Sons Are Struggling. Here’s What They Need from Us with Psychologist Dr. Shefali

BUY THE BOOKS! Raising Conscious Sons https://amzn.to/4qHNVAk Raising Conscious Daughters https://amzn.to/4ydGaEU Oprah speaks with New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Shefali for a powerful two-part conversation about her new books, Raising Conscious Sons: Cultivating Purpose, Connection, and Inner Power in a Chaotic World and Raising Conscious Daughters: Building Confidence, Courage, and Inner Power in an Anxious World. Drawing on decades of clinical experience and her groundbreaking work on conscious parenting, Dr. Shefali explores the urgent challenges facing children today and offers a new vision for raising the next generation with emotional security, confidence and compassion. In part one, Oprah and Dr. Shefali discuss Raising Conscious Sons and the conflicting messages boys receive in today’s world: from the pressure to be tough, the expectation to suppress vulnerability to messages around identity and male sexuality. Shaped by a digital world she explains how we are experiencing a parental and cultural emergency. She believes we are in a crisis where our sons are losing the essential ingredients of what make a healthy boyhood: wellness, movement, tribe, adventure, risk, connection and sovereignty. Dr. Shefali reveals what sons want most from their fathers and mothers and how parents can help their sons build a deeper connection to their emotions and discover their own sense of purpose. Oprah and Dr. Shefali are joined by three mothers who share their questions about raising sons. 00:00:00 Welcome Dr. Shefali, author of “Raising Conscious Sons” 00:04:30 - The concept of conscious parenting 00:06:45 - Parents wakeup call 00:09:45 - The isolation of boyhood 00:13:00 - We are moving away from a shared reality 00:18:30 - Movement helps regulate boys 00:24:00 - What sons want most from their fathers 00:27:00 - What moms can do for their sons 00:34:00 - Teaching boys to express feelings 00:36:40 - Raising boys with empathy 00:39:30 - Talking to sons about sex 00:41:40 - Understand what your kid is exposed to online Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by our partner, Geico. I do think this is your best work. I do think this is a reason you've come to the planet for this moment and to try to bring us back to save our children.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  They are being abducted by the algorithm in front of our eyes.

• 0:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Whoa. A generation of young men withering in childhood bedrooms. No friendships, no fire, no purpose. So how do parents begin to give their sons fire and purpose?

• 0:36Speaker 01

  We are forgetting that the predatory man who grows up to harm us later was once a lost boy and a boy who was not initiated into adulthood. This is a wake up call to parents to stop outsourcing their influence, their attachment and their attention.

• 0:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi to you from my front porch. Thank you for joining me on the Oprah Podcast. I'm here with world renowned clinical psychologist, parenting expert and New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Shefali. More than 15 years ago, she released her groundbreaking work, The Conscious Parent, one of the most profound books on parenting I've ever read. I give it to every new parent I know. And then came many more transformational bestsellers. But here's what I think is so genius about Dr. Shefali. She's counseling parents and paying attention to the evolving world we're living in. And she starts to notice that children and teens are really in trouble. How does she know that? Because she's talking to them and they are telling her. And parents feel like they're drowning.

• 1:41Oprah Winfrey?

  She knows this because that's what they're telling her. And maybe just hearing that hits you in a knowing place because you too feel like you're drowning. Her next realization is that our current culture is impacting boys differently than it's impacting girls. And it's getting harder, harder, not easier to raise children. And I can feel you all nodding out there. And now she's written not one, but two new books. Raising Conscious Sons: Cultivating Purpose, Connection, and Inner Power in a Chaotic World and Raising Conscious Daughters: Building Confidence, Courage, and Inner Power in an Anxious World. There is so much to learn. So we're doing this in two parts. This episode is all about raising conscious sons.

• 2:26Oprah Winfrey?

  Welcome, Dr. Shefali.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Oprah, thank you. Thank you for being a steward. You know, I get emotional about this because without you, I could not have had the courage and the clarity and the fortitude and the perseverance to stick through because you always hold my hand and tell me to keep going because the resistance, the resistance.

• 2:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, 15 years ago, the resistance to even the word conscious, what it means to be a conscious parent. Remember, we first talked about it? People were like resisting that and what does that mean?

• 2:59Speaker 01

  And you can't tell me how to parent my kids and these are my kids.

• 3:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  And back then, my singular focus was to help parents wake up to the teachers that their children are.

• 3:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  And to have the humility to not treat them like property.

• 3:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  This was back then.

• 3:20Oprah Winfrey?

  That was 15 years ago, yes.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  And it was uncomfortable back then. But today, it has to be the clarion call. It has to be the most urgent wake up blueprint that we need because in today's world, we have reached such a cultural inflection point where this wounded adult male ego, obsessed with greed and domination, has created a culture that is so misaligned to the spiritual, emotional, psychological needs of our children. And the abyss between what they need and what culture is providing has become this gaping chasm.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  And we parents are lost in it because we want to do good by them. Every parent does.

• 4:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Real quickly, for those who are not familiar with Dr. Shefali's work, I want you to first explain the concept of conscious parenting.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  I came, it came to me, this, this movement of conscious parenting as my rebellion against the traditional model that insists on sacrificing, exploiting, manipulating, and using our children as chattel and property. And when I saw myself do it, right? When I was a therapist coaching other parents, I was like, oh, this parent is just unconscious and that parent is unconscious. But Oprah, when I saw myself desire to dominate my daughter.

