The Boy Crisis
moms cut back hours at work, while dads increase their hours, especially at nights and over weekends; moms travel less, dads travel more; moms commute fewer miles, accepting jobs that pay less, while dads commute more miles for jobs that pay more . . . This can create some fascinating discussions for family dinner night (see appendix B).
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
If your son is nontraditional, he needs to know that the most important work of his life is selecting a woman who is free enough from social constraints to free him from social constraints.
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
The commerce of masculinity is the trading of wit-covered put-downs. Your son will experience it in junior high school. And he’ll experience it even more powerfully if he joins a fraternity. Despite the negative stereotypes, fraternity brothers often bond for a lifetime, sometimes becoming among the few long-lasting friends men have.
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
Last, if Alex feels a little extra crying will get Mom and Dad to compete to give him a few extra goodies—dessert and extra attention—he often exploits their tension like water seeping into a fissure on a roof. The gap between Mom and Dad widens further, and Alex unconsciously learns “victim power.”
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
After dads’ tendency to tease, nothing creates more conflict between moms and dads than dads’ much greater propensity to roughhouse. Roughhousing often scares a mom, because her fear for her children’s safety is amplified by the appearance that dad is behaving like another kid, which mom translates as, “No one’s responsible here.” The solution begi
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“My mom warns and warns; it’s like she ‘cries wolf.’ My dad gives us one warning, and then he becomes the wolf.”
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
Role of a father
A dad needs to be able to contribute a countervailing consideration to mom’s fear: the value of learning to explore with dad as a GPS as needed, so they don’t get too lost.
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
They have different ways of setting boundaries and enforcing boundaries; exploring in nature; roughhousing; creating teachable moments; challenging the kids’ limits; using hangout time; and different attitudes toward teasing. Researchers have also documented dads’ greater tendencies to • walk a fine line between safety and risk-taking; • juggle the
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We have seen that the amount of time a father spends with a child is “one of the strongest predictors of empathy in adulthood.”6 Teaching a child to treat boundaries seriously teaches him or her to respect the needs of others.