a nurturing parent is viewed by some as unmanly. So, some fathers may hang back not because they don’t care, but because these conversations can feel threatening to their own manhood, and those threats hit harder when others are watching.”
“Opening up about emotions or relationships can feel like it risks the image of the strong protector and provider they’ve worked hard to prove and maintain, especially in front of their own sons,” he added.
But the good news is kids don’t necessarily see it that way.
“In that same study of parent–teen pairs, teens reported no difference between their mothers and fathers in how often or how comfortably these conversations happened,” Stanaland noted. “The researchers suggest fathers may be underestimating how much their kids want to hear from them. And when fathers do step in, they model something important on top of the content itself: that talking about consent and relationships is something men do, too.”
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What men can actually do moving forward
“The solution here isn’t blaming but an invitation to learn,” Bean said. “Fathers don’t need to be the experts, but they need to be willing to learn and be vulnerable in the process in front of their sons.”
There’s no single script for this either.
“Masculinity isn’t a monolith,” Meyers said. “There isn’t one universally accepted way to do it right. Rather, ideas about masculinity are personal. They need to reflect the particular values, experiences and circumstances of individuals. Notions about healthy or desired masculinity have changed over time and vary from place to place, so we need to challenge one-size-fits-all thinking for today.”
He added that we should balance autonomy with fundamental regard for the rights and well-being of other people: “It is appropriate to challenge a personal belief when it will harm someone else.”
Stanaland put it this way: “Masculinity itself isn’t the problem. A boy can love trucks, football and fixing things and be perfectly well-adjusted. What matters is whether this masculinity feels chosen or pressured. In my research, masculinity becomes ‘fragile’ when boys and men feel they must constantly prove it to others, and it’s that pressure, not masculinity itself, that predicts harmful outcomes.”
Men can help most, he said, “by easing that pressure and showing boys that being a man doesn’t require constant proof.”
Here’s what that can look like day to day:
Be intentional with your words.
“It is easy to speak carelessly in our homes,” Meyers said. “Parents will likely benefit when they think about the power of their words and actions, even when their children are just in the room observing.”
Offhand phrases carry more than dads may realise.
“Telling a boy not to ‘throw like a girl’ teaches him more than to toughen up; it teaches him that being a girl is lesser-than,” Stanaland said. “Phrases like ‘boys don’t cry’ or ‘man up’ directly teach boys that certain emotions and interests are off-limits.”
Talk openly about what it means to be a boy or man.
Meyers noted that gender roles are widely understood but rarely discussed out loud. “Parents benefit when they make the covert overt. Open discussions avoid misunderstandings that can be problematic or harmful.”
Having these kinds of talks in an age-appropriate way can make a measurable difference.
“In a randomised trial in middle schools, athletes whose coaches led more regular discussions about respect showed more positive bystander behaviour, more gender-equitable attitudes, and less abuse and sexual harassment,” Stanaland said.
Get specific about respect.
“It is easy for a parent to say that men need to respect women. It is a lot harder to focus in depth on the specifics,” Meyers said. “Many people stay at an altitude of 30,000 feet in these discussions and never truly ground the conversation. The challenge is that there isn’t uniform agreement on what ‘respect’ means. Is it some reflection of chivalry? Does it mean avoiding interrupting women in conversations? Does it extend to broader considerations, such as challenging pay disparities? What happens when a boy’s or man’s wants can be achieved by power over women because it is available? These are not easy conversations, but they are the most important.”
Mark Kiselica, a psychology professor at Penn State Harrisburg, has written about how to teach young men to be sexually responsible. “Part of it is affirming their desire to have sex, having them explore their values,” he told HuffPost.
That includes what consent sounds like in the moment. “If you’re initiating intimate contact, you must ask, ‘Are you OK? … Tell me if you’d like me to stop.’ A girl and a woman has the right to say no, and when she does, you have a duty as a good man to stop,” Kiselica emphasised.
Practice what you preach.
“Boys will pay much more attention to what their father does rather than what he says when there is a difference,” Meyers said.
That includes who does what at home. “In one longitudinal study, fathers who did more childcare and housework had kids with more gender-egalitarian attitudes by their teens, even after accounting for what both parents said they believed about gender,” Stanaland said.
Meanwhile, Bean often sees what she calls emotional outsourcing: “Mom handles all the conflict, hard conversations, and emotions, while Dad passively stays silent on the sidelines. This teaches young boys that emotional labour belongs to women alone.”
Show what handling hard feelings looks like.
Bean pointed to the value of “a male role model who can demonstrate feeling angry AND grounded. He can name it, take a breath, allow it, and move through it. He doesn’t become cruel, violent, or become cold and withdraw.”
When dads get it wrong, owning it is part of the lesson. “Repair after a rupture teaches boys that strength, vulnerability and accountability can all co-exist,” she said.
Keep advice realistic, rather than overly aspirational.
“Broader conceptions of masculinity should focus on understanding and labeling feelings rather than ignoring or suppressing them. However, parents need to be aware that masculinity exists in contexts that may have competing ideas,” Meyers said.
Telling a boy to simply share his feelings with a bully who’s mocking him, for example, won’t necessarily end well. “Parents can help boys navigate these complications rather than assuming that it is a simple process.”
Honour his ‘no.’
“Overriding a child’s boundary, even if it is meant to be playful, sends the message that bodies don’t have boundaries when someone else wants something,” Bean said.
“When a boy pushes away with hands, looks away from a parent to self-regulate, or says ‘no’ or ‘stop,’ the adult must respect the boundary.”
Speak up.
“Staying quiet when a friend makes a degrading joke teaches a boy it’s OK,” Bean said. “’Boys will be boys’ teaches him that his actions are allowed no matter what they are.”
Stanaland agreed that “silence is modelling, too,” noting that people are more likely to confront sexism after watching someone else do it first.
None of this requires being a perfect father or role model.
“It’s never too late to learn. And this can be a lifelong process, making space to evolve and grow can ease the pressure of being the perfect father figure,” Bean said. “Start with your own healing. A father who can learn to self-regulate, self-soothe, and stay present when anger and other emotions come up will give his son proof that a man can feel a lot and still be safe to be around.”
