Title Tuesday: Boys Should Be Boys

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. I write this portion of my blog because I am a big believer in the motivational speaker Charlie Jones' quote which says, "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” I try to meet as many new people as possible and to read everything I can. This is my way of sharing that information with you. You can see a visual summary of the books I have reviewed for both adults and children over on my Facebook page. If you are interested in understanding my rating system for books you can read my Book Review Explanation here and What I Believe here. If you want to check out what I am currently reading or what I want to read next, friend me on Goodreads!

I have two rambunctious little boys at home. William just turned four and Henry is two and a half years old. With #MeToo, #YesAllMen, and the gross Gillette commercial that aired recently, many moms just like me are concerned for what kind of world our boys will grow up in. How can we raise young men that aren't participating in #toxicMasculinity, but that are in fact masculine? Having grown up in a single parent household with my mother, I had no clue, and I wanted a better understanding of what masculinity is supposed to be. I decided to start looking at books geared towards parenting boys. A friend of mine recommended Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons by Dr. Meg Meeker and I went right out and bought it. 

Let me say, if you are one of those people who has #Feminist in your twitter bio, you are probably going to HATE this book. Dr. Meeker takes a no-nonsense approach to boyhood. She talks practically and with true pragmatism about the challenges that boys face in our modern society. 
Dr. Meeker address things like: 

• pornography
• boundaries and rules
• electronics
• teenagers
• sex
• how to address difficult situations
• the influence of mothers
• the importance of fathers

The real kicker for me came on page 224, where Meeker writes:

There are only a handful of adults in your son's life who will teach him the great lessons in life. As his parent, seize the day. HE won't learn these virtues from three hours of television, two hours of computer time, or even six hours in school. He needs to learn them from you, and to see how you put them into practice. There's no time like the present to help your son become the man you want him to be. He is waiting.  

As I said before, Meeker doesn't pull any punches. She is a huge advocate for masculinity and boyhood and calls out lazy parenting and schooling for creating this fear of masculinity that we see so predominantly in society today. Overall, I give Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons by Dr. Meg Meeker  a SOLID A+ and I recommend it for anyone who has a son, knows a little boys, teaches school, works at a church, or might one day want to have a positive impact in a young man's life.