‘Modern Love’: Open Your Heart and Loosen Up! Therapist Terry Real’s Advice for Fathers
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From predictive ordering to customized travel to precise medical imaging, Google Cloud's AI-optimized platform helps you make big things happen. That's the new way to cloud. Learn more at cloud.google.com slash AI. Love now and always. Did you fall in love last night? I love her. Love was stronger than anything. I feel the love. Love. And I love you more than anything. There's still love. Love. From The New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love.

What's up, New York Times? Modern Love podcast. Hi, Modern Love podcast. Hello. Hi, Modern Love. For the past few weeks, we've been listening to all the stories you sent us about your dads. We wanted to know about the times your father opened up and showed you his emotions.

There is exactly one moment in my life when my father opened up to me. My father's generation is one that doesn't express much. And the only time we ever talk of love is at the end of a phone call. He'll say, like, love you. I think he had a really hard time communicating what was going on inside of him.

So many of you told us your dad didn't open up very often. These moments you shared, they were fleeting. They were on the heels of some big life event. And some of you didn't see your dad become emotional until the end of his life. But when it did happen, oh boy. I don't know if this is the kind of expression of love that you're looking for, but it's the only way my dad was ever able to tell me he loved me in a meaningful way.

One time, my dad silently walked over to the record player and put on a Patsy Cline record, and he chose the song, I Fall to Pieces. Then he picked me up and hugged me to him, and he slowly turned me around and around, and I listened to the words, I fall to pieces each time I see you again. I fall to pieces each time someone speaks your name.

And it struck me the most intensely I've ever felt it, that this was how he could tell me how he felt. And it helped me to know that beneath the silence that I had always experienced with him was a person, a man who was aching with love for me, but he just didn't know how to express it.

When my dad was 58, he was diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma. Throughout the whole process, it remained rather matter of fact, more bad news, more tests, more chemo. And one day he and I were in his hospital room and the news was on the TV and a report came on that there was new evidence

research showing cures for melanoma, and everyone was real excited about that. And my dad threw a fit like a toddler and showed me the raw emotion and frustration of the fact that he was dying. That has stayed with me all these years later. And as I reach closer and closer to the age he was when he died, I think often of the

the vulnerability that he showed, and even if it wasn't that often, how important it was for him and for me. Look, not everyone had a quiet, unemotional dad. We had plenty of stories about fathers who said, "I love you" all the time, who said how proud they were, who opened up about what they were going through. But what was common between every story we heard is that those peeks into your dad's world, they really meant something.

One of my earliest memories with my dad is sitting in the car and a Sade song came on and he started crying. And I asked him why he was crying, what was wrong. And he said it was just reminding him of while he was waiting for my mom when he was living in Boston, going to grad school. And she was back in Philadelphia and he was in love with her and she didn't know yet that she was in love with him. And...

He was just waiting for her and he would play Sade and just cry, thinking about her and missing her. And from that memory on, every single time a Sade song comes on, my dad starts to cry. And what a gift it is. Oh, speaking a little emotional right now. What a gift it is to have the most steady man in my life teach me how to be vulnerable, how to cry in front of people you love. ♪

You can't get a chance to have your father open up to you every day. When I did get my chance, it was the kind of moment that made me feel like maybe, just maybe, we would be okay. It was a really meaningful way that he chose to connect with me that I'll never forget. And it's had such a lasting impact on me. I always appreciated him sharing that with me. It meant a lot to me. I'm unbelievably grateful for that gift.

The word gift came up so often. It was clear, your dad letting you in, it really changed how you understood not only him, but yourself too. It was a gift. And all these stories, they felt like gifts to us. Thank you everyone for sharing with us on this Father's Day week. There are so many more that you sent in. I wish we could play them all.

Your stories have had our whole team thinking about what fatherhood means today, how it's changing, if it's changing. Because when we asked you about these moments with your dad, we thought there were probably a lot of you who were looking for a deeper relationship with him, who wanted to understand him better. We also thought there were probably fathers out there who were trying to do things differently.

When you said, you asked the question about the moment of when he opened up and what was that for me, it's really what he didn't do, right? That told me what the impact was, was don't do that. It was like, oh, I'm not going to be like that. I'm going to be more open. I'm going to be present and I'm going to be available to my son.

