Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me. I’ve had three kids across two marriages and I am undoubtedly the weak link. My 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son trust their step-mom more than they trust me, which proves that I married well but am still getting the hang of being a dad. Most of us are.
That said, there are a few subtle nuances that I have picked up along the way as a dad that might come in handy for moms raising boys.
Ladies, here are some things to think about with your boys:
- Think caveman. Adult women have thousands of emotional states, as do girls like my daughter. Boys, on the other hand, tend to feel one of three: mad, sad, happy. Don’t project your complex emotional life on your son. His issue of the moment might not be that complicated. He wants to eat, poop, or run. On a really bad day he wants his toy back after some other kid took it from him. He doesn’t want to stare out the window and have lengthy discussions about the meaning of life, as my eight-year-old daughter often did.
- Watch his body not his mouth. Again, like adult men, the clues to how your son is doing will show up first in his body language. Jumping up and down with six-inch vertical leaps is the natural state of being and is good. Slumped shoulders are bad. Yelling is good. Quiet needs attention.
- When in doubt, hug. Boys will often have a much harder time than girls verbalizing their problems. My 5-year-old son will sometimes burst out into tears after seemingly trivial events. I know there is something deeper going on, but I am not going to get it out of him, at least not at that moment (whereas my daughter would not only tell me what went wrong but in no uncertain terms why it was my fault, which was generally true enough). So the solution is physical not verbal. I spend a lot of time just hugging my boys. I usually have no idea why. But as a default cure-all, it seems to work wonders. A minute later they are all patched up and ready to rumble again. This even works pretty well with my 14-year-old, who is a 6-foot-tall linebacker at Boston College High School.
- Yes, it really is all about poop. Girls potty train 6 to 9 months before boys, but once boys make it onto the throne, there is no stopping them. Moving their bowels is pretty much the highlight of their day (true confession: it still is for me, too), and they are going to want to talk about it. Bathroom time is a participatory sport. My five-year-old likes to head to the bathroom just as the family is sitting down to dinner, sometimesduring dinner. It’s the first time he has been still long enough to realize he has to go. And he wants me to come with him, not just to assist in the wipe but to have a leisurely conversation about the status of his poop. As much as I found this inconvenient at first, now I just go with it. Quality time is quality time.
- Batman lives forever. Boys, even at a young age, realize the importance of super powers. They want to be good and believe in the existence of ultimate good in the world. Boys sort out their identities in relation to the mythical characters they hear about. My son is obsessed with Batman. He wears a full costume, even through the airport and down Madison Avenue. What amazes me even more than his dedication to the superhero is how the guard at LaGuardia or the guy hanging off the back of a garbage truck sees him and shouts, “Batman!” My boy nods his head just slightly, acknowledging his public before moving onto the important work at hand, like going to kindergarten.
- Pointless physical activity is perfect. My brother and I once convinced his two sons and my older boy, when they were all around the age of 10, that they really needed to build a structure out of rocks. The rocks were on one side of a beach, but the perfect spot where the structure had to be built, according to our sage advice, was on the other side of the beach. Each stone weighed between ten and thirty pounds. The boys started moving the boulders one by one, working together to lift the heaviest ones. My brother and I set up our beach chairs midway from the rock pile to building site. We read the paper most of the morning while the boys tired themselves out moving rocks and then assembling a tremendous cathedral. By lunch they were tired and happy, and my brother and I had enjoyed a peaceful morning.
- Winning does matter, but less than you think. Boys — perhaps even more than girls — put themselves under extreme pressure to perform in school, in sports, and in social situations. They talk about it less, so the sting of failure can run even more deeply than with girls. With boys it’s important to emphasize the lessons to be gained from failure, instead of trying to win at all costs, and to emphasize the development of the whole boy. Too often in our culture, boys are pushed to become one-dimensional robots. Goodness isn’t about winning at youth soccer or having the most friends or being the smartest kid in class; it’s also about being kind. That’s something as a mom that you can particularly help your son understand.
- Clothes matter. I know there are way more options for dressing little girls than little boys, so the tendency might be to just throw jeans and a t-shirt on your son and forget about it. But you better make sure they are the right jeans and the right t-shirt. The only consistent battle I have had with my sons is over what they wear. It matters way more to them than I ever would have imagined. They want to look cool; they want to be comfortable (pants that are tight but not too tight, warm and yet breathable). I do draw the line with clothes that have already been worn two days in a row, but I don’t discount the importance of fashion to my kindergartener.
- Crowds, not so much. I have noticed that my daughter lights up when she enters a crowd, whether family or strangers. Mass humanity is something that gives her energy. With my boys, and, frankly, for me too, it’s the opposite. They get shy and tend to hide behind my legs. I try to protect them from these situations and not push them beyond their limitations.
- Bedtime is sacred. Because boys are so active, it’s hard to get them to sit still. The best time of day is the ten minutes before they go to sleep. Crawl into bed with them, read books, and hold them while they fall off to sleep. If you don’t believe in God, you will once you have lain next to your overactive son while his body goes limp next to you, and he ever so faintly begins to snore.
If you enjoyed this, you might also like Tom’s new piece: Raising Teenagers For Dummies (Like Me)
About Tom Matlack
“Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me. ”
Heavily disagree, neither is a better parent…even in gender role stereotypes both are quite valuable. Were you trying to win over the mum-brigade? It’s pretty damn insulting to men and not a good choice on a site for men, you’re a father, do you really believe mothers make better parents than fathers? It’s that silly attitude that helps make it much more difficult for men to be trusted around children.