• 4:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  And I saw my own ego and I had the humility to see it because it takes courage to see the force of your own shadow. That's when I knew if I'm in trouble, if my ego is a pipeline that is just infusing my daughter with its unconscious garbage and I'm not interrupting this pipeline, how can any other parent?

• 5:15Oprah Winfrey?

  It's basically understanding the principle that Khalil Gibran said when he said, "Your children come through you, but they're not of you."

• 5:21Speaker 01

  They do not belong to you.

• 5:23Oprah Winfrey?

  They do not belong to you. And that was a really hard thing for people to accept because everybody thinks, this is my child, this is my property, I can do with my child whatever I want, instead of, this is another conscious being that I certainly have participated in bringing to the planet, but this conscious being is here to teach me as much as I am to guide and teach him or her.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Yes, but if-

• 5:48Oprah Winfrey?

  That is the whole concept, yes.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Right, but if the parent hasn't been raised in their own sovereign self.

• 5:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Then we have to have compassion for the parent.

• 5:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  That there is no way that they can see another being as separate from them because they were used in their parents' fantasy.

• 6:04Oprah Winfrey?

  And so you're just doing what was done to you.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  And I was used, I will use.

• 6:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  I was exploited, I will exploit. And this is the mass disease of our world.

• 6:12Oprah Winfrey?

  I know, but most parents don't think that they're using or exploiting their kids.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:15Oprah Winfrey?

  They think they're providing and protecting and giving and offering.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, so in the beginning of Raising Conscious Sons, you write a wake up call letter to parents. You say, "We are amid a parental and cultural emergency." See if this resonates with you all who are parents. "A crisis where our sons are losing the essential ingredients of what make a healthy boyhood. Wildness, movement, tribe, adventure, risk, connection, and sovereignty," to name a few. "This erosion is what I call the lost blueprint of boyhood." Tell us more.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Oprah, I interviewed over 50 boys and young men for this book and young girls and young women. And I have so many male clients who speak of their confusion, their wanting to be a steward for women and children, but not knowing how in a world that keeps pressuring them, keeps shaming them and keeps diminishing who they are. And I know we women have been so subjugated that we've been on this rampage and on this war cry and we should. But we are forgetting that the predatory man who grows up to harm us later was once a lost boy and a boy who was not stewarded, who was not shepherded, who was not initiated

• 7:41Speaker 01

  into adulthood. And if we don't take care of that lost boy, how can we take care of the predatory man who he grows up to be? So if we want to-

• 7:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Because by the time they grow up to be the predatory men, there's nothing we can do.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Because they've been so severed-

• 7:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  -from their own sense of self. And, and we parents may not be able to outpace the algorithm. We cannot change systems in the world, global systems, but we have power in our home and we have to reclaim boyhood, which means boys have a different way of processing feelings. People think that, oh, boys, they don't feel that much. They feel as much as girls. Their pathway of expression is different. They feel through the body, through their movement. Then come the words.

• 8:28Oprah Winfrey?

  I learn so much because parents are always saying, "Use your words, use your words." Boys don't know how to do that because that's not how boys communicate.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:38Oprah Winfrey?

  I never knew that.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  And they're not ready yet because their prefrontal cortex, which allows that kind of articulation processing, turns online much later than girls. So telling a young seven year old who's tantruming and got so much fire and energy and intensity, which scares the mother, what does he do? No one is helping him contain these fires. And the mother is saying, "Use your words," or, "You're a bad child," or, "You're an ADHD boy." And they're punishing them at schools and they're making them sit like girls. That is not the pathway, the neurodevelopmental pathway that a boy needs. So the environment is failing our boys. Wildness is being medicated. They're being told to sit still and restrain their fire instead of us allowing that fire

• 9:23Speaker 01

  to be contained and allowing it to be intense.

• 9:25Oprah Winfrey?

  And one of the things you go on to write is that "a generation of young men withering in childhood bedrooms. No friendships, no fire, no purpose." Are we describing your son? No purpose. Statistically, these boys are the most isolated demographic and the most likely to take their own lives. So how do parents begin to give their sons fire and purpose? First of all, you got to get the book if you have a son because I know so many of you are frustrated and feel like you're drowning because you don't know that boys and girls are really, really, really biologically, hormonally-

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Developmentally.

• 10:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Developmentally.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  On a different trajectory.

• 10:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, they actually think differently.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  They think differently and we have to nuance our parental interventions and cultural interventions and we're not, right? And if we think women and girls have been given a hard ride because of the patriarchy, let me tell you, the patriarchy is very intentional in making sure it controls its men and its boys as well. And the latest tech revolution is so precisely engineered to force boys-

• 10:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  -to sit in front of a screen because it's giving them the adrenaline, the dopamine hit that real life isn't.

• 10:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  So they're getting their adventure, they're getting their achievement, they're getting status online.

