The final steps in the process of molding boys are practices that reinforce the boy’s grandiosity, his male privilege, his “better than” position. Relational impoverishment creates the insecure base for the feelings of shame, worthlessness, emptiness that haunt many men and, at their most extreme, blossom into overt depression. When we reinforce a boy’s grandiosity, we invite him to escape such pain by flights into addiction or the illusion of dominance.
