Beck: You have two sons— what was on your mind when they were born and you were looking forward to raising them? Were you already having some of these concerns about boyhood at that time?

Reichert: I was. Back in the late ’70s and ’80s I was beginning to connect with the men’s movement in the country. I was quite conscious of the fact that whatever was going on in male development wasn’t working. I had a fundamental commitment with my first son to prioritize attachment parenting. It was important to me and my wife to make sure he had the strongest relationship with both his mom and his dad that we could manage. We spent a lot of special time with him, did a lot of strengthening of his emotional voice, making sure he expressed what he needed to. We wanted a boy who had his own mind, who was picking up that who he was mattered to us, that we were going to get to know him rather than merely requiring him to fit into what we expected a boy to be.

Beck: How do you think that went? Your sons are adults now, right?

Reichert: I think both of my sons benefited from that kind of parenting. They still have really strong connections with both of us. And they evidence a strong capacity to love other people and to establish intimate relationships. My son is the father of a two-and-a-half-year-old boy and he is a wonderful father. When my grandson says Daddy, the way he says the word, you can just tell it's coming from his heart. It resonates with real connection and delight.

Beck: Were there ever moments when your kids were growing up where you felt yourself falling into some of traps you’d hoped to avoid? How did you work past them?

Reichert: Yeah, all the time. Ideas that I was unconscious of that resided in the back of my mind would pop out in these odd moments. One story is: My son had an early experience with bullying and got chased from the playground. I initially tried to build his self-confidence by sending him back to the playground to stand up for himself, and not settle for being driven from something he loved to do. One day when he came back home from the playground, defeated once again, I simply said, “You can’t come in. You have to go back and figure this out.” And he had a huge emotional reaction. I wouldn’t let him retreat, I didn’t offer him safe harbor, I was making him go back and contend with these mean boys.

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On a conscious level, I was thinking, You’re doing the right thing; you're teaching him to stand up for himself; you’re saying he doesn't have to let a defeat define his possibilities. But I realized, when I reflected, that I was actually coming from a place where I was scared for him. I had these dire imaginings of a young man who was not going to be able to fend for himself in the dog-eat-dog world of boys’ peer culture. I was essentially trying to toughen my son up by passing along a lesson I had learned, and that my father had learned, and probably his father before him. Unconsciously, I was passing along a narrow vision that was about fitting into the peer culture rather than transcending it.