Boys to men: the not-so-subtle art of male communication

At Christmas lunch last year, my fourteen-year-old son, Striker, was bombarded by a barrage of well-meaning mockery hurled at him by his uncles. Like his father before him, Striker reached puberty early. By the final days of Year 5 his voice was a foghorn and he stood head and shoulders above his classmates. Now in Year 8, he still towers over most of his friends. What’s more, his legs are hairy and – the source of the mockery - on his top lip rests a fine but darkly-hued moustache.

‘Hey,’ one of his uncles yelled over the turkey and roast potatoes. ‘Why are you doing Movember? It’s December.’ A series of sniggers ensued. 

‘Ask your parents to buy you a razor,’ another called. Chuckle, chortle, cackle …

Poor Striker took it all on his whiskered chin, laughing at their dumb jokes and smiling along. But when we got home, he asked for the first time whether he could begin shaving. Coach and I said yes, and we promptly purchased an electric razor in the Boxing Day sales. Wins all around! 

I’ve always been interested in relationship dynamics and the ways in which people communicate. I love playing amateur psychologist. My observations help my writing. 

At the moment, I’m particularly interested in relationships between males. This is an issue I’m exploring in the Dawnland series, which is why the ridicule hurled by Striker’s uncles fascinated me. I would never say to my fifteen-year-old niece, ‘Ask your parents to buy you a bra’ or ‘Tell us all about your menstrual cycle’.

Surely, these well-educated, high salaried, professional men weren’t ridiculing Striker to humiliate him. 

Surely. 

If that’s the case, what is it that they were attempting to express through the insults?

Coach and Striker, 2008

My family is chock-a-block full of men. I have four brothers, my husband is one of four boys and I have two sons. So over the years I’ve been witness to plenty of familial male ‘conversation’. When boys are small, fathers can show their emotion physically by cuddles and kisses and by verbally expressing their love. They talk, they touch, and they are comfortable around one another. Once the boy begins puberty, things being to change. Love is still present, of course, but it’s rarely expressed in the same terms. This is when the good-natured mockery begins. 

The fathers I know do not have this problem with their daughters. The mothers I know do not have this problem with any of their children. When I look at Striker, I still see the baby I gave birth to, the toddler whose cuddles were so awesome they made me cry, and the five-year-old in oversized shorts on his first day of kindergarten. 

Although his adolescent moods occasionally make polite conversation tricky, we still talk about school, the book he’s reading (currently Sir Alex Ferguson’s autobiography), sport and his friends. He still hashes out his problems with me. We still communicate on an emotional level.

Why can’t men do this?

As the son develops physically and begins to transform into an adult male, the father (and this is just my theory) finds the change difficult to process. On the most basic, primal level, the alpha male’s position in the family is being threatened and a distance develops between father and son. This is all playing out subconsciously, of course. Then throw into the mix a teenage boy’s predilection for surliness and short, sudden displays of temper, which only serve to magnify the distance. 

The casualty in this evolution is the ease of expression that was present in their previous relationship. When the boy finally emerges from teendom, as a fully-functioning, emotionally stable adult, it often seems that it’s too late to bridge the communication gap that has developed. 

This doesn’t make men bad fathers to their sons. Coach is an awesome dad. He’s committed, caring and always available. Coach has taken Striker and Dexter to swimming lessons, he’s volunteered for various roles at their schools and – as his name would suggest - he coaches their soccer teams. As dads go, Coach is one of the best, up there with Atticus Finch and Jean Valjean (okay, not Cosette’s biological dad, but she couldn’t have hoped for a more caring and loving guardian). HERE is a fun link to literature’s best and worst dads.

So, since Christmas, I have come to believe the ridicule the uncles expressed at Christmas lunch was their way of expressing their pride in Striker’s maturity. Rather than a Bar Mitzvah, Australian men prefer to celebrate a boy’s entrance into manhood by heaping him with insults and teasing, rather than blessings and gifts. 

This pattern of behaviour has been passed down from generation to generation. Most men are noticeably awkward when required to converse at a family function with their father. Since they’ve grown up, my brothers have only ever spoken to my father about football! 

There are community organisations in Australia such as The Men’s Shed. In their retirement, groups of men are coming together all over the country to ‘share a yarn over a cuppa’. Why couldn’t they have done this a bit earlier … with their sons?