A few weeks ago, we had family therapist Terry Real on the show. He told us all about his own difficult relationship with his dad and how our understanding of masculinity affects our relationships. So as we were listening to your stories and hearing what your dads did well, what you wish they'd done, and the kinds of fathers you wanted to be, we knew we had to have Terry back.

You know, I deal every day with the consequences of now-grown people having been raised by walled-off, shut-down, distant fathers. Open your hearts. So today, for this Father's Day episode, Terry Real joins me again to talk about vulnerability and fatherhood. Plus, he answers your questions about being a dad. Stay with us. ♪

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Terry Real, welcome back to Modern Love. Oh, what a joy. It's wonderful to be here with you. I want to also say happy Father's Day. By the way, we're a little early, but happy Dad's Day to you. Thank you. Does Father's Day mean anything specific to you, to your family? It does, actually. We have a big celebration. And unfortunately, my birthday comes right on the same weekend as Father's Day, so I get a collapse.

But, you know, it's like you're born around Christmas. But we do, and we make a big deal in my family, Father's Day, and Mother's Day both. What's the real family tradition? Do you have, like, a food you normally eat on Father's Day or a thing you do? I wish I could show a picture of my grill palace here outside of my home. I have two grills. I have a grill table. I mean, it's a good—

Two-minute walk away from the house, so I go with my sons and we talk and imbibe and stay away from those annoying demands that are waiting for us. You just need to focus on the grilling.

And each other. And each other. There you go. In our last conversation, you told us about your often difficult, very complex relationship with your own father. So I wonder, in addition to the sort of grilling of it all, if Father's Day is also a complicated time for you. You know, my dad died, oh, heading on 20 years ago. I've done my grieving and my resolution work.

I feel like I take the best of my parents in spirit. My dad, I taught my dad how to be more open-hearted with me. It's like opening up an oyster. I had to prise through his shell to get to him, and I did. And on his deathbed, he assembled me and my brother and said, I could have done a much better job with you two. I made a lot of mistakes. Don't do what I did.

When you get to where I am now, love is the only thing that matters. Everything else is bullshit. And so I say over and over again, the best gift, oh, you fathers listening, the best gift you can give your children is your own health and recovery. Do your work.

If you come from trauma, as so many of us do, if you had a not great relationship with your own father or mother, get your butt into therapy and work it out. Be it. You know, last time we had you on the show, we talked a lot about men being

in general, I basically came to you asking, like, what is going on with men? And you laid out this really thoughtful critique of traditional masculinity. And you told us that there were no good models of connective and vulnerable masculinity currently out there. So I wonder...

I wonder how you think not only men, but fathers specifically, should be thinking about this. Like, if there's nothing to model off of, where do they start? Well, here and there. Here and there. Bruce Springsteen. Your client, yes. Well, yeah, he outed himself. But he's a big-hearted, strong man. In his autobiography, he...

was a big hit in the US. He had a tour in the UK and there were all these billboards. Bruce Springsteen, The Future of Rock and Roll. They didn't know him from Adam. And in the autobiography, he says he walked into the producer's office and ripped down the billboard from the

He was so uncharacteristically angry. And I love this line. He said to the guy, it's show business, not tell business. You don't tell them I'm the greatest thing. Let's show it to them. And that's what I want to say to men. You don't tell your kid how to be a good kid. You show them by your own health and wholeness and recovery. Do your work. What does fatherhood mean to you?

I say this to men all day long. This is my mentor, Pia Melody. Good parenting consists of nurture, guidance, and limits. Say that again. Nurture, guidance, limits. And we fathers traditionally lean on guidance and limits and leave out

I say to guys, look, the advice you're giving your child is great, but you know what? You haven't earned the right to be listened to. Get on your hands and knees and play horsey for a while. Have a relationship with them. Then you can give them your advice. Wow, you haven't earned the right to give them that advice. That's powerful. It's true.

It's true. Why should I listen to you? Because I love you, that's why. Okay, well, then you've earned their love.

But first and foremost, be with them. Make breakfast with your kid. Drive them somewhere. Go for a walk. Not face-to-face. Side-by-side. Grilling. Grilling to our earlier conversation. Grilling is thrilling. It is. And it's not only, I mean, of course, the being physically present. It's the being emotionally open, the listening, the being tuned in.

Tune in. And we can teach our kids that. And, you know, you've heard me say, I'll say it 10,000 times, moving people into health and intimacy means moving them beyond patriarchy, which is a system that hurts everybody. Moving them beyond traditional gender roles.

