ĔĐ stlmag.com July 2019 Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
issue in his adult life that he can’t
take back.”
The other day, they had a long,
good talk, she says, and then
Adam (a pseudonym) asked,
with fake casualness, “What do
the other moms say about me?” A
boy had told him, “I’d like to hang
out with you, but my parents told
me not to.” Adam teared up as he
confided this—and now his mom’s
crying as she relays it.
“In here, he’s really engaging,”
Lessor says. It might be because
of a recent bit of trouble, they
agree—though the incident was
more prank than crime. “I do know
Adam’s got his ear to walls and
doors,” Lessor says. “‘Mom talks
behind my back,’ he tells me.” This
might just be the boy’s perception,
he adds quickly. “I remember,
growing up, my mom would tell
my brother my bad stories, and
to me it was shaming.”
“Adam does need sham-
ing sometimes,” she counters,
“because otherwise he moves on immediately, with no remorse.”
Lessor’s lips are pressed together hard. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t agree.
But he answers carefully, “Saying something right to him, that’s OK. Having
a conversation that’s not meant to be heard is what I mean.”
The next parent volunteers that he and his wife didn’t know whether
it was ADHD causing their son’s anxiety and depression or anxiety and
depression making the ADHD worse, “but the self-harm talk was pretty
scary. The other day he said, ‘I want to go in a hole and die.’” The father’s
voice is quiet, but his eyes are scared.
His voice calm, Lessor says hurting himself is the boy’s habitual way of
acting out the anger—which is no doubt rooted in something far harder for
him to express, like fear or sadness. They’ve found a substitute, punching
a pillow, but by the time the boy comes home from school and avoids talk-
ing to his parents, it’s long past pillow-punching time. “We need to find an
outlet he can use at school,” Lessor says. “Males need action. We’re visual
and physical—it’s biological; it’s testosterone. The punching bag’s a safe
container: It doesn’t bleed, cry, talk back, call the police, or punch holes in
the wall. There’s nothing wrong with being angry—it’s the behavior the anger
causes that’s the problem. The world says, ‘Let’s take it away from them.’
But there’s a way to give them what they need so they’re OK.”
The biggest problem, he’s come to believe, “is the systemic absence of the
father, the absence of that instinctive wisdom.” In a slower, more coherent
world, shared rites of passage and a clear definition of masculinity guided
parents. Today, some dads are physically absent, some emotionally absent,
“but there are also systemically absent dads who are always trying to figure
out whether they did the right thing.”
The next evening, the boys are diving
into pizza when I arrive. “What are you
trying to create?” Lessor asks them.
“What are you trying to put your magic
on?” Surprisingly willing, they all come
up with goals, purposes for their lives.
They plan their graduation, a barbecue
in his backyard. Lessor says there will be
a ceremony where they will symbolically
receive their “gift,” their own coolest and
most authentic trait. “We all have gifts,”
he said to me earlier, “but unless your
parents mirror back, you will drop your
gift. Parents filter their children. This
is all about seeing those patterns—and
helping the boys find their true self.”ANGLES NOTEBOOK
BY JEANNETTE COOPERMANĩŲ ŲįŲŲŲ
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