How to raise a boy
my son is young (I know), but these early years still matter in shaping the human he'll grow to be
What do I know about how to raise a boy? Nothing.
Am I qualified to write this? Absolutely not.
I know I have a 15-month-old boy who’s obsessed with tractors. Cars, trucks, Dada’s John Deere, minivans, they’re all “tactors.” I also know I have a boy who softly kisses all the babies in his books.
He points to all the deer outside. He begs to go out, out, out. I tell him he could be a park ranger one day. I call him the mayor of Blueberry Hill and wait for him to learn to wave to all the neighbors. His dad says he has a future at Mr. Tire. He flips over all his “tactors” to tinker with the wheels.
We make jokes (or are they?) that he’ll be a professional golfer, skier, football player, baseball star. (Always the star.)
But what about his softer side?
Will he dance with Mama in the kitchen to Nat King Cole, wearing an apron while we bake an apple pie? I imagine us laughing as we clap together our hands dusted in flour.
Will he hold my hand while we walk down our windy lane and we’ll chat about how it feels that the leaves change colors before they fall every year? How it feels hopeful and sad mixed together like the baritone sax?
As he grows up, will he keep showing me his tears?
He loves the vacuum. Will I teach him that men can do so much more than take out the trash? Son, you can simmer a rich beef stew, sip on a red wine, and scrub the pots and pans when the meal’s over. And then you can scrub a toilet simply because you notice it’s dirty.
My mom and my brother kept a journal where they wrote notes to each other as he grew up. He quietly slipped it under her pillow when he was ready. He could ask anything. And he did. I want this safe space for my son as puberty hits. What’s happening to my body? Why do I feel bumpy and hairy and smell like onions?
Mostly I want to write him notes to tell him he can be anything he wants to be—an engineer like Dad or a writer like Mom, or maybe a chemist or a nurse or a rodeo clown, it doesn’t matter at all. Just as long as you’re kind and thoughtful and you try every day to notice all the pain and beauty in the world. Just as long as you keep your eyes open and pay attention and always stay hungry to learn.
Keep clapping your hands and dancing in the rain and giggling as you run across wooden bridges. Count all the ducks in the stream, notice every airplane in the sky, tiptoe on every crunchy leaf. Fall over and roll on the ground laughing and crying when you’re tired. Throw your head back on the swing, delirious, every day for the rest of your silly life.
Granny calls him Beautiful. We laughed. Now I hope it sticks.
My boy, you are beautiful. Keep being gentle like I show you when we’re petting the cats. Keep quietly flipping through all your books, soaking it all up, all the beautiful words and stories the world has to offer.
Remember—always—that providing can have such a richer meaning than simply counting your money. One day, but not a day too soon, provide someone love and comfort and laughter and a soft place to land.
Give these a try…
As I shared in the beginning, I am not qualified to give any advice on raising a boy. I am simply a mom googling for answers and following my curiosity, eager to learn as my son grows. Here are a few resources that I am exploring:
“In addition to teaching us that nurturing children is not natural for men, outdated masculinity norms also makes us think that boys can’t be weak and that they require less coddling and support than girls when, in fact, the data suggests quite the opposite. Many parents, regardless of gender, even believe that too much support can be bad for a boy. That kindness will make him weak rather than righteous. For many parents, the fact that they raise boys and girls differently may be unconscious. Fathers in particular interact differently with their kids depending on their gender. Research demonstrates that fathers smile more at their daughters than their sons. They also sing to their daughters more, use more analytical language, have greater responses to their sadness and happiness and were generally more engaged. Conversely, the fathers of sons engage in more aggressive rough-and-tumble play and use more achievement-specific language. Men are simply replicating how their fathers engaged with them, preparing their children for the appropriate gender roles. Although often unintentional, gendered parenting can have wide-ranging consequences. When boys are raised differently than girls, with less support, affection and emotive engagement, it can stifle their emotional development. These differences in parenting, especially when they occur in the first five years of development, have lasting effects.”
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, For the Love of Men (p179)
Cup of Jo (a go-to for all the things, including stories about motherhood)
“21 Completely Subjective Rules for Raising Teenage Boys”:
“Teach them the important life skills: How to send a thank-you note. How to listen and ask questions. How to walk into a kitchen and say, ‘Put me to work.’ How to call their representatives about an important issue. How to clean a bathroom, do a load of laundry, scramble an egg. How to sit patiently on the sofa between their two grandparents with their two new iPhones, nodding slowly and saying, ‘Here, let me show you,’ when the grandparents are convinced the Google has gone missing.”
-Catherine Newman, for
’s Cup of Jo
“I was in a school recently visiting, kindergarten, and one little boy said to me, ‘I don’t like to share my feelings,’ and I said, ‘Well, tell me more,’ and he said, ‘I don’t want to bother people.’ Think about that, that’s 5 freaking years old and that boy has already internalized the idea that showing feelings is a bad thing... My point is that recognizing of emotion takes effort, it takes conversation, it takes intimacy and relationship building.”
-Dr. Marc Brackett, S3 Ep 1: Emotional Intelligence: Giving Ourselves and Our Kids Permission to Feel with Dr. Marc Brackett
I highly recommend the book To Raise a Boy by Emma Brown. My tractor truck loving buddy is only 3 but it is good to be thinking about all of this now.