This is psychotherapy. I can give you psychoanalytic articles. Fathers are there to rescue their sons from the enmeshing grip of their incestuous mothers. Make me puke.

I hope Freud doesn't listen to this show. Yeah. Listen, I mean, I can give you articles that are 10 years old that say that. This is alive and well. No, boys do not need to separate from their parents. Boys do not need to get monosyllabic and share...

Nothing. I want fathers to open their... The best way you can teach your kids to be open-hearted is to be open-hearted yourself. Talk about a fight you had with somebody at work. Talk about looking in the mirror and seeing you've got some gray hair and, oh my God, that's kind of a freak. Be a human being with your kids. We humans connect through our vulnerabilities. Traditional masculinity tells you to deny your vulnerability, right?

we try and father our children while being invulnerable to them. We don't want to burden them. No, it's just the opposite. Be strategic, be bite-sized, but let them in. You know, I like to tell stories. Can I tell you a story? Of course. You don't have to ask me. I like to ask. So true story. Um,

So my son, my oldest son, Justin, I'm driving him to hockey practice. And he was 10, whatever. And he's giving me the monosyllabic, you know, we've all been there. How was school? Fine. How are you feeling? Great. I pulled the car over. This is true. I pulled the car over on the side of the road. I stop it. That got his attention. He's on his way to hockey practice. Mm-hmm.

I say, Dustin, I'm doing you a favor right now. I'm driving you to hockey practice. You're barely talking to me. That hurts my feelings. If I'm going to do you a favor, you've got to have a normal conversation with me. So one word answers no. I want to hear one thing you felt today, one thing you observed today, and one thing you learned today. Go.

And my little nine-year-old in the back of the seat, firstly, lets me know how annoyed he is. But then after that, he says, okay, I'll tell you something I learned. I'm thinking about, okay, is that hockey practice. When we drive to hockey practice, there's a difference between the hockey players on my team who come from fancy private schools and the hockey players who come from public school. And I go, wow.

He's nine. That's really something. Can you describe that difference at all? And he goes, I can't really say what it is, but I will say this. It's got the same feeling as when you get white kids and black kids together. Now, my little nine-year-old was having a conversation with me about class difference. He would no longer have said that if I hadn't insisted on it to fly to the moon. So...

insist on connection, insist on articulation. There's no rule book in the sky that says when our boys hit 10, 11, 12, they suddenly have no feelings and they have nothing to say to us. No, you can do better than that. Mm-hmm.

Can I ask, I mean, again, I'm drawing from my own experience, and my dad has, I'm one of three daughters. So with this kind of situation and insisting on relationality, connectivity, would that be different for a dad who has a daughter, a girl, for example? Well, daughters are just as hungry for an open-hearted relationship with their fathers as sons are.

It sounds like you benefited some from a more open-hearted dad and really enjoy that as well you should. So in that regard, no, humans are humans and kids are kids. In terms of, in a way, but you see, an open-hearted, connected, vulnerable boy,

from patriarchy, breaks from the tradition of masculinity. And so it's helpful to have a man, as it were, give you permission to do that. But what we used to say to our boys, and when I'm counseling fathers, is,

Raise your sons in particular, both all children, all genders, but in particular counter the patriarchy with your sons and raise them to be connected and feeling full and intimate. And also know that that is not what's going on on the playground. That's not, you're going to release that kid to the culture at large. So you also want to arm your kids with,

particularly sons, to be what I call gender literate, like cultural literate. Mm-hmm. At any given moment, your child will choose self-expression and getting perhaps grief for it or compliance, shutting down and losing some of his authenticity. That's not my choice. That's yours. But I will make that choice explicit with you. Mm-hmm.

I'm thinking back to that scene with you and your son, nine-year-old son in the car, you pulling it over and him responding to your, I think, very vulnerable. Like, I see so much of the stuff you've talked about at play in that scene because you said to your son, it hurts my feelings when you don't speak to me. That's admitting vulnerability. That's being emotionally open to your son saying, you're hurting me.

And your son, after a beat, it sounds like it took him a bit of time to adjust, but he did open up to you. What would you advise to a father if they try this and they're still getting the monosyllabic treatment from their kid, if they're super resistant? What do you do? Well, you have to play it. I mean, you can't force anything. Follow their lead.