• 10:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. What you say is, "What was a fight for our children's attention has now moved into a fight for their attachment." Attachment. AI companions know exactly how to speak to our children's loneliness, how to mimic perfect attunement, how to slip into the exclusive spaces where only parents once had access. And the predator, this is the thing, the predator, Dr. Shefali says, has moved from the periphery to their heart. And if we do not step up with the presence and connection, our boys may drift into its arms before we even notice they've been abducted.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  And

• 11:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Whoa, that is some powerful stuff right there.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  They are being abducted by the algorithm in front of our eyes, and we are helpless. We don't know how to reclaim them, but there is a pathway back. And these books are the alarm and the invitation to bring them back to us.

• 11:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, this is what I like about the Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters. It's you're not just stating the problem, but you're giving us a path to get there.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:01Oprah Winfrey?

  And this now will be the gift I give to everybody who has a boy or a girl. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing. I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's just a quick tap of the subscribe button, and that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening. Those of you who watch the Oprah Podcast or listen to us,

• 12:46Oprah Winfrey?

  you know, every story we share, every guest we welcome is chosen with purpose. And when people share their stories, we're reminded that we're not alone in this journey called life. As the official insurance partner of the podcast, the folks at GEICO understand that the way we move through life and who we move through it with matters. And I know that life starts to move even faster as a new school year begins. Fall routines get underway. The calendar fills up. Whether you're waiting in the school pickup line, loading up the car for a weekend getaway, taking a quiet drive home after a hard day, or cheering on your son or daughter from the sidelines. These moments remind us the road is not always a straight line. GEICO is there with insurance design

• 13:31Oprah Winfrey?

  to help keep you covered along the way. Because life happens, and with the right support, we all just keep driving forward. And that, dear listener, is everything.

• 13:44Oprah Winfrey?

  So you say, this is a thing that struck me so many times. I mean, I've been reading you and promoting you and singing your praises for years. I do think this is your best work. I do think this is a reason you've come to the planet for this moment to alert the world to what is happening and to try to bring us back to save our children. And you say that we are going to lose a shared reality. What does that mean? And what happens when we do?

• 14:13Speaker 01

  You know, we used to wait at the bus stop, right? We used to wait to go to the movies. We used to collide with each other. We used to have all sorts of diversity. We were forced to confront humans. And now, as we're becoming more privileged, more advanced, more progressive, we are actually moving away from a shared reality. And the algorithm, you know, manipulates that. So they provide you with what you like, your interests. So actually, it's creating these mini cult-like environments online where you are not facing diversity, but you're getting more siloed into your own little bubble. So two siblings growing up in the same house could be having a different interpretation of the world and different world news,

• 14:56Speaker 01

  different world realities than the next one. And when that happens, our ability to connect breaks down. And that's what they capitalize on, because the more lonely and disconnected and paranoid we are of each other, the easier we are to manipulate, because fear profits.

• 15:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, and this is the thing that I want you all to remember who are listening to us, that it started out that they were trying to get your kids' attention, but now they're going for their attachment.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:23Oprah Winfrey?

  And that is why so many parents are suffering with their kids who are attached to their devices.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, and literally addicted to them.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  And the answer to that digital abduction is relational connection. And that's where the parent has supreme and sovereign power, if they are in their own body, if they are willing to step into consciousness and take their children away from the computer codes and the algorithm. Parents need to step back. This is a wake-up call to parents to stop outsourcing their influence, their attachment and their attention. That's what we need to reclaim.

• 15:58Oprah Winfrey?

  And because so many parents have used it as a babysitter, as a way of relieving themselves.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  And it's numbing. It's numbing for us, right? And it's entertaining. It's very specifically designed to create the dopamine hunger that we're looking for. So now, ordinary conversations or listening to the birds or just feeling the breeze feels too insignificant for us.

• 16:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Right, right, right, right. Because the brain needs more and more and more dopamine. We have Parents of Sons joining us, and Nicole is zooming in from New York. Hi, Nicole. Hi.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Hi there. It's so wonderful to be with the two of you. Dr. Shefali, thank you for being such a resource for us as parents when we sometimes feel very lost. And of course, Oprah, thank you so much for bringing Dr. Shefali to us many years ago. I wanted to share a little bit about my situation. I have two sons, 11 and 8. My older son has been diagnosed with ADHD, and he's neurodivergent. And my younger one is also displaying some of this similar profile. So he potentially has that same pathway.

• 17:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Explain to us what neurodivergent means.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Sure. The way they process information, sensory processing, self-regulation challenges, executive function differences. So ADHD generally falls under that category. I love Dr. Shefali's writings, and I really try to employ so many of the principles of conscious parenting to raising my two sons. But it can be really challenging when they are overloaded and they're receiving a wave of emotions. And so it quickly escalates into big body behaviors, whether it's scratching, or kicking, or punching, or throwing something across the room. And in that moment,

• 17:56Speaker 02

  it is a self-awareness moment for me to self-regulate, to hold space, but also keeping myself safe and not shame-trigger them in the moment or try to control them in the moment. So how do I use conscious parenting and, you know, really consider what that looks like when dealing with children with ADHD or neurodivergence?

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have a lot to say. So just really quickly, when I hear labels like that, I'm always skeptical.

• 18:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Because the environment is so toxic for what boys truly need, right? They need intentional, daily, intense movement. They need to express that fire. But they sit in a circle for circle time in books, learning about languages and countries that they will never touch or need. And they then come back home to you a volcano, a rocket ship ready to launch. And now, poor mom is at home.

• 18:59Oprah Winfrey?

