A British journalist says parents raising boys should see their sons as ‘complex, emotional creatures’ and not treat them like dogs who simply need ‘food and exercise’ to thrive.
Ex BBC producer Ruth Whippman, who’s from the UK but now lives in North Berkeley, California with her husband Neil Levine and their three young sons, is the author of BoyMum, a new book about how to raise boys in the era of toxic masculinity.
The term #BoyMum, or #BoyMom as it’s known in the US, is often used as a slur against mothers who appear to favour their male children.
The feminist writer appeared on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour yesterday to discuss the mistakes parents make, saying that stereotypical tropes such as ‘boys can’t sit still, boys don’t like reading, boys only want to play with trucks’ can be damaging for future men.
The mother-of-three says researching the book – known as BoyMom in the US – has changed the way she now treats her three sons.
Speaking to the show’s host Nuala McGovern, Whippman said parents are now often more progressive when raising female children, saying: ‘We talk about girls in this really expansive, inspirational way, so it’s like: “You can be anything, you’re strong, you’re tough, you’re brave, break those stereotypes”.
However, she said parents are often failing their sons by simplifying their needs.
She explained: ‘We tend to talk about boys in these quite essentialising ways. So I hear a lot of: “Boys are like dogs. All they need is exercise and food and just wear them out”‘.
Whippman said while there was ‘grain of truth’ in that idea, it was ‘very limiting’ and recent research shows parents reflect ‘masculine qualities onto boys right from babyhood’, including ‘wrestling’ with them, and generally handling them ‘more roughly’ than daughters.
For example, if a boy cries, they’re deemed ‘angry rather than sad whereas they see their daughters as being in distress.’
The journalist urged parents of boys to re-consider how they parent, saying: ‘I think what boys really need is a lot more emotional nurture, and talking about their feelings – parents need to see boys as fully complex, emotional creatures and really try to nurture that side of them.’
The book, released this week, calls modifying the way boys are raised into men as ‘one of society’s most urgent cultural projects’ and looks at how young men are often more vulnerable to becoming incels and radicalisation than their female peers because of their boyhood.
She said she chose the title BoyMum/BoyMom after seeing the hashtag take off online, saying: ‘It captures this tension, there’s conflict built into it, the idea that a woman gives birth to a child who’s fundamentally unlike herself – it packs quite a lot of different sexist tropes into one little word.’
BoyMum by Ruth Whippman is published by Hachette UK and is out now