You know, Tuesday you pull over and you make your big stance and you get nowhere. Oh, well. Okay, let's go to hockey. You drive. Thanks. I love you. Don't jam it down their throat. But the next time you're driving, all of a sudden that same young boy starts opening up about how he was really close to Joe and now Joe is sort of ignoring him. And what did he do? And

And there's your opening. Light touch, don't dam it down their throats. You follow their lead. So you'll find, and that's where the hanging out part comes. If you're only with your kid one hour a week, there ain't going to be an opening. But hang out with them and they'll be shut down, shut down, shut down, and then back.

My son, Justin, he was over our house. I don't remember why exactly, but he stayed over. And the two of us wound up in the kitchen at three in the morning having a midnight snack, which we both do individually. And he looked at me and he goes, Dad, Dad, he's 37. Here we are in our underwear having a midnight snack together. How cool is that, Dad? That's so sweet.

That's a moment of relationality. Underwear eating some ice cream straight from the container. Absolutely. We don't mess with no dishes here. We're guys. When we come back, your questions. Terry Wheel's advice. This podcast is supported by Google Cloud.

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Not your usual breakfast move. And that's the point. Suddenly, Ash Browns found their soulmate. Eggs got bold. Turns out, ketchup is for breakfast. It has to be Heinz.

Terry, you're teeing us up so well. I would love to move on now to some of the questions we got from listeners who wanted to ask you about fatherhood. Get your advice. I'm just going to note that we're going to use only first names in these for the privacy of our listeners who are asking the questions. All right. So, Terry, this one comes from a listener named Matt. Hi, Terry. My son Blake is six. This morning he saw a spider and wanted a box to catch it in.

He grabbed the first box he could find which contained two souvenir wine glasses a friend had just given me as a gift. I told Blake he couldn't use that box. Within a minute, things escalated and he threw a wine glass across the room. I am not great at discipline or punishment or whatever you want to call it. Part of me is mortified that things could get to this point. Part of me feels defensive. He's really a good kid. This was just a bad moment.

After things cooled off a bit, I told him a few things. He's capable of breaking almost anything now. Do we want to live like that? Do we want to not have any nice things? I told him I was really upset and sad and felt like cutting up our Science Center membership card so we would never be able to go to the Science Center again. He cried a couple of tears then went to his room and slammed the door.

Did I send the right message? When things like this happen, what do I need to do to make real consequences but not diminish our relationship? Thanks, Terry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man, been there, been there.

Okay, this is called Talk Softly and Carry a Big Stick. But the stick needs to be proportionate to the crime. So you got reactive and it meant, I say this with love, you retaliated. You were disappointed in your six-year-old. Why? He was acting like a six-year-old.

I get this all the time, you know, in liberal blue-blue Cambridge mass. I get parents who set limits on their kids and spend an hour and a half explaining it to them. And I have to, God forbid the kids should say, I hate you. You know what? You set limits on your kids. They don't like it. Good that he slammed the door. That means he feels safe enough with you to be angry at you. That's good. That's not bad. Your kid's acting like a six-year-old.

Your six-year-old will get angry and reach for something and break it. It's your job to say, honey, you can't do that.

Do that again, and this is what will happen to you. I like if-than statements. Do this again, and this is what's going to, this is the, you know, nature has neither rewards nor punishments. Nature has consequences. Do this, and this will happen to you. And if this will happen to you, it has to be proportionate. What consequence do you think would have been appropriate in

in this instance? You have to go to your room and think about it. Yeah. Time out. Classic. Without any of your electronics or toys.

Think about it for an hour, and then I want you to come down and I want you to talk to me about why your dad would think it's important to teach you that when you get mad, you can't run around and break things. Why do you think that's important? That is not a question I was ever asked to contemplate as a kid. Why do you think it's important to your dad that you not break things? Asking the kid to put...

him or herself in the position of the parent. Why do you think it's important that in this family you don't get to hit your sister? Why do you think we're saying that? And you're six, you go ahead and hit your sister, but every time you do, this is what's going to happen. Look, here's the thing about parenting. You cannot control your child.

If you try and control your child, they will let you know in jig time just how uncontrollable they are. The minute you look at a child and say, you will not do dot, dot, dot, guess what happens? No. What you can control is the environment around the child. You can choose to do this. That's up to you. But if you do, this is what you're looking at. And then you have to follow through. Here's what I teach parents.