  And nobody's playing outside anymore.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Nobody's playing outside. They've not done any activity. They have all this energy, and they've been told to suppress it all day long. So you get a rocket ship when they come home. And mom is tired. She's at work. She has a career. She's going to the gym. She's exhausted. Dad is probably the same. There's no tribe. There's no community to buttress, to buffer, to absorb these boys' wild energy. So we label them, medicate them, and then get scared of them. So the first thing I'll tell you is we have to have compassion for what's happening to your boy before he even comes home from school, because it's a travesty, what's happening to our boys. The education system is suppressing and suffusing their spirit, and then we wonder why they're acting out.

• 19:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Because one of the things that you emphasize over and over is that boys need movement.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:49Oprah Winfrey?

  And that if a boy is allowed to have enough movement, that is how he will regulate himself.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  He will regulate. It is his language.

• 19:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. And all of that movement feels like wildness and too much, particularly for a lot of mothers.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  And a lot of female teachers, a lot of women, because we're not wired exactly the same way, right? So we are okay with sitting calm, and we use our words. So that wildness feels very threatening for us. The next thing I will tell you is let's not mistake intensity for danger. But we do because we are not used to that wild energy. And the third thing I'll say to you as a mother, be aware of your triggers because this wild energy reminds us of all the betrayals we've experienced at the hands of adult male wild energy. But boy wild energy is different. It is genuinely their inability to regulate, right?

• 20:47Speaker 01

  And then that gets mutated and perverted in the adult male. But we women have been so sacrificed to that adult male energy that we associate it. And then when we see our young boys, we project, oh, he must be bad. He's going to be dangerous. He's evil. And we judge and shame them without our realizing. Do we celebrate it? Do we say this energy is your fire and fuel that can become your achievement, can become your protection, can become your generative spirit?

• 21:17Oprah Winfrey?

  This is so interesting because I remember when I was reading your book, you know, Raising Conscious Sons, I remember my godson, Will, Gail's son, when he was like two or three years old, and I said to Gail, what, these boy, he's so different than Kirby.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Because he would come into the room.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Moving.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:35Oprah Winfrey?

  And saying things like vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom. And I was thinking, he's always making noise. He's always into something.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  But that is so beautiful about our masculine boys and men. They're embodied. They have to feel it through the body, through sound, through touch, through physicality. But we.

• 21:53Oprah Winfrey?

  And so the huge mistake some of your parents make is that they believe that boys, they're expecting the boys to behave like their sisters.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Or like us, like the women, right? And they think that is good. So from a young age, a boy is shamed and suppressed. We have to understand this. So by the time he hits pre puberty and puberty, where testosterone, whoo, goes through the roof 50 times.

• 22:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Nicole goes, oh, God.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Right? Now we want to really.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Can't wait.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, we want to stuff them into a box. And so that we are in a collision course with their development. And they feel it and they don't know what to do with their energy. So what I need to tell you is that you keep yourself safe. You can say, you can create a conscious boundary. I cannot let you hit me. I need to leave the room and I will be back, but I'm right here. This energy that you have, I love it. Let's, let's do something with it. Let's throw all the pillows. Let's run outside. Let's race. And I tell parents, anytime you are in a battle with your boy, it means they are dysregulated because they haven't moved enough. Just take it as a formula. Instead of telling them to brush their teeth, make them do 10 jumping jacks, go through

• 23:03Speaker 01

  an obstacle course, find the toothpaste, find the toothbrush and race with you. And then they will do it. If you don't channel that fire, it will mutate. It will become apathy, listlessness and perverted anger.

• 23:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. Wow.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  So your role is to channel. Think of yourself as a channeler. How do I direct this? You are the walls of the tunnel, but that wind must have a place to go, right? You want that energy to be directed, not turned inward.

• 23:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Nicole, you're going to see yourself over and over and over in this book. You're going to so appreciate this book. This is going to help you be a better mother and your sons really evolve into the young men that you want and they want for themselves. Raising Conscious Sons, I can't say enough about it. Thank you for your question. Thank you for your question.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 23:56Oprah Winfrey?

  But I could see you, I could see this resonating with you just from hearing this.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I mean, it gives such hope. Absolutely.

• 24:02Oprah Winfrey?

  You are going to be aha-ing all through this book. Thank you so much.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  You know, Oprah, writing these books is really my ode and homage to the men in the world who have been sidelined under the guise of toxic patriarchy. Most men have gotten a bad rap because all men are not toxic. They want to do good, but no one has shown them the path for that conscious masculinity. And that's why I talk about the seven pillars. I laid out so clearly, if we as parents can nurture these seven pillars.

• 24:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Like regulation, competence, vulnerability, sovereignty, sexual power, belonging, they will be able to integrate a masculinity that'll make us proud.

• 24:45Oprah Winfrey?

  That brings me to this that you write on page 248, that I actually teared up when reading it because I have a friend, Bob Green, and Bob and Yoranya have a beautiful, beautiful boy, Kayden, whom they've done exactly this. I mean, exactly. Mentored their son in such a powerful way. You say, when a father mentors his son, he offers more than advice. He offers belief. And that belief becomes scaffolding inside the boy's nervous system. It steadies him. It organizes him. It gives him a place to stand. So what do sons want most from their fathers?

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Well, let's talk about fathers and the wounded masculine in our fathers.

