Boys and their need for effective mentorship

Victoria Seiketso Sethibe | Thursday September 1, 2016 16:29

In some cases boys are raised by their mothers while their fathers are either out of touch or hardly in touch with them. Other boys are primarily raised by their mothers because although they live in two parent homes, their fathers are usually so busy with their careers that quality time with family has become minimal.

Below is a fictitious story highlighting some of the challenges faced by a modern day woman in raising a boy:

*Mogapi is a 15 year old teenage boy staying with his mother, twenty three and thirty year old sisters. His father passed on when he was four years old. He is now a troubled teenager smoking and drinking heavily. His sisters and especially mother, are constantly complaining out of frustration about *Mogapi’s choice of lifestyle.

They all genuinely wish him to work hard and grow into a responsible man. His mother explains how after losing her husband, started to look up to *Mogapi to take over most of the responsibilities of the ‘man of the house’ since he was the only man remaining in the family. According to his mother, having *Mogapi as a son meant he was supposed to quickly learn to be a strong man for his family. She treats her son with great reference and has tasked him with some household responsibilities including management of livestock, household security and maintenance work at home, while she is working hard to give material support for the family.

*Mogapi’s twenty three year old sister goes to a tertiary institution while the oldest sister is working as a cleaner at a local supermarket. Both of them are doing relatively well coping with the demands of their careers and household chores.

Like many modern day women, *Mogapi’s mother faces a lot of pressure to perform double parenting roles in preparing her daughters and son to become strong adults. To her, the former role has been relatively easier due to the advantage of shared gender while the latter is quite challenging since she has never known how is felt like to be a boy.  

*Mogapi on the other hand is facing challenges that none of his female family members particularly relates with. Like many other boys, his development has been quite slow compared to his female counterparts as well as his own sisters. Being expected to fit in his father’s shoes makes him feel overwhelmed. Though he has not been able to communicate that clearly to his family, he feels that he constantly has to perform well to get attention from his family. He has very limited memory of attention being given to him and not necessarily what he has to do.

Generally children who are constantly under pressure to fly high to get attention from their caretakers live with stress, regardless of their gender.

They see themselves as being moulded to become ‘puppets’ or people pleasers. Some of them use defiance to break free from the ‘puppet’ role while others adopt that role to seek approval. Both coping mechanisms are dysfunctional. The defiant child learns to oppose almost any idea that does not originate from them, even if it could be of benefit to them. The excessively conformative child on the other hand learns to be complacent to survive.

*Mogapi’s trouble comes from the fact that in addition to his slow development, the age gap between him and his sisters has never afforded him an opportunity to bond with them during pure children’s play time. Another challenge he is facing is that nobody has ever really taken small attainable steps to prepare him for the role of a strong and accountable man. As a result he resorted to drinking and smoking not only for experimentation, but also to deal with the stressful life he faces.