“Think caveman. Adult women have thousands of emotional states, as do girls like my daughter. Boys, on the other hand, tend to feel one of three: mad, sad, happy. ”
Care to tell what states these are? Hell even as a boy I had far more emotional states than those. I could easily spot jealousy, distrust, fear, love, compassion, intrigue, curiosity etc in boys and men.
*Grabs popcorn n waits for the pitchforks*
Okay, so I’m not a man… so I can’t verify any of this to be true, but I do agree with Archy’s points. I’m not a mother, but I’m like 99% sure I would be a pretty horrible mother. Some women do seem to really REALLY love children. I think I missed the maternal gene. However, I have also met many men who really seem to enjoy being fathers. So I think it is overly simplistic to say women are better parents (kind of pushing the sexist card for both genders there).
And yes. The emotion thing? Super stereotypical! I think it’s hurtful to assume your boys don’t have those same emotions. I really despise the “men are simple, women are complex” stereotype. From a female perspective, my emotions were pretty clear growing up. When I was mad, it was because my brother was bugging me and I wanted to throw things at him. Pretty straightforward. :/ I think this minimizes male emotions and overcomplicates female emotions. Boys can get nervous, boys can feel stressed, those don’t seem to fit into the 3 categories. Unless you’re saying like… 3 years old, in which case then that is true for girls too.
I agree. The internal lives of boys and girls are probably more similar than they may look from the outside. If there’s a big “emotional difference” between boys and girls, it’s probably in the ways they express their feelings more than the original feelings themselves. If you’re a mother and you see your son act in a way that you didn’t as a little girl, that doesn’t mean he’s experiencing a feeling that you never experienced. He could be feeling the same way you did at his age but expressing it differently.
Good point about the “boys simple, girls complex” trope. The stereotype looks like a pro-female sentiment on the surface, but it also comes with a downside for girls – what a girl says she’s feeling isn’t really what she’s feeling, because it must be something else, because girls are complex, and they get upset for really stupid reasons, because they’re so damn mysterious and complex. Their complexity transcends rationality, and they’re so complex we can just ignore them because we’ll never really understand them.
“Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads.”
This is absurd. I would argue that typical father qualities (one on one playtime and interaction) are MUCH more valuable than typical mother qualities.
I always hate it when men (for lack of a better word) cow tow to women and mothers. I know you are trying to give advice to moms about raising boys and I think it is great BUT for gods sake , don’t start off with a hugely insulting (to men) statement, then go on to tell a mom that her son only has 3 states.
I expected better from GMP, I fully expected this from a radfem websites who are opposing shared parenting.
I disagree. I believe it’s spelled “kowtow.”
Other than that, of course, you’re 100% right.
Like you, I respect that the intent was to advise mothers to treat boys like boys, instead of defective girls.
However, I also thought the statement about boys was dehumanizing. It certainly does not pass the switch-genders test. “Girls only have three emotional states: needy, angry, and subdued”. Defining the emotional state of a child by the way the child is perceived by mom is not helpful, in my opinion.
Every person’s emotional state should be defined by how the person feels, and not by how other persons feel in response. Just my opinion.
With all respect to the wonderful advocacy that Matlack has, and continues, to do on behalf of boys: this one fell far short.
Well, that first line made me not read any further. The suggestion that mothers are innately better parents is absurd.
Its funny. My son (age 10 at the time) began building a rock dam on a mid-sized river where many people gather in the summer to swim in the vast natural pool. He realized the big bolders where much lighter while in the water, and used that to his advantage. Soon, all the boys under 16-ish joined in the project. They acted as if they were building a dam for their very survival. They would occasionally check the changing level of the pool and shout-out the results to the non-building public. A couple of hours-in, half the men had joined-in with the same perceived imaginary cause.
Great story Rob.
As a mother of two boys (living across the street from two girls the same age), I take issue with a great deal of the article. One, the idea that mothers are inherently better parents. Good parents are good parents whether they are male, female, gay or straight, black or white. There are periods of time (breastfeeding) where one gender may be needed more than others, but we do have formula and bottles and fathers widely speak of enjoying nurturing and rearing their young.
Also, I think all children have complex emotional states. How they manifest this may fall along gender lines, or it may not. Both of my children are male and they have 180 degrees difference in how they express themselves, though both have excellent vocabularies and are encouraged to talk about feelings and thoughts when they are ready to do so. One is more of an introvert and needs to talk right before bed when he’s quiet and still. One needs to tell me all about his day the minute he sees me or his father.
Body language is important to read no matter the gender of the person, fyi. Girls transmit information subtly as well, especially introverted ones (meaning introverted from the classic Myers Briggs test).
Physicality, I agree with but for both genders. Girls (at least the girl children I know) benefit massively from being able to be physical, exhaust themselves and engage in creative outdoor play. Our neighbor kids (many of all genders in the neighborhood) all ride bikes together, climb trees, build things, and roughhouse.
I myself was an immensely physically active kid and spent most of my summers and after school catching snakes and frogs in the creeks behind our house, building forts and playing Wonder Woman. Girls like superheroes too.
I liked to read and listen to music too, of course and mostly acted “like a girl” in middle and high school, but I think it’s very hard to come up with “boys are like this/girls are like that” parenting tips for the following reason:
–Each child will have unique needs in terms of their emotional life and will need different things from each parent at different points in their life. Just like adults have unique needs in terms of their emotional lives and need unique support in their relationships.
Yes, yes, and yes. There may be some good general rules about kids, but never forget the complexity and the similarities. Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean that they’re simple.
Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me.
