Boys Are Being Taught To Hide Their Feelings. I'm Still Haunted By What That Taught Me

“You can love your son completely and still hand him survival strategies that hurt him, and the people around him.”

My classroom in Texas had a paddle hanging on the wall. Three feet of thick wood, with one word carved into it with precision:

One of the teachers used to joke about drilling holes in it so he could swing it harder.

I was a military kid in the mid-1990s, growing up near Fort Hood, Texas, and I was happy. Treehouses. Boy Scouts. Chickens in the backyard. That’s what makes this story difficult to tell properly.

When a kid got paddled, he’d come back to the lunch table fighting back tears, trying not to cry. Trying to just eat. Trying to pretend nothing had happened.

And we all pretended with him.

That was the real lesson plan. If........

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