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A guide for raising boys to be resilient men

Addressing male loneliness starts in childhood.

In 1995, gender studies researcher Judy Chu found herself chauffeuring around her 13-year-old brother and his friend. The boys’ curiosity got the better of them, and they asked what she was learning: adolescent girls’ development, she told them.

One of the boys looked at her and said, “‘You should study boys. You can start with me,’” Chu recalled. So she did. That fall, she spoke to 13-year-old boys from home for her clinical interviewing class.

In the years since, Chu has researched boys between the ages 12 and 18 — their wishes, their desires, what they wanted from their friendships and romantic relationships — and discovered some felt largely unknown. There was a gap between what the world expected of them — the stoic, strong, independent stereotypes that have persisted for centuries — and how they saw themselves, but had internalized so many messages for so long that they felt like they had no choice but to accept this version of masculinity. Chu theorized that these beliefs must have taken root during their childhood, and she later published a book on the subject.

By many measures, including academic achievement and labor force participation, men are behind their female peers.

Rather than address these issues in adulthood, many therapists and gender studies researchers agree that pushing back against rigid gender stereotypes in childhood could help foster more resilient men.

Parents, teachers, coaches, and other adults in boys’ lives should empower boys to be in touch with their emotions, to encourage open conversation, and develop deep friendships, according to experts.

When toddlers enter school, she discovered, they begin learning the rules of boyhood. “Regardless of what their parents had encouraged or enabled at home, they were learning that at school, if you wanted to be seen as and treated as one of the boys and you wanted to be with the boys, you wanted to play with the boys, be friends with the boys, there were rules you had to follow,” Chu said. “It was kind of like a microcosm of our society, which is if you want people to see you as and treat you as a quote unquote real boy or real man, you need to prove yourself.”

Since Chu’s work on the subject, American culture has changed to address gender inequities — the ones that negatively affect girls. As a part of this movement, girls were empowered to be more autonomous and pursue careers and financial independence to build a life beyond marriage and childrearing. (Though it should be said, women still trail men in earnings, outpace them in household responsibilities, and have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and PTSD.)

But boys are still stuck in place.

Across the country, lawmakers have promoted policies and legislation aimed at helping men reach their potential. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a 2025 executive order outlining education, career, and mental health initiatives targeting men. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore created the state’s Young Men and Boys Initiative, focusing on men’s health, employment, and community connections. But these programs are reactive, attempting to disrupt decades of socialization. At the same time, the rise of the manosphere and misogynist online spaces and increasingly right-leaning voting trends among men signal a cohort of young men at a turning point.

Recent studies have found that boys are less likely to graduate high school on time compared to girls — that gap is even bigger for Black and Hispanic boys — and fewer young men obtain bachelor’s degrees compared to their female peers. And as fewer men graduate from college, fewer participate in the labor force, too. The suicide rate among men is nearly four times higher than that of women. While men and women report similar rates of loneliness and number of friends, men are less likely to turn to their social networks for support. Out of the over 750,000 jobs created since Donald Trump took office in 2025, men have gained none of them.

So what will it take to help men get unstuck? If we are truly committed to ending the male loneliness crisis, to tackling suicide and gun violence — society has the power to change things for the next generation, experts said. Rather than aiming to reach men after the constraining masculine worldviews have already taken root, we can prevent them from warping boys’ sense of self in the first place: To help men, we must........

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