• 25:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Because fathers can get a bad rap, but they are wounded. They are lost. They were never mentored. They were, they were looked at by their mothers with fear, suspicion, paranoia, and they were suppressed. They have been suppressed all their lives. Men are not supposed to be in suits and boots. They're supposed to be out in the wild, chasing boar and lion and getting exhausted at the end of the day, and then sitting around a fireplace with their brothers. Men are supposed to move in packs. This competition that the patriarchy has created has robbed our fathers of their own belonging to themselves. So now you give them a son to raise, typically two things happen. One is that they see their own shameful, shamed self in the son.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  So if the son happens to be in touch with their vulnerability, their tears, their side that is in touch with feeling.

• 26:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  That was shamed in the father.

• 26:23Oprah Winfrey?

  And he will shut that down.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  He will shut it down.

• 26:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Because he hasn't owned it and integrated and celebrated it within himself. It's in his shadow. The next thing that happens that I've seen a lot is that fathers, because they themselves are holding on in this tough patriarchy, which tells them to be tough and compartmentalize and succeed at all costs, they cannot pass the baton to their sons. And sons are longing for their fathers to look at them and say, I see you, my son. This should happen by the age of 14, 15. I see you, you are ready now to enter manhood and I'm here to have that conversation. I'm here to have this rite of passage.

• 27:00Oprah Winfrey?

  And that I see you shows up in everything that happens. It's not a big conversation.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  But for a son.

• 27:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  To have his father say, I see you, my son.

• 27:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  And you are now going to be greater than I could ever be. And here, I want to now walk in your shadow.

• 27:15Oprah Winfrey?

  You actually talk about the fact that it's not telling the son how to do something. It's doing the thing with the son. And seeing the son do it. And even if the son makes a mistake, being able to say, you know, I made mistakes like that too. Because what the son is looking for is validation from his father.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  And it has to be embodied presence. When you think boy, you think embodiment, in the body. That's how they speak. That's how they learn, shoulder to shoulder, doing with, together. And that's the belonging they're looking for. So if you want to immunize your son against the predatory manosphere and the toxic patriarchy, the father needs to see their lost self in the son and nurture that son that they never could for themselves.

• 27:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Hello, dear listener. Head over to the Oprah Podcast Instagram to check out The Takeaway, presented by GEICO. I'm really happy to tell you about my latest conversation with. It's that quiet time I take after an interview where I can reflect on what sparked and what stuck with me. I love to share those takeaways with y'all. Unbelievable. And GEICO is proud to support these moments and the journeys they inspire with insurance designed to keep you covered and make life's road a little more manageable. So go to the Oprah Podcast Instagram where you can check it out.

• 28:36Oprah Winfrey?

  And you believe this about mothers, a mother's greatest gift to her son is not protection from struggle, but an undying belief in his capacity to face it without falling apart. I just thought, wow. And when that faith in his inner resourcefulness is embodied, a boy begins to trust his own footing. And from that trust, power can finally grow. So what should mothers be doing for their boys?

• 29:03Speaker 01

  So just like, you know, in conscious parenting, one of the foundational principles is that you will project onto your child, you will make them a mini me. So now think about this. If mostly women are raising sons without brotherhood, without adult male mentorship, without community of the elderly males.

• 29:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  She is going to.

• 29:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Which boys need.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. She is going to try to raise him in her likelihood, in her, in her image, whether she does this consciously or not.

• 29:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Or not, yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  So she's going to say, shh, use your words or be nice, be soft, be like me. And he's looking at her going, who on, you are an alien to me. You're not speaking my language. And this is where misogyny starts, right? He begins to resent her. He goes, she doesn't get me. She doesn't understand me. And then because she is protective by nature and she is caring, she doesn't realize that fire doesn't need her hovering, her overprotection and her fear. Fire needs channel. It needs direction. It needs the physical presence that says, I see you and I'm not afraid of you.

• 30:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  But the woman is afraid of the son.

• 30:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. I just love this. Her son is not, she doesn't protect him from struggle, but an undying belief in his capacity to face it without falling apart.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  But she doesn't trust him.

• 30:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Sons need to know, you believe in me and you see me.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  And you're not afraid of me.

• 30:24Oprah Winfrey?

  And you're not afraid of me.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Afraid of that fire energy, so we suppress it, then it has nowhere to go, then it really mutates. And she's like, you see, I knew you were dangerous like the other men in my life. She's on a mission subconsciously not to make him.

• 30:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Like the other men in her life. Yes.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  So anytime she sees intensity, she associates it with danger. This is the split, but intensity is his language.

• 30:48Oprah Winfrey?

  That's because we don't understand the language of boys.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Sandra is a mother of a 19-year-old son in college. Sandra, I know you're finding this interesting, joining us from California. Isn't this fascinating?

• 31:01Speaker 03

  Very much so. Thank you both for having me here and having me as part of this conversation. So Oprah, as you mentioned, I have a 19-year-old son who's in college. And his sister, who's 21, is also in college. And I find it difficult to not hover. So Dr. Shefali, as you mentioned, that is hard. As an HR professional, that's my role, to guide people. And so it's hard to pull back. It's a little easier with my daughter because she is getting that positive reinforcement from media, the girl power movement. But my son is not getting that same level of media support, especially as a boy of color.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  So how do I support him and show him that he belongs and is valued?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  What a great loaded question. So it's layered, so let me just piece apart the layers. First, for our boys of color, especially our black boys, I know how you, as a mother, must feel every time he steps out into the cesspool of racism and toxicity. So I understand why you're different with him than you are with your girl, right? Because there's a real, true, and we need to speak about it, danger.

