Time for Boys

Translated from Wegener Dagbladen, May 1999
About Steve Biddulph's Raising Boys

No longer we have to buy dolls for our sons, nor technical Lego for our daughters. Steve Biddulph rejects the theory that differences between boys and girls are caused and maintained by education. Boys are different from girls because of another hormone system and different brains, so he says in his recently published book Raising Boys.

Parents have since long time observed that boys usually are more active, show more bravura, and achieve better in arithmetic than girls. Now we know that these differences are scientifically proved. It is not because of the parents that boys behave boyish and girls girlish. Biddulph does more than confirm this. These data have consequences for the way of raising boys: this should be different from girls.

The Australian family therapist boldly confronts parents, schools and society with what nowadays is wrong. His ideas are based on research and practical experience all over the world. Biddulph's original opinions about raising boys are not always pretty, but it is at least worth to think a while about them. A better understanding of our sons might contribute to a decrease of aggression in our society. And that's what we want and often discuss nowadays.

Biddulph describes three phases in the development of boys:

	Until the age of six, a boy is mostly addressed to the mother.
	Between the ages of six and fourteen, the father becomes more important. Nevertheless, the mother is not at the background.
	From the age of fourteen, the boys addresses more to other men in society.

This development gives us pointers about how to raise boys.

In his opinion, early day care is wrong; very young boys like more to be at home and lounge around the mother. Thus, the mother has to be present. If the mother necessarily would have a job, a guest family will be better than a crèche.

Boys have a different development of the brains, and so have an intelligence delay of one year in comparison with girls. Thus, says Biddulph, give boys an extra year to be a toddler.

Around the age of six, masculinity comes up, so the boy wants to be for hours with his father. Again: the father has to be present. Fathers who give priority to their jobs, are wrong in Biddulph's opinion. It may be painful and shocking to read:

"If you work 55 to 60 hours each week, including the time to travel, you cannot succeed as a father. Your son will got problems, and that is to blame to you."

Research, quoted by Biddulph, concluded that at the age of fourteen testosterone will work more intensively, 800 times more than before. This confuses the boy - and his environment. This is the moment to send the boy into the world, says Biddulph. He has to take distance from the mother, in order to reach a more adult image of women. The testosterone causes conflicts between father and son, so also they have to create distance.

However, at that age the boy is still too young to be alone; he still needs control ... to make mistakes, and learn from it. At this point, society fails. There is a lack of male role models in the clubs, uncles have no time for their nephews, and at school there are mostly woman.

Because of a lack of male mentors, boys join peer groups hanging around on the streets. The worst we can do is to leave adolescents to each other. A community of peers has only lost souls who cannot help each other. The high level of testosterone causes that the boys start a competition to create a picking order. Without an adult in their nearness, they become troublesome and things go wrong, Biddulph fears.

If we want that boys develop balanced, parents and society have to invest in them. With money, but particularly with time. The same holds true for girls. I suppose Biddulph is right, but we still have a problem: how to create that time?