Raising Boys: Parenting Beyond Male Stereotypes

The concern for boys has finally reached the spotlight. For years, the focus was on the plight of girls -- no matter how high she raised her hand in class, a girl just couldn't get called on. But then the American Association of University Women in America launched a riveting report on the "shortchanging" of girls, and the attention on girls snowballed. When the snowball stopped, the data became murky and slowly the concern switched to boys.

The hugely popular Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by psychologists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson and Real Boys by psychologist William Pollack have come to the aid of responsive parents, urging them to support their sons' emotional growth and their expression of feelings. More recently, Christina Hoff Sommers wrote the gripping book, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming our Young Men, in which she differs by asking that boys not to be pathologized and for all of us to accept boys' masculinity. The message, however, is the same: respect him as a boy, help him develop communication skills, and be there for him.