I wonder about that “generally are better parents than dads” part (of course you’re free to measure yourself against moms all you want though). Its kinda like saying “men generally make better soldiers than women”. Its an accepted idea but bear in mind that for a long time women were actively limited in their ability to become soldiers just as men have been actively limited in their ability to be parents. As for your listing:
1. I would certainly agree that as an adult woman she should not project her emotions onto him but at the same time its important for an adult man to not project his emotions onto him either. I take it you are trying to tell moms they need to be ready for the differences between young boys and young girls but “He doesn’t want to stare out the window and have lengthy discussions about the meaning of life…” sounds a bit absolute. He may not want to do those things but parents, moms and dads, need to be able to recognize, accept, and assist a young boy whether he wants to do that or not.
2. Very much agree on this. Its important to show boys that its okay to verbally express their feelings but parents need to be able to recognize body language. I bet girls express in body language as well.
3. Yes. If nothing else this will let them know that you are there for them. All kids need this from their parents.
4. The poop thing has always puzzled me. I’m glad you’re making quality time (that’s almost always a good thing) of it but I just don’t get it.
5. And plus stuff like that makes for funny stories when he gets older.
6. Nice.
7. Yes. Don’t let the future be filled with more men that think they are only as valuable as the victories they collect.
8. This is a lesson I’m just picking up on now for myself. I don’t wear stuff multiple days in a row mind you. At the end of the day though make sure they understand that its not the clothes that make the man but the man that makes the clothes.
9. Its good to not force them but I think a gentle nudge or two may help with this.
10. Downtime is important. Get it while you can.
Thanks for responding point by point Danny. I would qualify my statement about moms and dads as having potentially/generally different strengths. Women have been the traditional stay at home parents so they have more practice historically. But us dads bring something special to the table which was really what I was trying to demonstrate here.
Women have been the traditional stay at home parents so they have more practice historically.
I think that’s what’s getting at people Tom. Women have gotten that practical history from what I said above: “Its an accepted idea but bear in mind that for a long time women were actively limited in their ability to become soldiers just as men have been actively limited in their ability to be parents.”
So while you may have been trying to be funny it doesn’t surprise me that men that have been actively limited would be put off by commenting that women are* better parents (nor would I be surprised at women getting put off by the comment that men are better soldiers).
Also I notice you are giving advice to moms that are raising sons from the perspective of a dad. You’re a son yourself right (or is that kinda being blended in with the advice you give here)? I’m sure most people know that but actively asserting that you are a son as well kinda drives the point home.
* – I know you said “generally” but this can every easily but just written off as only being used to deflect accusations of generalizing.
Danny see my response below to Marcus.
Julie et al.
Funny I wrote this for Babble and it’s one of my most read pieces ever (3k FB shares). I heard from friends all over the country who had had strangers pass it along. Mom bloggers like Daphne (http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/cool-mom-reads-to-her-son/) who was a stand up comic before staying home with her kids made a video of her reading it out loud to her son, which in turn got more traffic.
In all of that my complementing moms, even if a little tongue-in-cheek, and my attempt both talk about what boys at least in my experience are like and be amusing at the same didn’t get the outrage that we see here.
To me that is part of our problem. A zillion moms and dads thought this post was cool enough to pass along get a chuckle and give you some tidbits to think about in terms of boys whether you happen to agree or not.
Here it becomes yet another case of THE GREAT GENDER DEBATE.
Give me a fricking break. When you play with toddler boys and toddler girls there is no difference? I realize gender is a spectrum but in gender there is no difference? Do you know why there are so many single sex schools in this country? It’s because boys and girls learn differently. Frankly girls tend to be ahead and more able to concentrate at a younger age.
Fast forward to the teenage years (which I am living with right now). A girl who has just come of age and a boy who is having wet dreams are not the same beast. They are both challenging, to themselves and their parents, but in different ways.
I was trying to poke fun at that and talk about my experience parenting. About a million people on Babble thought that was great. It’s sad to me that the readers on the site I founded don’t see it that way.
Which is why I said kids all have unique needs. I do think boys and girls are different. But I also think they are both very complex is all. Dunno. The piece didn’t seem so humorous to me, but maybe that’s due to other factors than the piece itself? Babble is a very different site than GMP. I personally, more and more as the months go on, have a hard time reading the tone of GMP.
And I mean….the site is filled with people with a hair trigger on gender issues. The mothers are generally better at parenting was bound to get a very strident response from many of the men (and women) who post here seeking support as men who parent.
Anyway, Babble is a very different site with different readers, different history, different tone. That’s not for discussion here, though if you are interested in my thoughts email me and I’d be happy to discuss.
My point is that we all have to do away with our hair triggers. It’s getting really old and was never the point of The Good Men Project anyways. This is suppose to an open forum where men can share about what it means to them to be fathers, sons, husbands, workers and men. The fact that every piece gets dissected into gender politics is, to my way of thinking, very disheartening and counter productive. The rest of the world doesn’t do that. They take things, like my piece, at face value. No great conspiracy theory by gender warriors on either side. I am quite confident that of the hundreds of emails I got when this piece was originally posted none was trying to interpret what I had wrote in terms of feminist or MRA constructs. They just thought it was cute and funny and interesting. Some parts they liked. Some they thought was silly. But overall they thought it was enjoyable to read and made sense. Honestly that is the kind of attitude we need more of here on GMP. Gender as a theory is discussed plenty elsewhere. Manhood as a practice is the goal here. Nothing more and nothing less. For goodness sakes, lets get back to THAT. And stop with all the harshness.
Well I suppose we should have some long term meetings about how to do that
Right now, the site has a lot of that going on. Some sites are designed around other things and for whatever reason, this site has gender as a…..like a lightening rod.