• 32:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Danger.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  So we need to also remember that our black boys and our boys of color are not only carrying generational trauma in their bones, they are also carrying generational resilience and generational brilliance, right? You are not here simply because you just decided to exist. It has been born and bred out of generations of brilliance. And I think boys of color need to be reminded of that, right? Not just the trauma, but also the brilliance and the resilience that he stands on. And then I will say to you that you are trying to so protect him from falling apart,

• 32:58Speaker 01

  from dissolving under the toxic gaze and the toxicity of culture. You're so protecting him, but in that, you are not giving him sovereignty. You are actually communicating distrust. The world already looks at him with distrust. The world is already telling him, I don't know whether you're going to be good enough. The world is already telling him every mistake is fatal, but so are you, right? You're telling him, don't make a mistake. You're trying to contour his resume, but in doing that, you're clipping his wings. And I understand where it's coming from, but you inadvertently are becoming a microcosm of the same culture that doesn't believe in him.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  So he needs his mother to tell him, you, my black son, stand on generations of brilliance. I know who you are because of what you have withstood, because of our ancestors. I don't look at you as someone weak. I look at you as someone who can teach me and the world what strength is. So you make any mistake you need to while you discover yourself. Don't let culture tell you that your mistakes are fatal and deterministic of your character. There is no morality to making mistakes. This is something that you need to do as you discover who you are.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  So if he knows that in your gaze, he is whole, he is, you know, has impunity, he can discover with his fire and fall down, and there is no course charted for him because it is uncharted, then you will give him the confidence. Confidence comes from competence, but competence comes from struggle. And you're trying to take over his struggle.

• 34:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Does this resonate with you?

• 34:40Speaker 03

  Thank you so much, Dr. Shefali. This is absolutely resonating with me. Thank you so much. Because you're right, I got the pullback. Thank you.

• 34:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you. All right, you're gonna love this book. You're gonna love this book, Raising Conscious Sons. And I know that's what you've always wanted to do and have done because your boy is raised at 19. He's already been raised. So I applaud you for asking the question and for actually wanting to do better. So thank you so much, Sandra. Thank you so much.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  Thank you. Thank you both.

• 35:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Jen is a mom of two boys, joining us from Iowa. What's going on in Iowa in your home? Hi.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  Hi Oprah.

• 35:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi Jen.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Hi Oprah. I got you, Shefali. Thank you for having me here today. I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this conversation on an increasingly important topic and one that is top of mind for me on a daily basis. As a mom of two sons, like you said, 11 and 10 years old, we are very busy and active in our household. And while the boys have very similar interests at this stage, they have vastly different personalities, they have very different confidence levels, and they express their emotions in very different ways. So my question for you, Dr. Shefali, is, given that many boys are taught early that strong emotions like fear and sadness and vulnerability are weaknesses, how do I raise

• 35:59Speaker 04

  my boys to acknowledge and maybe even embrace those strong feelings and express them authentically while navigating the societal pressures to the contrary?

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, we all know the adage that boys are told, don't be like girls, don't cry like a girl. And so they've associated true, real, heart-based, genuine feelings with something negative, right? They've been so shamed for their vulnerability. And what I write in the book, and it's one of my pillars called vulnerability, that if we do not allow ourselves, and this is for every human, but more so with boys because they're shamed so much for vulnerability, if we don't allow ourselves to embrace our limitations and to realize that nobody is without limitations, and I'm allowed to have limitations, we will forever be predatory.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  What that means is that because we don't accept our weakness, because we don't accept our jagged edges and our holes, and we're trying to cover it up with bravado, right? We bully ourselves out of our own weaknesses. We stampede ourselves, don't have a weakness, don't cry, don't feel. That's what creates the bully, right? Because we're bullying ourselves. We're so busy bullying ourselves, of course, we will bully the other. We so objectify ourselves. Boys take all those feelings that culture has called being like a girl, being soft, being like a wimp, and taken all those feelings. And he has bullied himself out of feeling. He has so objectified himself.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  And we don't think of boys as objectifying themselves. We think of girls as objectifying. But boys are objectified out of that. So they treat their feelings as something they can just shove away, as if it was an object. And in doing that, they see other people's feelings, especially the weak, the helpless, the lost, the poor, as weak, the part in them that they've shoved away. And so they bully those as well. Who they can bully, they will bully because they've bullied themselves out of feeling. So vulnerability, allowing your children to be vulnerable, is allowing them to feel. And if you keep a boy close to his heart, he will grow up to be the protector our women and children need.

• 38:16Oprah Winfrey?

  That makes sense, right, Jen?

• 38:17Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 38:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  Absolutely, yes.

• 38:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  I'm so excited to read this book. It's just like everyone else, it resonates so much.

• 38:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, it's gonna resonate. Lots of ahas in there. Thank you, Jen, for talking to us.

• 38:29Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 38:30Oprah Winfrey?