And when the kid gets older, you can say this, but only to an older kid. Look, here's what I'm doing. I am teaching you that you can't behave like that. If I don't do that...

And you go out in the world and you behave like that, the world will teach you that you can't behave like that. And the world will be a lot crueler to you than I'm being. So I know sending you to your room feels cruel to you, but trust me, it's a lot less cruel than what's going to happen to you if you're 20 and you behave like that out in the world. So go to your room. That's my job. Man. Yeah.

I think that makes a lot of sense. We have a couple questions that exist in the theme of breaking the cycle, interrupting patterns in families, to put it in your language, facing the flames, facing the fire. The next one comes from a listener named Sean. My father, who is ironically a clinical psychologist...

has admitted to other people, not to me, of course, but to other people that he believes I am already doing a better job than he did as a parent and a father. My grandfather was a depressed alcoholic. And so my dad believes that, you know, he did a little bit better than his father and that I'm doing better than my dad. But I see already in my kids who are young teenagers, the start of some of the same things

pitfalls and deep dark tunnels that I stumbled and crawled through in my youth. They primarily revolve around being withdrawn, quote unquote, emotionally unavailable, and this intense fear of being open and vulnerable. And I don't know how much of this is just being a teenager and how much of this is my own

familial or generational legacy that I'm passing on. But I would really love for them to not have to go through what I've gone through, which at age 48, I've just started to emerge from in small bits. There's much work to be done still. But nothing turns a teenager off more than saying, you know, well, let me tell you what you need to do right now so that you don't wind up like me 30 years from now.

So any suggestions you have would be much appreciated. Thanks. You have to do this with a light touch. Be relational. Push a little, but don't jam it down their throats, but be willing to push a little. You know, that's such a sad... I just got sad listening to you, my friend, and, you know, your father...

telling others that you've done a better job than he. Yeah, I guess so. Otherwise, he would be saying that to you directly, wouldn't he? Maybe you can help him out by letting him know you've heard that and asking him, Dad, it would be a gift. Why don't you say that to me right now? In terms of your son, you have struggled, it sounds like, yourself.

you're emerging now in your 40s, from your own walled-offness. First of all, you keep going. I can't say this enough. The best gift we can give our kids is our own healing and recovery. Your son is not going to come out from behind his wall if you're behind yours. You can't ask somebody to do what you're not doing. And if you do it,

that will speak volumes more than whatever you tell them. So you be open. Talk about, he's old enough, talk about your childhood. Talk about your relationship with your father. Talk about a little bit, not too much, your past toward open-heartedness yourself. Talk about your relationship if you have one.

Don't ask him to be open and be closed yourself. Invite him to be open by always following the cues so you're not overly burdening him. But here and there, when there's an opening, show up yourself and be the man you want him to be. Infinitely better than anything you can say.

The other factor here, which should be named, is what's going on in the culture right now. And understanding that you are leaning in against a resurgence of

of all the least helpful, appealing elements of what it means to be a man these days. And appreciate that. You're leaning into it and you're asking your child to lean into it. You know, what you're saying about these other sort of forces shaping a son, a young person's idea of masculinity is really apt to the next question from a listener. This is from someone who goes by Ken.

And it's about seeing a kid go down a path that you're not sure about and more directly about

trying to model a different kind of masculinity for that kid um ken writes this and we've edited it slightly for clarity and brevity i'm going to read it right now um ken says i have a fear of guiding young boys that comes directly from my relationship with masculinity and men i came face to face with this with my now ex-partner's son he was in my life from four to six years old and

I didn't know what to do with him. He was an angry, combative, and destructive little boy. No doubt he had complicated feelings from his parents' separation. Even at five years old, his biological father, his family, and TV had already modeled for him what it was to be a boy and a man. He loved dominator games like Good Guy vs. Bad Guy, but I would decline to play those games with him and redirect.

That's what Ken writes. Terry, I think this is such an interesting situation this listener found himself in. There's sort of two parts here.

First of all, can you speak to that fear Ken talks about, about guiding this boy in the right direction? Well, if I ever write a book on parenting, I'm going to call it steering on ice. You don't have control. You have approximate control. Wow. A hockey metaphor. I love it. There you go. There's only so much you can do. The kids are who they are. And Ken, he's six. Hmm.

He doesn't have to be a pro-feminist at six, okay? I go back to the father who was talking about his six-year-old smashing a glass. It's like, yeah, he's six. That's what he's supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be setting a container, but not from a place of judgment or contempt. I'm glad this came up.

