Raising Real Men

A reader wrote in last week asking for help with a son’s difficulty: We are trying to “prep” our 13 year old son for an interview at our local history museum. He would like to volunteer there but they seem sceptical as to “why any 13 year old boy would want to” (according to the…
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Several years ago, a friend of ours decided to eliminate gender stereotypes from her children’s upbringing. When her daughter was born, Mom bought trucks and construction toys for the child to play with. When a son came along, she bought him a baby doll. As it turned out, her kids weren’t buying it—neither one of…
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Talk about bad headlines.  Following a study presented to the American Psychological Association, the media asked, “Being A Mama’s Boy: Good For Your Health?” The gist of the study by Dr. Carlos Santos of Arizona State University suggested that boys who “resist” male stereotypes and are close to their mothers grow up with better mental…
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The King’s School is the oldest independent private academy in Australia.  The headmaster of the all-male, K-12 boarding school, Dr. Tim Hawkes, presented a paper at the International  Boys’ School Coalition conference in Toronto, Canada, a few years ago, starting his presentation with this observation: When the philosopher, Aristippus of Cyrene, was asked some 400…
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Several years ago, it occurred to us that maybe the teenaged years didn’t have to be full of anger, rebellion, and sullenness. Just because we went through it or saw it in our friends growing up, does that mean it has to be that way? Is that what you see in the Bible? Through history?…
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Dear Friends and Family, Hal and I spent the day at Duke today consulting with the oncologist and thoracic surgeon. There is a very large tumor behind Hal’s breastbone. It is providential that it is in this site because if it were *anywhere* else, he could not have had a tumor this large and not…
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Writing duo and Christian parents of eight children, six of them being boys, Hal and Melanie Young know and live what they write about in the book Raising Real Men. Through their years of experience and success in bringing up these boys, ages currently ranging from 7 to adult, they have become experts in their…
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As a mom to three active boys, I’m always eager to read what others have to say about raising boys to be men.  What better people to take advice from than Hal and Melanie Young, parents to 6 boys (and 2 girls).  In their book, Raising Real Men, they discuss the intricacies of bringing up…
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