Heck, I’ve had comments in articles of mine that I thought were just poetic pieces coming at me about gender. If I post them anywhere else I don’t get that.
And in my own response to you I did agree with you about all the physical stuff. It’s crazy important to let kids run around like mad, let them lead you in terms of their own emotional expression needs. I see this less from feminism/mra and just….parenting is case by case stuff. Anyway, I’ll be in touch.
I think the reason that it is an issue here, and not elsewhere, is because (as others have noted) the audience here is a lot more aware to just how acceptable and prevalent misandry is. Most people outside the MRM and the feminists that can sympathies with men’s issues (a large portion of this websites current audience, I suspect) still get a laugh out of men getting hit in the gonads, or taking a slap across the face (or a lemon squeezed into the eyes) for looking at a pretty girl. They are the people who don’t see a problem with the image of men on TV getting closer and closer to homer Simpson as being the quintessential man. So to see the founder of a website dedicated to learning how to be a good man, self-denigrating, not just himself, but men in general, for whatever reason, and worst, setting yourself up with an excuse to fail (because if/when you do, it’s not your fault, women are just better at it than men), that’s not the path to being a good man, quite the opposite in fact.
Yes, men and woman are different, they teach different value through different methods. And yes, some parents act as gatekeepers, denying the other parent the opportunity to learn and hone their parenting skills, resulting in a feeling of being an inferior parent, but that isn’t inherent to ones sex.
And as to boys having limited emotion, if you had to shoehorn boys into three emotions, I think curious, bold and frustrated would be far more typical. But of course, boys do also get mad, sad and happy, determined, coy, anxious, bored, excited, afraid, guilty, jealous, lonely, disappointed, satisfied, etc.
And FWIW, I’m not outraged at all. If was outraged I’d have emailed you privately.
As Julie pointed out, different audience. Babble is perhaps not as sensitive or primed to notice gender stereotypes in a piece like this as your readers at GMP, but if you expect that to slide unnoticed here, well…give us a frickin break. You don’t have to feel penitent if you think it’s all true, but you just sound silly if you expect a statement like “Moms are generally better parents than dads” to be taken as tongue-in-cheek humor at GMP.
The story had many charming and relatable pieces to it, and if you’d left off the generalizations and just presented it as a bunch of ways your sons have been different (and parenting them is different) from your daughter, I think you’d get mostly amusement and “My son, too!”, even here at GMP. But you didn’t just tell your story, you generalized it and presented it as *advice* from one inferior parent (by your own reckoning) to the class of parents (mothers) you’d already deemed superior, while at the same time generalizing your own sons and daughter to “This is how sons and daughters are.” (Otherwise, it makes no sense to be offering it as general advice.) You don’t have to like that GMP has a hair-trigger to gender issues, but you can’t possibly be surprised by it anymore. If that was going to bother you, you should have adapted the original piece to remove the gender stereotyping, and just leave in all the adorable father-son stuff, which frankly, was most of the article. Instead of castigating your audience for being too sensitive, take advantage of the fact that you actually know your audience, and write to them accordingly. Or don’t, but don’t be so hurt when they respond in predictable ways.
ECHO
Marcus really you are going to go under on me?
Yes I could have reworked the lede but honestly didn’t occur to me that I needed to sugar coat it. This is a piece directed at moms with some thought on how men might know a thing or two about what it is like to grow up male. Stylistically I was trying to not come off too heavy-handed while addressing moms directly, so saying that there are certain ways in which the mothers to my children are and always will be superior to me as a parent is an honest and frankly strategic thing to do on my part (I am quite sure both mom involved had plenty of people walk up and talk to them about it so if I had not done that I would have been in huge personal trouble).
What troubles me the most is that you are telling me that somehow I can’t publish this piece here without getting the kind of gender based extremism that somehow has taken over our mission. I think that is crap. This piece wasn’t about feminism or men’s rights or even whether dads get a fair shake. It was one dad playfully talking about what he thinks it’s like to raise a son and addressing that to moms to consider. A zillion elsewhere did and got the message with the sincerity with which I wrote it.
You may or may not know that being a father is about the closest thing to my heart. For the past 15 years I have had to fight tooth and nail to see my kids by my first marriage. I still do not get equal time. My first wife made clear that she would have custody and I would have visitation because she was a superior parent to me. And the court approved her POV without any evidence other than her gender.
So if you want to get all serious on me, I can go there. I have battled to be the very best father I can be to my kids despite having shit divorce law and a sometimes very crazy ex tying one hand behind my back. If you really think I believe that dads are inferior to mom’s in all ways please read: http://goodmenproject.com/good-is-good/dad-not-god/
Again, this wasn’t intended to be a piece about divorce law, gender politics, or comparing parenting styles. The meat of the piece was about poop and batman and hugs.
Yes, I think it is wrong, very wrong, to turn into something that it is not. If all of Babble’s readers can see what I intended here and even you can’t then there is something profoundly wrong with what we are doing at GMP.
Tom,
I think I rolled my eyes a bit at the opening line, but only partly because it was steretypical hyperbole. The other part just figured that the nit-pickers had something to jump on.
Anyway, whether wrong or not, there is a lot of truth in what you say. Are women better parents? No, but I knew exactly what you meant. And, what you meant rang true.
Do boys only have three emotions? No, but I knew exactly what you meant. And, what you meant rang true.
Are boys fascinated by superpowers? Okay, that was true.
Keep it up, and don’t let the bastards get you down (you know who you are).
-Jut
Thanks Jut.
I’m not going under on you, Tom. My buoyancy control device is fully inflated. (Scuba joke, in case that’s too obscure.)