  You believe it's vital to raise, as we're talking, boys with empathy. And how do we do that?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Well, it comes from keeping their gateway to their real-life emotions alive, unshamed and unsuppressed. When we are empathic with ourselves, we will have empathy for others. So the mutations we see out in the world that we call toxic masculinity are men who have been also sacrificed by their parents and taught to not have empathy. So they did not just become those toxic men. They were raised, they were trained, they learned. And this is why I speak to parents, because if we want to interrupt that pipeline, from lost boy to predatory man, we need to teach empathy. And they don't even need to learn empathy.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  The way to teach empathy is keep them in their feelings, allow them to have their feelings. Don't raise them to be happy. Don't raise them to be successful. Don't raise them to be strong. Allow them to experience their real-life emotions.

• 39:34Oprah Winfrey?

  You talk to boys and girls and their parents all the time, and you said you interviewed over 50 boys for this book. What do they tell you they want? What are they looking for?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  You know, they are so lost and they don't have the language, right? So it's hard for them. But what they will express is exhaustion, the pressure of needing to be a man but not knowing.

• 39:57Oprah Winfrey?

  What that even is.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Even an iota, what that could mean. They know what not to be. So they're told, their feelings are taught to them as weakness. And then they've been given a caricature of manhood from the manosphere, these men who teach them to resent women. So they're taught about the negatives, but they're not given a clear blueprint. So they're lost, they're confused, they're exhausted already by 14. They feel the pressure of, how am I going to go out into this world where I'm soon going to be told I'm useless because technology is taking away my function? And when boys are without purpose, without use, where they cannot see with clarity how they are competent, how they are serving and contributing, that is when it becomes perverted.

• 40:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Do the boys you talk to feel under attack by the culture? Do they feel pressured and under attack by the culture?

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Well, I think in some ways, that's a good thing because the Me Too movement has kept them in check and told them, you cannot get your way with your impulses anymore. You can be in your instincts, but you have to be careful about these wild impulses. And they have now been checked. That is a good thing. But in that checking, we did not replace it with the roadmap to how to be a healthy, conscious male. We've not given them that.

• 41:14Oprah Winfrey?

  And we certainly haven't made the distinction between your instincts and your impulses. So let's talk about sex. You say, "The culture has made sex, especially male sexuality, a dirty thing. Here's the cultural failure. Most boys pass through adolescence without a single initiation into the power, the responsibility, and sexuality that is awakening inside them." I mean, they are not. So how can parents talk to their sons about sex?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  So if there was one core message that I think is the absolute takeaway from this book is male sexuality and how our boys enter their manhood in terms of their sexual awakening without a peep. Oprah, I asked most of the boys, did anyone tell you about your first nocturnal emission? Did anyone mark it for you? Did anyone tell you it's going to happen? And they all said, nobody. So it's no wonder they will go to the locker room or to the online sites or to... To be initiated. You see, females, we, when we menstruate, there's blood. So there has to be some conversation around it. But what happens with boys happens in the silence of the night.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  And it stays in the silence of the night, under the bed sheets.

• 42:32Oprah Winfrey?

  I love that you call it nocturnal emissions. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  So, so no one is telling them. And some boys have told me that they thought they were dying. I remember when I got my period and I didn't know, I thought I was dying or had a disease. So you see, when it stays in the secret of the night, right? The, the mother comes the next morning, sees the dirty bed sheets. She sees, she sees the socks. She doesn't say a word. She tells the father about it. He doesn't say a word.

• 42:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Nobody says a word.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Nobody says a word. So he goes to, so he goes online. No wonder he then goes to these rites of passages, which are toxic and gamified, rather than real life rites of passage.

• 43:11Oprah Winfrey?

  And then you write about how profoundly unprepared

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:16Oprah Winfrey?

  uh, young men and boys are to handle female rejection. Because I, I was talking about this with, with, with Galloway recently about boys are, because they watch so much

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:27Oprah Winfrey?

  And want to speak to that.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  And if, if you watch, you should just watch it just to understand what our children are watching. Don't be hidden under a rock, right? Parents tell me, oh, I don't watch. I go, you don't have to watch for you. I'm telling you to watch to understand what your children are exposed to. By the age of nine and 11, your boys have watched. So you need to be prepared to have conversations with them. And this is not about sanctimony or morality. This is about reality. So, um, in, women are always turned on. They're always willing.

• 43:59Oprah Winfrey?

  They're always ready.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Move me any which way.

• 44:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Nobody says no in a video.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  And they are orgasmic and they're exalting and they are loving and worshiping the male body and he can do whatever he wants. It's so easy. There's no foreplay. There's no messy conversation. There's no, does she like me? There's no reading of signs and attuning to whether she is rejecting me or, so he's not understanding that there is such a thing. He, they think the penis can just go into the vagina. These are open gateways and caves and, and, and women are waiting. So then when they get rejected, can you imagine what it does to their ego?

• 44:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  They think the woman is mean on purpose. They take it personally. They don't understand that she's being sovereign.

• 44:39Oprah Winfrey?

  They feel like the kid in adolescence.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yes, like the kid in adolescence, which really sparked my whole desire to write these books with a jolt. Because that boy has been trained by the manosphere.

