Raising Boys: Why Boys are Different - And How to Help Them Become Happy and Well-balanced Men
by Steve Biddulph
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List Price: ££8.99
Our Price: ££3.41
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Thorsons
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 649
EAN: 9780007153695
ISBN: 0007153694
Label: Thorsons
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 2003-03-03
Publisher: Thorsons
Studio: Thorsons
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Ok as a general overview, but not really worth bothering with..
Comment: I bought this book as I have just found I am expecting twin sons, and coming from a very female dominated family, wanted to try and get my head round it a bit. On the plus side, it is quite a short book and easy and accessible to read. However, because it trys to cover boys' development from birth to age 16, it is rather generalised with the result that no subject is really covered in depth, although it tends more towards advice for adolescents.
In a nutshell, the advice is to give boys lots of love and attention in the early years and provide them with good male role models later - general common sense really. This is interspersed with some more specific random advice, such as how to wash a baby boy's penis and some possibly not quite such useful suggestions i.e. holding a "ceremony for honouring the start of adolesence and giving sexuality a positive start" Hmmmmm. I also found some of the advice rather irritatingly patronising, such as encouraging boys to cook (tip: "roll up their sleeves and wear an apron, handle knives with lots of care").
Ok as a general overview, but overall not a particularly satisfying or informative read, particularly if your sons are still very young. The book does touch on some interesting subjects, but I found that these were not explored in enough depth to be of much use.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Made me want a daughter!
Comment: I felt completely depressed when pregnant with my second son when I read this book! Mr Biddulph basically tells you that, as a mother, you are important to your sons till they reach five, then you can basically forget it, as you will always be of secondary importance to them compared to their fathers and you should just get on with doing their laundry and cooking them the odd meal or two!
I'm sure he is right to a certain degree but, after speaking to many people after reading this, it is a huge generalisation to say that most men worship their fathers and take their mothers for granted.
Also, he could really have written one chapter instead of a whole book as the central message is repeated again and again: "Male children need strong male role models"
Very good, Steve, but this book didn't answer many of my questions or offer me practical advice as a mother of boys and left me wanting to have daughters!
Since tossing it in the recycling bin, I am now loving being mum to two boys and would not change them for anything!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Useful
Comment: I have read The Secrets of Happy Children by Biddulph, and found it extremely useful, so having a small boy on my hands decided me to investigate Raising Boys. I was not disappointed.
What I like most about Biddulph is that he is not preachy. He does not try to ram his message down your throat. He presents his case and is very careful to try and give a balanced view. Reading other reviews I note that some readers are critical of his belief that children are best raised at home until the age of three. I send my son to nursery school for one and a half days per week, and I feel that it is appropriate to do so. I have not changed my mind based on what Biddulph says. I feel that he has to tread a thin line between telling us things that he thinks we need to know and understanding that each child is unique and their special needs, whatever they may be should be catered for. On the whole he does this well.
I feel that he also deals compassionately with the issue of what to do if you are a single mother, and provides clear and pragmatic examples of how to look for and use positive male role models.
I think his down to earth approach, particularly his stressing the fact that parenting is not a perfect job, and even with the best will in the world will always be an ongoing learning process between you and your children is the most humane and accepting that I have read and I thoroughly recommend his work. The only reason this got four stars is because it is a little out of date and could do with a reissue with more statistics.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A parent/researcher
Comment: Overall, this book is a good contribution to the question of how to parent boys. However, he uses the appearance of research to endorse his personal view that boys are best cared for during the day by family members. In fact, the weight of evidence demonstrates that good quality childcare outside the family is positively beneficial for pre-school children of both genders.
I would challenge Steve Biddulph to produce a revised edition that incorporates real, direct evidence.
Customer Rating:
Summary: yes, but....
Comment: There are many good points in this book that were already mentioned by the other reviewers. I want to focus on the points that grated with me. First of all, the old out-dated 'research' that Biddulph cites that boys (and children in general according to his others books) are better off being raised at home. Negative research about day-care comes from the sixties when these institutions were little more than storage units for children (mind you, I only have very positive memories of the day-care in which I was raised in the sixties).
Newer research actually reveals that children who went early on into daycare are actually more popular and socially confident than their stay-at-home counterparts. This research comes from countries like Canada and Sweden where the majority of all children are raised in daycare and which extensively researched the well-being of their collective off-spring.
I am angry that yet another MALE child-expert who NEVER took off time his precious career to rear his children full-time adds to the guilt-inflicting bias against working mothers. I have seen so much suffering by new mothers who were made to believe that it was all their fault if they did not love their new role as a mother. In Britain today every fifth mother is diagnosed with post-natal depression - a mental health crisis of epidemic proportion. Yet, all of these mothers are told by their health-carers that it is their hormones (in other words their own fault) instead of seeing that the isolated way in which most of us live today puts so much pressure on the individual mother that depression is only a 'natural' outcome.
Isn't it time, Steve, that we care about boys, girls AND their mothers?
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