To Raise Healthy Boys You Have To Like Men

When I was younger, and the boys were relatively small, I used to say I should have stuck to cats. Cats never grow up to be mass murderers.

This is partly, of course, a joke. I’ve known cats that could rip out your throat in your sleep. Fortunately the only one we had like that liked us.

No, let’s be serious: it is a danger every parent thought of at least once, and mothers of boys more than that. Our hearts tighten both when reading stories of horrific crimes against children, and the stories of men who became murderers. Because we can never be sure where the bad seed comes from, upbringing or genetics and genetics how far back (all of us have in our ancestry both murder victims and murderers, of that you can be sure) and because when your children start growing and being independent, you worry a little bit.

And mothers of boys—

Look, speaking generally boys are more aggressive, even as small kids. And once they get testosterone pumping in during puberty, they’re aggressive, they’re large, they’re stronger than most women by the time they’re 14 or so, and you can tell how many times during the day they meditate on violence, even if they don’t do it. It’s the way the body is wired. None of us – not one – are descended from non-aggressive apes, and throughout all of history and certainly most of pre-history, the duty to defend female and young of the band went to the male, usually the youngish male.

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