I think you’re having a hard time seeing what some of your words sound like because you know what they mean. But look again at your opening. It wasn’t a lack of sugar-coating, or a standalone self-deprecating joke about you living down to the stereotype of dads as inferior parents. You said, flat out, that mothers are better parents than fathers. The self-deprecating joke part was that it was doubly true for you, but that only came after deprecating the whole gender with no trace of irony. (Archy detailed pretty well why that would bother a lot of GMP readers.)
You’ve appealed to the sincerity of the piece, which I agree is endearing for most of it, but it’s that same sincerity that makes the opening and a few other generalizations hard to swallow. It was funny in that “kids are cute and funny” kind of way, but not that “I’m being ironic with my generalizations” kind of way. Since I know you through more than this piece, I don’t think you really believe men are inferior parents (or that you’re an inferior dad), but the piece says otherwise. That’s where the blowback is directed.
Whether you believe every word or not, generalizations and all, what I’m really hoping to convince you of is that the reaction to them at GMP should not surprise you. If you don’t want bears in camp, don’t keep food in your tent. If you don’t want people criticizing your use of gender stereotypes (and there were a few commenters who did so at Babble, too), then don’t casually slide some into your GMP articles and expect them to be ignored. Treat bait like bait.
Cutting the bait… I sincerely enjoyed the meat of the piece. The batman imagery was easy to picture and adorable. I thought the section on winning was very important and true, for all kids, but especially boys who I think have the “winning is everything” lesson hammered into them more than girls. I thought the closing about how beautiful bedtime can be was touching and very much like my experience, even though I’m not a match on the son part or the faith part. As a personal list of dad stuff, I loved it!
“Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me.”
Tom, seriously, if you cannot understand why a site on men’s issues that has a lot of fathers, especially fathers who’ve already been beaten around by society, get upset at your article and think it’s simply a hair trigger….
Starting off by insulting men isn’t helpful at all and simply keeps the bullshit gender role assumptions going, if you feel you aren’t as good a parent as your partner then that is fine but please don’t assume you know the rest of men. Unless you’re going to explain in depth what you mean, it’s going to come across as an insult. It’s really not hard to understand this backlash.
Your post at the other site also had quite a lot of comments calling you out for gender stereotypes. Now if you had mentioned it was simply stereotypical behaviour without coming across as stating pure facts.
“Think caveman. Adult women have thousands of emotional states, as do girls like my daughter. Boys, on the other hand, tend to feel one of three: mad, sad, happy.”
Statement, tone comes across as a fact which isn’t true btw for many boys and many women even. It’s a generalization and one that can be seen as quite harmful, your mission here is to get men to open up right? Explain to me how men open up when you’re shoehorning boys into constricted emotional roles? We learn much of our actions when young and continuing the whole boys have very few emotions, girls have a lot of emotions stereotype leads to adult men that find it hard to open up. I personally find it hard to open up BECAUSE of that kind of thought, that whole boys have few emotions bullshit that doesn’t allow boys or men to really express more than the acceptable emotions.
There is some good info in your article but the generalizations and the insulting opener make it come across in a very different tone. “The rest of the world” might have liked your article but guess what, a lot of people are sexist, a lot of people do believe mothers are better parents and trust men less. I believe there is an article here by a man who wasn’t trusted by his partner for helping to raise their child without her around, casually throwing in stereotypes that reinforce that distrust I believe is quite harmful.
Please Tom, listen to the men and women speaking out on it because it’s not all about conspiracy’s and mrm/feminism bullshit but simply the tone of your article and lack of defining the jokes creating an issue. How exactly are they to know it’s meant to be a joke? Caveman itself has been used as a sexist insult against men belittling them as stupid and not having emotional intelligence, should we all go ha ha a joke, funny funny?
Wanting to get men’s experiences on life is opening a floodgate, not every man is going to accept what you say and go bravo Tom, if you say something offensive then yeah you will get people calling you out on it. I don’t think you meant it that way but it might help to find a way to drop the generalizations especially if the article is going to be posted on a site absolutely filled to the brim with men and women who gender stereotypes have actually harmed and quite badly I’ll add. What is a playful joke today can be a very cruel insult tomorrow, hence why hair triggers exist here. Don’t forget many of the commentators have been through horrible trauma and whilst triggering over everything isn’t helpful, there are definitely a few bits of your article that can really bug people. The audience here is different, surely you can understand that?
I can’t belive tom that this has to be explained to you. You are a very smart guy….BUT, you pandered to the audience on Babble. Next time you write an article on parenting, try reversing the genders on your first line and see if the mommy bloggers will still ‘like’ you.
Give me a fricking break. When you play with toddler boys and toddler girls there is no difference? I realize gender is a spectrum but in gender there is no difference? Do you know why there are so many single sex schools in this country? It’s because boys and girls learn differently. Frankly girls tend to be ahead and more able to concentrate at a younger age.
Tom, are you channeling former Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers?
Give you a fricking break? I’m sorry, Tom, but regardless of whether your intention was to be humorous, there are elements of what you’ve said in this piece that cut me very deeply. I have a personal understanding, rooted not only in my own life experience but in my experience in men’s groups over the last 20+ years, of just how damaging such thinking can be to boys and men, and ultimately, to the entire culture. Boys and girls are different, no doubt, but to assert that one gender is advanced while the other is some sort of primitive (“Think caveman”) is just wrong.
I’ve already responded to some specific points in a comment elsewhere in this thread, so I’ll not repeat myself here. What I do want to say is that I cannot understand how you reasonably expect to be seen as an advocate for men and boys on one hand and publish articles as rife with negative stereotype reinforcement as this one. Your response to those of us who’ve taken exception, essentially a variation on the old male shame standby “stop whining” / “stop being so sensitive”, is equally disappointing.
I’m not trying to start (or win) an argument with you. Frankly, you seem to be pretty dug into your position, which also baffles me. So it goes. But I find it personally necessary to speak up about the things that bother me about this piece whenever I see them, but especially on a site like this one, and your assertion that “about a million people on Babble thought that was great” doesn’t cut any ice with me. I can cite any number of things that millions of people think are great. That says absolutely nothing about whether any of them are good, bad, helpful, hurtful, wrong, or right, nor does it make me wrong in my own appraisal of them simply by sheer force of numbers.
As a woman who was raised by a single mother and whose only sibling is my sister, I found this article incredibly insightful. My sister and I have a wonderful relationship with our father (as does my mother, thankfully). Each of us has 2 daughters and our sons were born 5 weeks apart…..When we became mothers of these boys, we looked at each other and thought “what do we do with boys?” The love is inherently there, but we lacked a lot of experience on the gender difference – As my children grow, I have become more and more aware that the difference is substantial; this pertains not only to my relationship with my son, but also my relationship with my partner, with my children’s father, with boys that are “friends” or peers of my daughters ( and my son)….I appreciate this article reminding me of these fundamental differences, so that when my emotions arise, or my children’s emotions arise, I can take a mental time-out and rethink my approach as it might best suit the person with whom I am dealing…..the best advice I can take from this article is sometimes not to speak, but just give hugs – - and listen…..
…ahhhh the voice of reason. hug back LIza.
Grammar troll here. In the title: “Mom’s” is possessive. “Moms” is the plural. As long as we’re standing for something I’d like to include clear communication.
Excelsior,
-dave
fixed
I’m not a parent, but I was a boy. This advice sounds perfect for boys who weren’t like me when I was a boy. I was quiet, not very physically active, and generally preferred to play quietly by myself or read a book. Under this list of things, my mom should have been very worried about me, because I wasn’t normal. (Right on about Batman lives forever, though.)
Please don’t assume that all boys are supposed to be loud and hyperactive and always running around and wrestling with each other. Introversion is not necessarily a sign of a problem.
point extremely well taken Wellokaythen…
Thanks for listening, Tom.
To be fair, I should have mentioned that if your son has a really big, sudden change in personality from being very sociable to being really introverted, that could be a sign of something troubling him. (Assuming it’s not just being wiped out from a day of playing.) It’s just that being quiet on its own isn’t necessarily troubling.
I love another opportunity to ramble on. I do not have kids though I did walk into a marriage once, partially motivated by a desire to give two young boys a stable (hahahaha) father figure and family environment. Turns out I was more of a pawn in a custody battle than I would have ever imagined. That said, I cannot offer much on topic here, but I do find the hair splitting, and hair triggers increasingly intriguing each and every day. Why is it we can so easily take a post, obviously written with good intent and the idea of opening up constructive discussion and turn it into a point of contention? What is our motivation for doing so ? Am I really so personally offended by anything here that I must stand up, stomp my feet and be seen-heard?
Some days I simply do not get it.
Thanks for fighting the good fight Tom.
I deeply agree with Jack here.
We can have a constructive conversation, bearing in mind the intent of the writer (which is clear), and even challenge the writer, without it turning into a battle based upon word-choice.
Thanks Joanna. The intent was good. Not sure how it possibly got spun into damnation.
Am I really so personally offended by anything here that I must stand up, stomp my feet and be seen-heard?
To an extent yes that is just it.
Why is it we can so easily take a post, obviously written with good intent and the idea of opening up constructive discussion and turn it into a point of contention? What is our motivation for doing so ?
Simple. Its because some people have been hurt to the point that they think all they have is that pain. In turn they see that pain everywhere they look and if its not there then they will create the image of it. As for motivation its probabaly a matter of lashing out over something in that person’s mind/heart that they have never had the chance to resolve.
Well Danny I am compassionate to men’s pain. Honestly that is the whole point of the stories that we tell here and that I personally find so inspiring. Sitting with prisoners or soldiers or SAHD’s or men who have suffered abuse or loss. I just don’t have patience for projecting that pain onto things that are not related. This piece is not related to men’s rights or suffering. As I point out to Marcus my own experience as a father is the single most painful thing in my life I have had to overcome, losing custody of my kids when they were babies. I have devoted my life to becoming a good dad to them and their brother. But I wasn’t telling that story. If I was it would be different.
If you are so compassionate to mens pain, they WHY did you start out your story with such an obviously sexist insult to men. My god man, come on.
Even though you weren’t telling that story there may be some things that are still sore spots. I bet you didn’t mean to cross anyone with that remark but intent doesn’t override pain.
Read my comment above, I tried to explain why many found offense and it’s pretty damn easy to understand why there is some offensive stuff in it, joke or no joke. Tone of article and stating things in factual way in text alone can easily be read in multiple ways, it can easily be avoided by using less generalizations and more “I feel that”.
Personally, I did not find the humor in the article? Is there something I’ve missed? And who is right, the people who find it humourous or the people who take offense? Anyone can write an article with the intention of being funny and light-hearted but if people take offense then obviously something is amiss. If it’s just one or two people taking offense it might be different but there are A LOT of comments that do not like the generalization and really take offense at the line on mothers being better parents. It’s stated as a fact, is it really surprising that people are up in arms over it?
““Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me.”” Generally better parents than dads? I’m sorry Tom but you really set the article up from the start to piss people off, you didn’t intend to but you treated it like a fact and those that didn’t get bothered by it are actually making me think it’s an acceptable form of sexism. If you meant to say mothers offer a different perspective then you should have said that instead of a very clear “better than”.
The comments here about hair triggers are reminding me of people telling men to man up n get over it, well I’m sorry but I find it offensive for people to assume “Generally” that women are better parents than men and considering this is a site for men and the issues that affect them, I would be shocked if no one spoke up about the article. Good intentions you may have had but don’t act so surprised that people are calling you out on that terrible first line. You set the tone for the article by that first line, some people see it as a joke and some see it as a factual statement, I’d be listening to the people who aren’t laughing and finding out why.
Isn’t the Gender War great Tom?
Here you are, using a self deprecating lead in and that’s all that people see and comment on.
Sad isn’t it? People look for offense where none was intended on behalf of people who can defend themselves.
So effin’ sensitive all the time and so bogged down in one or another’s victimhood or somesuch that they won’t even read the article.
Holy cow!
It’s just pathetic that’s it’s come to this. It really tells you something about the folks that read here as noted as most of the other comments you got from other sources don’t dwell on this nonsense.
So it goes in the modern world…
wet_suit_one, it’s attitudes like yours that make it difficult for any man who has been through serious harm to be heard.
Tom, let me offer you another perspective.
When I saw that JackobT contributed an article about male abuse from females, that you allowed him the priveledge of a voice amongst your regulars, I was inspired to do the same.
So I contributed an article on being bulied and hurt by girls and women along with the boys and men. Then there was one on male guilt, followed up with what it’s like to have triggers as a male survivor.
Amongst this, I, along with the generous help of Lisa and others, opened up a haven for survivors of female abuse, including male survivors, to share their stories and allow the chance to have a place granted to me by you.
Thing is Tom, while you have been welcoming, there are times when you slip up majorly even though you’re on the side of men as well as women.
“Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. ”
Once again, this is NOT a statement you want to make since now you have male survivors as part of your readership. It also doesn’t help that you believe:
“What troubles me the most is that you are telling me that somehow I can’t publish this piece here without getting the kind of gender based extremism that somehow has taken over our mission. I think that is crap.”
You make the same error with this assumption others always make: That speaking out on something troubling is “Extremism”. You made a generalisation and now you’re passing it off as humor.
That’s also something society does: Harms or stereotypical statements against men as “Humor”. You know this, as a fact, Tom that if a man ever made the same assumption about how fathers are generally the better parents that he would receive tremendous blowback much much worse from women. Even if he made the excuse that he was only joking or being humorous. Are you going to tell them that they’re being “Extreme” as well? No you wouldn’t. So how does this make it any different? Because we should have a sense of humor about it since we’re men?
Whether you like it or not, your readership now includes male survivors and male victims of female abuse. Telling them they’re being “Extreme” or labeling their concerns “Extremism” hurts because they have no where else to go to have their concerns heard. Precious few spaces devote space to their pain without the extreme toxic attitudes that permeat the radical Men’s Rights Movements sites.
Yes people should control their triggers but please, don’t harp on them for being triggered in the first place. Because, again, they don’t have places where they can get their concerns addressed. Even if they did, the people supposed to help them had probably given them short shrift instead due to notions that women’s problems and issues are more important than men’s issues.
It wasn’t a self deprecating lead in. It was a highly insulting jab at fathers.
Janet, I was only addressing his reasoning behind it. I highly doubt it was a self-depreciating lead-in as well. Only he believes it is, but therein lies the problem: Everything deemed insulting to fathers is “humor” and “a joke” that they should have a sense of humor about.
It’s highly unfortunate that Tom couldn’t resist using that excuse like everyone else does when inserting a serious assumption against them into an article.
I guess I was one of the few people here who thought this was supposed to be humorous?
It is what it is …One man’s perspective and I enjoyed it .On many points even agreed with it . I teach and i have 2 girls and one boy of my own and I will tell you they are different . not different ‘bad’ or different ‘good’ just different . So all the nitpicking is not going to change that was the writer’s intent . A male maybe at times slightly skewed viewpoint . I love it thanks for a good read .
excuse the errors I was in an accident typing via a pencil in mouth sucks lol
LaLa thank you for your kind words. Much appreciated…
Loved this piece, especially after recently having read the book ‘Raising Boys without Men’, aimed at single moms, and naturally there will be a cliche or two scattered around when this subject is discussed. But we need cliches to loosed us up a bit and hey, lighten up people, this work was clearly intended to steer moms in a more positive direction when presented with daily boyhood ‘situations’
Ultimately, we LOVE our little superheroes and want the best childhood we can offer them.
Where is the humor in saying that mothers are generally better parents?
If we’re supposed to be celebrating fathers and men, doesn’t the statement above go against it? Especially the excuse that it was meant in good humor or a self-depreciating jab.
Sorry, but I don’t see the humor in a statement that society actually believes ferverently and has stacked the deck against fathers when it comes to child care.
Where is the humor in saying that mothers are generally better parents?
Probably hidden in the same place as the humor in saying that men are better….well anything that’s not anatomically specific (like peeing standing up).
I’ve seen hyper-sensitivity of article-content before, but its generally focused upon statements of absolutes or varied positions on politics. Here, we have one man’s practical tips for raising the emotional creature called a “boy.”
When I first read this post, I thought replies may have augmented the list…annotated it…but not shred it! The substance of the list is entirely true — for some people. The list and content is also entirely false — for some people. But here we have an “ex-boy,” a “former boy,” tossing some secrets about our inner beings and motivations; that we are in fact emotional creatures; that we are sometime “dain-bramaged,” tree-swinging, poop flingers.
