Raising Boys (A Dad’s Advice for Moms)

The Good Men Project ^ | February 8, 2010 | Tom Matlack

[GiovannaNicoletta]

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, sometimes during 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.

[sonofagun]

A boy will spend the first five years of his life amazing you at how smart he is and the next twenty years of his life trying to prove to you how stupid he is.

[acad1228]

Having raised two boys and a girl, I must say your advice is spot on.

[Vermont Lt]

Advice once given to the father of girls: Bury them when they are 11 and dig them back up when they are 22.

As the father of two co-eds, I cannot argue with that.

[skeeter]

Pretty good advise, especially today.

[Gay State Conservative]

My sister's been a widow since her son was 10.I tried to step in,as best I could,as a “father figure” with pretty good success for a while.But,long story short,both she and her son have flipped on me (meaning that my “father” role was terminated) and,as a result (partially,at least),the kid's a mamma's boy,big time.I'm no super macho type by any means and never tried to “turn” him into one.Boys need a sane,decent father.The best mother in the world is a terrible father (and my sister's an amazing mother).One only need look at this nation's inner cities,populated mainly by female led households,to find out what can happen to a fatherless boy.

[9YearLurker]

“My five-year-old likes to head to the bathroom just as the family is sitting down to dinner, sometimes during 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.”

This must be how we end up with 26-year-olds still on their parents’ health insurance.

[goat granny]

never heard that one before...1 daughter, loved to have dad take her shopping cause she could get anything she wanted. Mostly girls are a worry when then start noticing boys and boys are a worry when they get their drivers license and figure out girls are not full of cooties..

[ican'tbelieveit]

As a single mom of a beautiful young man, I have found this to be ever so true:

When in doubt, hug

I am not an expert in men, he doesn't have to get me, but the hug works wonders when things aren't right. And we are not very touchy, feely.

[carlo3b]

I raised 5 kids as a single dad.. Three daughters, and two sons..

Boys seem easier, especially in the early years, because the problems were obvious and understandable, disagreements over some current activity, intimidation, tired or stressed, hungry, etc.. Hug, hold, iodine, pasta, stern looks, and goofy jokes, time with them one on one..

Later years were and still are deep seeded and more profound.. Relationships with authority, school, sports, work, parents, and social, and cultural restrictions.. No easy stuff but usually manageable with simple logic..

Usually, very young girls are simple for dads.. Patience, love, touching, holding, singing, dancing, laughing, finger sandwiches and teaching cooking.. :)

Teenage girls, young women.. GULP! YIKES.. to be continued.. :)

[Tax-chick]

Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads.

Right there, he's said that men can just drop the ball and drop the responsibility right along with it, and they pre-excuse themselves because ... they're male, I guess. But they'll come back later to blame everything on women.

FReep you and the horse you rode in on. Take responsibility for yourself and your children, or stop calling yourself a man and say you're a male ape.

[central_va]

The girls, my high school son seems to be involved with, seem so demanding. I don’t get it. When I was in high school If I bought a girl a beer I was a hero. Crap If my son doesn’t spend spend spend he is a tight wad.

[Conservative4Life]

Thanks for this...

[freemama]

Your son should meet my daughter! She’s happy just hanging out watching a movie at home or going out and kicking a soccer ball around with a guy.

[Conservative4Ever]

Reared one of each here, as a single mom too, and the advice is spot on.

[Conservative4Ever]

Yep, when in doubt hug...and tell them you love them, often. When my kidsand I were out in public and walking hand-in-hand, I would squeeze their hands three times...meaning...I love you. They do it with their kids, too.

[Badabing Badablonde]

Word, Tax-chick.

The article may be spot on but it is also a glaring red flag reason why a boy needs TWO parents.

[pnz1]

Thank you. This is great advice and I see much of this behavior in my 7 year old son..

[huldah1776]

moms are generally better parents than dads

sorry, kids do better with a single dad than single mom.

[Sequoyah101]

Mostly this is correct. I make a few minor exceptions though.

Back in the day we read three books over and over and over and over....
“Busy Timmy”, “Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel” and “Septimus Bean and his Amazing Machine”. We nicknamed the boy Busy Timmy. He always had something important to do and it was and still is either vitally important or not worth mention. He would fight sleep from the earliest days and only took a nap when absolutely exhausted. Sleep was more like some form of suspended animation and he would suddenly go limp and surrender. When he woke it was like hitting a resume button.

For the last nearly 30 years there has not been anything working well enough for him that could not stand to be fixed!