He likes dominator games, good guys, bad guys. Ken, I love you, man. He's six. Of course he lives in a world of good guys and bad guys, and the good guys fight the bad guys, and the good guys win, and you feel good about that. You're not creating a rapist by playing that game. I mean, Ken, loosen up. Enjoy the kid you've got instead of the one you want.

And maybe that, you know, it's come and gone. Maybe you can rekindle something with them, but maybe you should start with more acceptance and less pruning.

May I tell a story? Of course, and I love you still asking permission, but you certainly don't have to, but yes, please. This is a great family therapist, now-grown Frank Pittman, grew up without a father, and a sensitive guy. Ran around his whole childhood trying to get fathers, men, to talk about their feelings and good luck.

grew up in the South, had a son and thought, okay, this is it, man. I've got a son. We're going to read books together and go to opera together and go to ballet together. Well, his son turns out to be a triathlon jock who marries a triathlon jock. And in his teen years, Frank Pittman was ready to kill him. Wow. And they just screamed at each other for years. And he finally went to a mentor of his,

a great old therapist, came out of retirement just to help Frank with his teenage boy. He meets with Frank, as Frank tells the story, meets with the boy, meets with the two of them, calls Frank into his office and says this. And he says it in a thick Atlanta accent. He says, Dr. Pittman, I've evaluated you, your son, your relationship. You know I love you.

I just frankly fail to understand why you would want to turn this perfectly wonderful young man into a different kind of perfectly wonderful young man. Yeah. There's a lot of extrapolation about the kind of

adult this kid might be because of how he is at four, five, six years old. And I just want to note that like in our first episode, we talked about your not traditional approach to therapy where you are incredibly direct with men and you do it in a loving way and you are literally doing it as you answer these questions. I hear what you're saying and I think Ken will too. You know, it goes back to what I was saying about nurture, guidance, and limits. Yeah. Yeah.

Men often lean on guidance and limits. And if I were there and I had you back with that young boy, play the goddamn game and let the good guys trash the bad guys and have a blast. That's more important than whatever lesson you're trying to give them. The second part, too, I think, to that question, which is sort of broader and more societal, is like,

How can a father, a father figure, a mother, any kind of parent help point boys in a healthy direction when there are so many inputs to masculinity shaping their understanding beyond our influence? I want you to build a relationship-cherishing subculture around your children and your family. Friends, family.

Coaches, mentors, teachers go into school and either join or form a committee against bullying. I want relationship skills taught in elementary school, junior high, and high school. You know, we are...

little social activists with these kids. And we are against the grain. And so it's like a pick. Even I can use a sporting metaphor. It's like a pick in basketball. You want to form a fence between them and the terrible influences that they're going to be bathed in

Pick your friends, pick your family friends, pick mentors, and have something standing between them and what's coming at them. And teach them. Don't pussyfoot around with this. Teach them to handle what's going to be thrown at them. Make it explicit. Mm-hmm.

I want to turn us now to a question from a listener named Paige. This is a question about raising daughters, in fact. Great. Your conversation with Terry Real really blew my mind open to different ways of thinking about my relationship with my father and with my former husband.

And it also made me wonder about the role of girls and women in these relationships that don't go well. So as a parent, a question I would pose is, how can we raise strong girls who

who may find themselves in marriages or other kinds of relationships with men who have been raised in this environment that doesn't make them a good partner. How can we prepare them? And what kind of roles should they have in kind of bringing about a better relationship? Thank you. You're handing me these tiny little questions that, you know, okay, let's fix the world. Look,

It's good because we've been talking about masculinity, but I also deal with women. And I make a big deal out of the difference between what I call individual empowerment and relational empowerment. This is really important for women. Individual empowerment, I summarize as, I was weak, now I'm strong, go screw yourself. But relational empowerment is,

is both assertive and loving at the same time. Let me say that again. Under patriarchy, you can either be connected, accommodating, quote-unquote, feminine, or you can be strong, independent, assertive, quote-unquote, masculine, but you can't be both at the same time. This is important because power is power over. When you step into power, you lose connection. And a lot of women say,

are empowered, psychotherapy cheers them on, and empower themselves right out of skilled communication and connection. Loving power breaks the back of patriarchy for both sexes. Loving power is this. May I, Anna? Yes. You're so sweet. Anything. I can't even imagine ever saying this to you, but is it anything saying,

I don't like how you're talking to me. Be respectful, Anna. Or saying, you know, sweetie, I want to hear what you have to say. Could you tone it down so I could listen to it? I want to hear it. Soften up so I can hear. Two different ways of saying the same thing. One is moving from disempowerment to empowerment. Congratulations. The other empowers both me and you at the same time.