• 44:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Netflix's Adolescence is what we're talking about.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Yes. So he got so rejected by that girl, he couldn't imagine why she would reject him. So he thought it was personal. It was a personal attack and therefore required a personal vengeance, which is why he killed her. He did not understand that she's a sovereign being, that she just, and he did not understand that just because he has desire, that doesn't mean he gets to activate and manifest the desire.

• 45:12Oprah Winfrey?

  But teaches you the opposite.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Teaches you, you have desire, you have an outlet. It's an immediate thing. So that, all those messy in-betweens.

• 45:19Oprah Winfrey?

  I don't think so many, I don't think a lot of parents even realize how, uh, how influence their young boys.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  They, and they think that their boys are not watching. What are they doing behind the closed doors 14 hours during the weekend?

• 45:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  If not, looking at every hour. So now these platforms have allowed free access to

• 45:40Oprah Winfrey?

  And it's also why so many young boys aren't dating and they have never asked a woman,

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Why should they date?

• 45:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Asked a real person out to date.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  It's too difficult. We, we, we women are not just going to take any guy. Now they have to step up.

• 45:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yep. So it's different. Okay, I, I have to get to this because we could talk for days about this book.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  I know.

• 45:59Oprah Winfrey?

  I just want to encourage every single person who has a son, you're raising a boy, you know, somebody who is, this is the perfect gift for them, raising conscious sons. You write, "When a boy has no place to direct his energy, no one who needs him, no context in which he feels seen and shaped, ah, his system doesn't rest. It inflames and burns. His purpose erodes. His motivation drains away and what is left is deep agitation, numbness or rage. And you believe isolation is slowly extinguishing the spirit of young boys.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:40Oprah Winfrey?

  What can we do about this isolation?

• 46:42Speaker 01

  And because they don't talk about it, you know, we girls will show it. We women will show it in some way. We'll cry, we'll show it in our bodies, we'll express it. But there's hides behind stoicism. I'm okay. I'm fine. I don't know. So we look at it as, oh, that's an independent boy. Look how independent my boy is. He doesn't need me. My daughter's 23, she will still come into my bed, still hug me, still kiss me, still demand I say I love you back. But I hear from my friends who are mothers of boys, there's no contact. And we exalt it as the independent male, the stoic male. But we don't realize that is a withering boy inside. And I call this book Raising Conscious Sons and Not Boys, because there is a son inside

• 47:25Speaker 01

  every adult man looking for mentorship.

• 47:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, that is a beautiful thing to say. A boy who does not feel emotionally safe will not develop resilience. He will develop armor.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:39Oprah Winfrey?

  He will learn to numb rather than feel, deflect rather than process, dominate rather than relate. What makes a boy feel safe?

• 47:49Speaker 01

  When we, when they're very young, allow their fire to be intense and big and chaotic and, and information. And since they are two and three, we are telling them to shh, be quiet, sit down, talk, sit still, be in a chair. It is anti-boyhood. And that's what we're doing from a young age. So he begins to learn early that he's defective, his deviance is a problem and his, his chaos is seen as disrespect when it is only dysregulation. So we are failing our boys and then we end up with the toxic masculinity.

• 48:27Oprah Winfrey?

  And so you say you were inspired to do this after watching Adolescence?

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:31Oprah Winfrey?

  And you did this so quickly because you could feel the urgency that's needed in this moment in time?

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yes, and I knew it needed to come out fast and I got the publishers on a fast timeline and I knew I needed to write two books and they couldn't be in one book because boys and girls have different developmental trajectories, different hormonal landscapes and culture exploits them in very precise, different ways, different fault lines. And if we don't intervene precisely, we will lose the plot.

• 49:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, I think you have done exactly what you have come to the planet to do. Cause you feel the sense of urgency and you also feel it with the parents who say they're drowning and they don't know what to do.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and parents want to do well by their children. We have to look at each other as each of us wanting to do the best, but we don't know how. So this book is that roadmap. I just didn't leave parents feeling anxious. I gave them the tools and the strategies. I broke it down. And you may be a mother or a father who sees their boy more in the girl's book in some chapters. I see a lot of Maya in this book. So you need to read both as a continued conversation. These are not binaries. These are not manifestos of gender determinism. These are really a continued conversation and a cultural reckoning as to what our children need as whole humans in today's digital era.

• 49:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, I just want to say to everybody who's listening to us right now, if you want to be a more evolved conscious parent and you want a better life for yourself, your family, and you really want the best life for your son, you need to read this book. Thank you, Dr. Shefali. Raising Conscious Sons: Cultivating Purpose, Connection, and Inner Power in a Chaotic World. Thank you to Nicole and Sandra and Jen for your parenting questions. And thank you all for watching and listening. We'll see you later this week for Raising Conscious Daughters. Go well. And thank you to our friends at GEICO for presenting today's episode. Dr. Shefali has two new books, Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters.

• 50:43Oprah Winfrey?

  And yes, as Dr. Shefali says, raising a son versus a daughter are different experiences. Both books are available on September 15th. You can preorder your copies right now by scanning the QR code on your screen. The books are both thoughtful. They're practical guides for raising emotionally secure and resilient boys and girls while also navigating the complexities of today's world. I can't recommend them enough. I know for sure that these books are going to inspire some meaningful conversations with you as a parent and with your friends and families. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me.

• 51:24Oprah Winfrey?

  So here's the thing, I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's, it's just a quick tap of the subscribe button and that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening.