Raising Sons Who See, Hear, and Feel in a World That Tells Them Not To

I am the mother of two boys — one a teenager, one still a child. They climb, they fall, they build, they break. Their world is full of motion — laughter and frustration — and a kind of innocence that feels both timeless and fleeting.

As I watch them grow, I wonder: What is my role in a world that so often tells boys to cut off parts of themselves?

Recently, I’ve been writing about the myth of Perseus and Medusa, and it’s made me rethink the stories we tell about boys, men and strength. We all know the version where Perseus, the hero, slays Medusa, the monster. But what if the real story is about something else?

Medusa wasn’t always a monster. In older versions, she was a leader, a protector, an innocent girl. After being violated, she was transformed into something terrifying — not because she was evil, but because people feared her power. And Perseus? He didn’t defeat her on his own. He was given an expectation and divine tools — not to face Medusa directly, but to avoid truly seeing her at all.

This has made me think about how we raise boys. We set expectations — achievement, competition, strength — and we give them tools — logic, control, power — but do we, as elders, teach them how to truly see, listen, and feel? How to hear their intuition? How to comfort themselves? How to sit with fear? How to face complexity without cutting themselves off from it?

James Hollis calls this the Saturnian shadow — a legacy of insecurity, jealousy and violence passed down through generations. In the myth, Saturn devoured his own children to hold onto power. That shadow lingers today: competition mistaken for superiority, strength misunderstood as dominance, and achievement seen as a measure of survival.

I don’t want my sons to grow up in that shadow. But they are.

So how do I help them live under it — and perhaps, one day, emerge from it?

For my teenager, it starts with initiation. With allowing him to separate — both from childhood and from me (!) It’s helping him feel fear, sadness, receive teachings, experience an ordeal, grieve the wounds of his father and male ancestors, and, hopefully, come back with a sense of who he is and what tools he carries.

For my younger son, it is still ‘simply’ loving him — for who he is. It’s setting boundaries, saying no, saying yes, and letting him feel the fullness of his emotions.

For both of them, it is showing them that leadership isn’t about power, but about taking responsibility. That real strength isn’t about looking away or defeating the opponent — it’s about looking deeper.

Maybe it also begins with reinterpreting the old stories — not as tales of heroes defeating monsters, or where there is a rigid moral, but as journeys of self-discovery. Stories where the true challenge lies in learning to see, listen, and feel what’s happening — before, around and after us . Where growth comes not from conquering others, but from facing complexity with an open heart.

I am trying to do this work because I don’t just want my sons to succeed. I want them to truly understand success in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s way: “To leave the world a bit better… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”