Raising boys to speak up after Cornell

Since news about the lawsuit against the “Cornell 7” broke, the internet has been rife with discourse about how Millennial parents are “raising sons differently.” That doesn’t just mean teaching young boys about consent. As Tomika Anderson wrote in Essence recently, “I want to raise a son who understands that his responsibility to another human being doesn’t end with, ‘I didn’t do it.'”

From online influencers to Reddit threads and group chats, it’s not the first time discussions have sparked around whose responsibility it is to teach young boys about consent, boundaries and rape culture. As a Millennial boy mom myself, I’m deeply familiar with this discourse. And as an American mom living in Italy, we aren’t free of gender-based violence. In September, Italy saw its seventh alleged femicide since mid-August. But instead of the conversation focusing on consent, this generation of parents appears to be expanding it to teaching young boys to be willing to speak up. Curious, I asked parents what they’re doing differently, and then I asked a few psychologists if it might be working.

Stephanie Janét is a Millennial mother of two boys. But since she had her first child when she was 19, she said she’s seen firsthand how the cultural conversations around boys, masculinity, respect and boundaries have evolved over the years. From a young age, she would start to introduce empathy with her sons by simply saying, “Mommy doesn’t like this,” or asking, “How do you think that would make somebody feel?” Janét said she’s also tried to communicate that masculinity isn’t synonymous with aggression.