Fathers and their boys: the ten year silence

I am a father to three girls and three boys. But this post is only about the father son relationship. More precisely it is about father son communication, or lack of it. First my experience: as a dad it is easy to speak with boys until they are around 8, then there’s a ten year silence and communications restarts after they are 18. From 8 to 18 it is extremely hard for dads to have normal conversations with their boys, or at least that’s been my experience. With Tom, I am still getting over the car rides we took alone on skiing trips when he was 13, we would say one sentence every 100km. Now I am spending a weekend in Menorca alone with Leo (9) and getting a conversation out of him, getting him out of his books, his games, his movies is like getting a splinter out from his foot. And while I hope it’s not the case, I fear the same will be true of Davidi when he turns 8. Now at 2 he does talk a lot to me, in broken English, German or Spanish but because of what I lived through with the older boys he must think it weird when I hug him with gratitude. He doesn’t know what I know, that this hug is a slow good bye to the time in which I will be unable to get him to look up from his iPad. These days I thank him for whatever broken language I get. Davidi go dad pool? Yes Davidi, go pool!! Let`s go swimming. With Mia (4) instead I don’t worry. I know ours will be an uninterrupted conversation.
Women, and by that I mean sisters and moms, do find ways to talk to boys. Like Nina Varsavsky does get Leo to speak. And she was able to get Tom to speak when he went through his 10 year silence. Women know how to play men along, somehow be interested in their obsession of the week. But dads, we just don’t know what to say to them. Men you know, we are not great conversationistas. And when a game obsessed boy meets a work obsessed dad conversation is not easy. Because as a dad to start a conversation with your 12 year old, either you totally get into whatever weird game he´s into at the moment, or whatever book that has 350 characters in 150 moods each (a book that your dad brain would never be able to keep up with but he knows all possible combinations)….or well, they just won’t talk. As opposed to girls don’t expect them to start a conversation. So you stay quiet and they go back to their book, iPad, or as in the case of Leo, Kindle book in the iPad.
I understand girls who are 14 and fall in love with a 14 year old boy only to cry over the fact that they just won’t talk to them. Hey girls, you are not alone. That boy can’t talk to his own father! But there is hope. Now Tom and I meet and have the most awesome conversations, yes he´s 21 but dads, be patient. The silence cracks, it just takes a decade