I may have augmented the content with the idea that we, as males, tend to remain 12-years-old in perpetuity. I am actually 12 with 49-years of experience.
The motivation to shred…I don’t quite get it. The article is a pitch, and a darn good one (speaking as a highly-experienced 12-year-old). Its a pitched testimony, and ought to be left as such.
At what point will the two camps be incomprehensible to each other? I’d say we are closing in on that time. Kinda like the Republicans and Democrats.
Nah, most of us are in the same camp, I think – even the ones criticizing specific elements of Tom’s “provisions” (namely, the generalizations and stereotyping). We’re just arguing around the campfire about whether it’s a good idea to store all the food in Tom’s tent. While some of us worry about attracting hungry bears, others are arguing that only ursine extremists would go ransacking a tent for no good reason, and these woods are for campers, not hungry bears. Same camp, though.
Pass the marshmallows – I want another s’more. (If that bag is out, I think saw more back in Tom’s tent. Hey, does anyone else hear a rustling sound over there?)
I hated everything about this Tom. I hated the first line which is a horrible generalization. Moms and dads bring different perspectives to parenting and both are valuable to child development. You’re just trying to be controversial by saying that moms are better than dads but if you want to be really controversial, try saying that dads are better than moms (without any substantiation)
Could you possibly pedestalize women and devalue fathers any more than that? Is that what this site is all about?
Very little of the stereotypes that you present have any relevance to me or my upbringing. I also have twin -daughters who are completely different and some of the boy-stereotyping that you write about applies to each of them in varying degrees.
Maybe this would have been more beneficial on focusing on boys around puberty? Up until then, I don’t know if there are all that many differences. But when speaking to my dad and one of my professors on male puberty, both of them were like, “It’s a really difficult time for boys, it’s really hard.” And it’s really rather mysterious. So… if I were a single mother raising a boy I would definitely want some clarification on THAT. What does that mean?! That would be my biggest worry.
But when speaking to my dad and one of my professors on male puberty, both of them were like, “It’s a really difficult time for boys, it’s really hard.” And it’s really rather mysterious. So… if I were a single mother raising a boy I would definitely want some clarification on THAT. What does that mean?! That would be my biggest worry.
Well first off thanks for asking (it pretty rare that people actually ask this it seems).
I can’t speak for everyone that went through male puberty but I can share my experiences.
Just like with girls you have to give him a chance to talk about what he’s feeling and then try to help from there. He probably won’t be too responsive if you try to dictate to him.
When talking about masturbation try to understand that since you’re “a girl” and even worse you’re “mom” there will more than likely be hesitation. Don’t try to shame him over it but still let him know that there is a time a time and place for it (this may call for giving him some degree of privacy because the last thing you want to do is walk in on him).
Just like with girls there will be emotional turmoil even though it will probably come out differently, possibly in the form of anger. He needs to know that anger itself isn’t bad, its how you use it that’s good or bad.
Chances are as a woman when it comes to sex you will be thinking about it as a woman and that’s very valuable because you can give him insight from a female perspective on sex. However bear in mind that you are actually talking to a boy. Try to be mindful of what he is saying or trying to say.
Help him understand that having a girlfriend may be great and all but its not the definition of who he is as a boy or will be as a man. Same goes for sex. Remember that for him its going to be the opposite of where girls are measured by how much sex they don’t have, he will be measured by how much sex he does have. About sex in general its better that you take initiative and get his mind right about it rather than letting other things (like peer pressure) make his mind up about it.
The genital hygiene conversation. Have it with him.
People like to talk about how dads need to be the model of what kind of man their daughters should look for. The opposite is true as well. As his mother you have the chance, if not responsibility, to be a model of the type of women he should look for. Presuming he’s straight mind you.
Finally. As much as you want to help him. As much as you want to be there for him. As much as you want him to know he has your support as his mother there is a chance that some things will simply be off limits to you because you aren’t a man. There’s not much you can do about that and unless its something that’s interfering with his (or someone else’s) life don’t try to butt on him about such topics.
I know its not a lot and I know its not the awe inspiring insight you may have been looking for but a lot of it is pretty much that simple. And I could be missing some things that need to be coaxed out of men with direct questions about direct situations.
Wow, that was actually incredibly helpful. What you highlight points out what I think is a bigger worry for women: not raising boys, but raising men. Boys and girls have more similar experiences, but from your description, it sounds as though when we start to transition to men and women, it really diverges.
Thanks for the insight, Danny. It’s nice to be able to see a different perspective.
In this article, it describes the emotional and psychological differences an individual experienced during his transition from woman to man. It may help understand the differences in how you as a woman and how he as a new man think and feel. http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/sir-can-you-help-me-with-this/
In particular the section starting with:
“I can’t deny that testosterone has changed my behavior. I used to cry to let my rage out. Now, the tears rarely come, even when I’m sad. I am more assertive, but in control. I channel my anger and aggression into running and weight lifting, into creative projects that set me free from pain. I go for long drives and take more risks on the road. I’m less likely to ask for directions.”
Overall, I agree with Danny’s assessments more or less. Though I would add, I personally, liked to try things on my own. I like to experiment and explore various options, and to challenge myself to learn and figure out myself. Knowing my mother was there to help if needed was important, but sometimes I just needed her to step back and wait to be asked. And this is just in general, it’s not a relationship or ex thing, just a thing (and you’ll note how this can fit in with the above quoted paragraph, in the working out of frustrations through constructive activity, and the less willing to ask for directions, instead seeking to succeed himself).