I love you. You love me. We're a team. This is what I want from you. What can I give you to help you give it to me? I want to empower you. And I would have Paige school her daughter in loving assertion,

I'm going to go to this next one. It comes from a listener named Megan. She's a mom to a 17-year-old son and a 22-year-old daughter. She told us the father of her children died by suicide when her kids were young. So as she puts it, her son, quote, didn't really have any male father figures in his life. Let's listen to that one now.

So my question is this, for those mothers who are solo parenting without father figures for their teenage boys, what do you think is most important for mothers to teach their sons about what it is to be a man? My 17-year-old son is incredibly compassionate and

He is loving. He has his first girlfriend. He's committed. He's conscientious. He's a stellar human being. However, I wonder what I can teach him about masculinity. What would you suggest? Thank you. First of all, let me just say, Megan, I'm sorry for the burden.

that you and your family carry, your husband's whatever, suicide. What a terrible thing. And your question brings a smile on my face. I'll tell you why. What do you have to teach yourself about masculinity, my dear? It sounds like you've done it. Own it.

Boys don't need men to teach them how to be men. The research is clear. Single moms, lesbian moms, boys do just fine, thank you very much. That worry is not psychology, it's patriarchy. Children need adults to teach them how to be grown-up adults. Your son is compassionate, big-hearted, has a lovely girlfriend, guess what?

You have taught him everything he needs to know about how to be a man. And there are role models in his life. I guarantee it. There are other men, family friends, your friends, coaches. Fathers are not the only men that boys can turn to. What I love is for you to

to take in, as my Zen friends say, take your seat. Take in that you have taught him how to be a relational man, and you are capable of doing that, even as a woman. And as I say to my darling Belinda from time to time, take yes for the answer. You've done a great job, sounds like.

Terry, I think that will mean a lot to Megan. Thank you for saying that. This next question comes from a listener named Steve. He wrote to us and said he had a question about estrangement and he wanted to break a cycle he saw in his own family. Let's listen to Steve. Hi, Terry. My name is Steve. I have two children now in their 30s. Neither will talk to me, unfortunately. I got divorced when they were young.

And even though I spent a lot of time with them and thought I was holding it all together, they still seem to harbor some very negative thoughts about me. They've told me in recent years that I always seemed angry and depressed, which surprised me. So my question to you is, how do I reboot? How do I reboot with my two kids? I love them very much. Thank you. Really? I think you need help. Mm-hmm.

hire, I'm going to say an RLT therapist, a trained family therapist. Ask your kids if they would speak one-on-one with someone. Don't start off with family therapy. That might be too big a reach for them. But say you're in therapy, you're trying to work on the things that they're complaining about. You feel terrible, they feel badly about how they were treated by you.

As a favor to you, as you do your work, could they share their perspective with the person you're working with? You would like them to reach out to your kids and hear what they have to say. See if you can get that far. And then if you've hired somebody good, they'll hear your kids out and do the best at roping them into, you know, this is really great. I think your dad needs to hear this. That's all right.

Let's all meet together. That's your shot. But get help. Don't try and do it yourself. And get somebody who's good and have that person reach out to them to hear from them not to do family therapy to heal things for your sake. They don't want to heal things for your sake. But they may want to be heard. Start with that.

Yeah, what's your advice for fathers who might be listening to this who look back? In hindsight, they're hearing everything you're saying and they're like, oh my gosh, I feel like I could have done better. Listen, you get yourself into therapy. I don't care how old you are. You can't come from, and I've been there, you cannot come from what you came from

and have the happy, healthy family you want and deserve without doing a shitload of therapy. That's just how it is. It's not fair, but it gets it done. What you brought to the table along with your positives, and all those positives, but you also brought your depression and your unhealed trauma, and that is a burden. And it's never too late. First, get yourself less depressed and less traumatized.

