Real Boys - Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood

William S Pollack

Henry Holt

1999

447 páginas

14h 54m

ISBN-25: 0805061835,_9780805061833

Boys today are in crisis. On the surface, many boys may appear tough, confident, and cheerful, but underneath, many of them are sad, lonely, and confused.
As the bestselling "Reviving Ophelia" took us into the worlds of girls, this groundbreaking book reveals the worlds of boys to show how society's mixed messages to boys put more of them at risk today than ever before.
Boys' voices and experiences rise up from these pages as Dr. William Pollack of the Harvard Medical School draws on almost two decades of work with boys as well as on a recent study called "Listening to Boys' Voices" to present new findings about the true nature of boys and new insights into how to raise them to become happier, more confident, more successful men.
"I get a little down, " says Adam, "but I hide it very well. I'd say I wear a mask of some sort. Even when kids call me names or try to taunt me, I'd never show them how much it was crushing me inside. I'd keep it all in."
Pollack reveals how many boys today are like Adam, whose confident exterior hides painful feelings of loneliness and isolation. Other boys are in trouble overtly--depressed, suicidal, doing less well at school than they could, having trouble with drugs or with friends. "Real Boys" shows why, and what to do about it. Pollack describes how outdated gender stereotypes push boys to conform to society's inhibiting
Boy Code, even as boys are pressured to relate to girls in new ways. Boys conceal themselves behind a mask of independence, which not only prevents them from truly knowing themselves but makes it difficult for us to know them. Conventional expectations about masculinitystill encourage people to treat boys like "little men, " and to raise them through a toughening process. Illuminating the daily lives of boys of all ages, "Real Boys" lets us know what boys are really like, revealing new findings about the expressive nature of boys, how they are different from girls and how they are similar to them, and what they are thinking and feeling.