How To Raise a Boy

How To!

Slate Magazine

Business, Education, How To, Self-improvement

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jen is raising a pretty stellar 9-year-old son. With his tween and teen years on the horizon, she wants to steer him toward kindness, acceptance, and openness—and away from the pitfalls of toxic masculinity. On this episode, How To!’s Carvell Wallace brings on Ashanti Branch, founder of The Ever Forward Club and host of unMASKing with Male Educators. Ashanti offers his advice on talking with boys about their emotions, understanding the “mask” that young men present to the world, and building trust and confidence—by acknowledging that adults don’t have all the answers. If you liked this episode check out: How To Parent Less and How To Make Friends … Like a Man Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The show is produced by Rosemary Belson, with Kevin Bendis and Sophie Summergrad. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer. Get more of How To! with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of How To! and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the How To! show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/howtoplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Say hello to the next generation of Zendesk AI agents, built to deliver resolutions for everyone.
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0:15.6	A middle young man yesterday at a college, he had come from a high school situation where he was going through a lot of stuff,
0:21.6	and he said, when I get to college, I'm going to be a new person. And he started feeling like some
0:25.7	emotions coming up. He's like, oh, man, I'm not supposed to be getting emotional here. He has
0:29.5	sunglasses on. I can see a tear coming out behind them glasses. And I'm like, let it flow, brother.
0:34.2	Let it flow. You're safe here.
0:39.0	Welcome to how to.
0:40.2	I'm Carvel Wallace.
0:44.5	What the hell is going on with men and boys?
0:50.3	This is a question that has probably crossed a lot of people's minds, at least once in the past few years.
0:51.8	And as longtime Slate listeners know, when I was a parenting and vice columnist here,
0:56.3	variations of this question would come up all the time.
0:59.6	How do I raise a decent boy?
1:01.5	How do I teach my son to be in touch with his feelings?
1:04.4	How do I rescue my son from patriarchy and misogyny?
1:07.9	How do I teach my son to respect women,
1:09.9	to not be racist, to not be homophobic?
1:13.0	For parents, these questions have felt intense and pressing, and even more so in the midst
1:19.1	of news stories about school shooters, male loneliness, male violence, sexual harassment,
1:24.1	and assault. But there is another side to it. Parents want to know how to raise
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