And then talk with your kids about your healing journey and what you were then and what you are now and enjoy the last years. I do have a story. When people tell me they're too old, I say, so far in my decades of practice, the oldest has been 86 years old. Here's the story. True story. I got a call one day, this was years ago,

I got a call one day from a guy, and he says, I hear you do these trauma groups, week-long groups dealing with deep trauma with about five, six people. He said, do you ever do these groups with siblings? I have four brothers. There are five of us, all boys. We had a terrible father, abusive, mean, physically violent, and we're all screwed up. Will you do trauma work?

with all of us as a group. I said, well, I've never done it, but sure, let's try and see how it goes. All of them had marital issues, addiction, rage, depression, all of it. And we did our work, and they all got better. And their marriages got better, and they got on meds, and they got off booze, and they got into program, and they all got better. True story, Anna. So I get a call, and

And God, in her wisdom, I picked up the phone, which is not, you know, I just happened to. And there was this voice on the other end. Is this Terry real? Yeah. This is so-and-so. Oh, it was their father. Wow. 86. So this is so-and-so. I said, well, I've been hearing a lot about you. He said, I'll bet. I've been hearing about you, too. I got a question for you.

I go, okay. He goes, what are you doing with my boys? What are you doing with them? I go, well, I'm trying to do therapy with them. Why do you ask? He goes, well, whatever you're dishing out, I could use some. Touches me. 86 years old. He came in. He made amends to me. He knew he'd been a bastard, like his father before him. I asked if he would meet with the boys. He said, yes, we did family therapy.

Taking a leaf from a great family therapist, Chloe Madonnas, I had him get on his knees physically and make amends to his sons. And again, I didn't ask them to forgive him, but to accept him. And they did. And they had a beautiful three years, and then he died. It's never too late, guys. It's never too late. I want to ask kind of a broad question.

meta question here, which is like, what are you hearing in these messages and these questions all together? Is there a theme coming up for you? Oh, and the questions from people writing in? Yeah. Well, I mean, at the most, Ariel, and it's what I love. Yeah, the theme is, how do I do it better? How do I do it better? I want to do better. And I was with another thought leader. We were co-teaching and she said,

You know, the difference between us is you really believe in the essential goodness of humans. And I do. I do. Goodness will out. I hope our planet survives. But goodness will out. You know, I love, before I was a therapist, I was a literature person. And I love the quote. This is from the German poet Goethe. If you treat someone as they are,

They will be as they are. If you treat someone as they ought to be, they may become who they ought to be. This is my message. Be a pioneer. Have courage. Trust your instincts. We are born to be relational. You know what's right and what's wrong. You know it in your bones. Stand up for it. I want...

to take that Goethe quote and apply it to the whole world. We are not at our best in this moment, globally, politically, around the goddamn world. We need to rise to the occasion, all of us. Open your heart, know what you know, raise healthy kids, don't buy the bullshit. You know, I talked about Bruce

God bless. He quoted me, by the way. Can you imagine the feeling? No, I literally can't, Terry. He quoted me in his intro of the whole book. This is the line he took. The world does not belong to us. We belong to one another. Open your heart. Stand up for connection.

and offer the gift of connection to the next generation. That's our job.

I mean, you just ended our episode, Terry Real. Actually, before we go, can we just say happy Father's Day again? Happy Father's Day, everyone. Happy Father's Day. Go and grill with your kids. I don't care if you're grilling vegetables. It's fun. Go and grill with your kids. I know it's carcinogenic. It's bleeding. Just go have some goddamn fun. My parting words, go have fun.

Terry Real, always an honor. Thank you so much. And thank you for sitting with these listener questions. I know it will be appreciated. Thank you. Always, always great. Wonderful, wonderful interview. Thank you. One more time, happy Father's Day, listeners. And thank you to everyone who sent in a story about their dad or a question for Terry. We hope you get out there and grill this weekend.

The Modern Love team is Amy Pearl, Christina Josa, Davis Land, Emily Lang, Jen Poyant, Lynn Levy, Reva Goldberg, and Sarah Curtis. This episode was produced by Davis Land. It was edited by Jen Poyant. Our video team is Brooke Minters, Felice Leone, Michael Cordero, Sawyer Roque, and Bradley Kimbrough. This episode was mixed by Efim Shapiro with studio support from Maddie Macielo and Nick Pittman.

The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music in this episode by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, and Rowan Nemistow. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. If you'd like to submit an essay or a tiny love story to The New York Times, we have the instructions in our show notes. I'm Anna Martin, with a bit of a cold. Thanks for listening. ♪

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