It’s almost Independence Day here in the United States.

On July 4, we celebrate our country’s independence — which is something many countries do, but as I write that, I realize it’s also a very American thing to do. We really value independence. Almost to a fault, I’d argue (given that humans are interdependent social creatures).

And yet, children and teens today have less independence and autonomy in years past.

I won’t dwell on that point; enough words have already been spread about helicopter parenting and intensive parenting and whatever else we’re calling it. Instead, I will challenge you to consider a few questions:

1. How has your son grown in independence over the past year? What things is he doing (and managing) independently that he wasn’t a year ago?

2. What’s one area in which he might be ready for more independence? Where can you let go a little bit and let him take charge?

3. In what small (or big) ways might you be unintentionally quashing his independence? And conversely — in which small ways might you be encouraging and supporting his independence, perhaps without even realizing it?

A Story of Independence

My all-time favorite Independence Day story happened 12 years ago, when my youngest son, now age 20, was just 8 years old. After our small town fireworks show (which is held near our local baseball field), he dragged himself around the bases. On his belly.

I didn’t interfere because

• I was curious, trying to figure out what, exactly, he was doing (& why)

• I was busy socializing with friends and family

• He was my 4th child. (First-time mom me might’ve behaved very differently)

At the time, none of this felt like it had anything to do with independence or autonomy or my child’s growth. It was only afterward that I realized:

So often, we unconsciously interrupt or inhibit our son’s growth and development…But here’s the thing: growth is rarely a peaceful, straightforward endeavor. Growth is most often messy…

You cannot predict, much less know with any certainty, exactly what your son needs to grow. Your son doesn’t know either. He learns by doing, and sometimes the things he is moved to do seem to make no sense.

I didn’t interfere that night, and that night has become a cherish memory for me. It’s one I revisit and celebrate every 4th of July.

The kid-who-dragged-himself-around-the-bases is now a 20-year-old business owner. With 3 employees and a bright future. His success, of course, has a lot more to do with him than with me.

But if I look back, I can see, in that 8-year-old, crawling between bases, the seeds that allowed him to blossom into a business owner. The same drive, persistence, and determination to complete something that’s important to him, regardless of what everyone else is doing. And I see that the room we gave him to test and build his independence helped him flourish, both then and now.

So, I ask you again:

• How has your son grown in independence over the past year?

• What’s one area in which he might be ready for more independence?

• What seemingly small things can you do to support his burgeoning independence?

Happy Independence Day to all who celebrate .

Here’s to building boys!

Jen

P.S. In case you missed it — Kate Mangino & I recently had a great conversation on her Substack, Gender (In)Equality, about how we parents of boys are raising the next generation of equal partners.

gender (in)equality

The Next Generation of Equal Partners

For my final June post around fatherhood, I asked Jennifer L.W. Fink to join. I have a whole chapter in Equal Partners about raising boys - and I wanted to dig in even more…

Read more

6 days ago · 12 likes · 2 comments · Kate Mangino

IN THE NEWS

Yes, 10 is Old Enough for the Manosphere Talk

Highlights:

• “It’s better to read questionable stuff together and ask simple questions: What is this trying to make me feel? What does it want me to do? Could it ever be proven wrong?”

• “If kids hear you say, ‘Wow, that headline really got me worked up—let me slow down,’ they learn that critical thinking isn’t about never getting pulled in. It’s about noticing the pull before you follow it.”

How Parents Can Talk to Their Kids About Vaping as the FDA Authorizes Some Flavored E-Cigarettes

Highlights:

• “…because I was addicted to nicotine, when I didn’t have it, I’d be anxious and really couldn’t focus”

• “Vaping also sapped his stamina, made it harder to sleep, worsened his asthma and compromised his performance as a football player and wrestler.”

• “Like Ricky, most middle and high school students who vape want to quit”

• “Parents can help them by first seeing their doctor, who can connect them with counseling or free text-message quit programs for young people. For kids who vape heavily…doctors may consider medications like Chantix or nicotine replacement therapy as part of a supervised quitting plan.”

Good Egg Dads

Highlights:

• “The Good Egg Dad takes genuine pride in who his son is becoming, not just in whether his son is becoming him.”

• “A father’s support is essential for adolescent boys to develop self-worth, make social adjustments, and build the confidence to navigate the world.”

Young Men Need Compassion When Engaging with Healthcare Providers

Highlights:

• “Young men often experience significant fear and shame when approaching help‑seeking.”

• “Compassion is an important tool when working with young men because internally, they are likely experiencing feelings of shame and fear of judgement.”

• “Approaching young men with curiosity, patience and compassion may be one of the most effective ways to improve engagement.”

Young Black Men are Now Dying by Suicide at a Historic Rate

Highlights:

• “Black boys and young men ages 16 to 29 are dying by suicide at a rate that is higher than white boys and young men”

• “Firearms remain the leading cause of suicide death among young people, accounting for more than half of youth suicides.”

Why Men Keep Dropping Out of the Labor Force: It Starts in Childhood, When Kids See How Males Around Them Struggle

Highlights:

• “When young males grow up seeing weak wages and high unemployment among the men around them, they form pessimistic expectations about their own prospects later in life”

• “It is the labor market environment men grow up in, more than what they observe as adults, that shapes their later participation”

Maybe Father’s Day weekend is not the best time get prickly about a focus on fathers.

But whether he intended it not (& I’m pretty sure he didn’t), the first sentence of Richard V. Reeves’ latest Substack post — “I’ve come to believe that if there is a one-word solution to the challenges of boys and men it is this: fatherhood.” — completely ignores the presence (& importance of) moms in boys’ lives.

I’ve said it before (most recently in Where Are the Boy Moms?) & I’m afraid I’ll have to say it again: There’s a massive disconnect between those talking about boys and those raising boys. There are a lot of people (mostly men) talking about boy’s problems and how to address them and there are very few moms of boys (with Ruth Whippman being a notable exception!) involved in or invited to those discussions.

Moms of boys are simultaneously expected to solve the problems of the world — especially those caused or perpetuated by boys and men — and yet we are not an important part of the solution?

In reality, of course, both moms and dads are essential to the well-being on our children and societies.

I know my kids are better off because both of their parents - mom and dad — remained involved and active in their lives after we divorced. That’s why I support shared parenting. It’s why we recorded so many ON BOYS podcast episodes about the importance of dads.

It’s why I believe it’s important to involve our boys in caretaking. When we build boys, we are building tomorrow’s fathers also.

The question isn’t whether boys need fathers.

Of course they do.

The better question is why conversations about helping boys so often become conversations about fathers instead of conversations about parents, families, and communities.

If we’re serious about helping boys thrive, we need to stop treating the people who are raising them as an afterthought. We need to start listening to mothers—not because mothers have all the answers, but because we are part of the answer.

Building boys has never been about choosing mothers over fathers or fathers over mothers.

It’s about recognizing that raising good men is a shared responsibility—and valuing everyone who shows up to do that work.

Here’s to building boys!

Jen

IN THE NEWS

Parents Invest Differently in Daughters & in Sons, Study Finds

Highlights:

• “Daughters received more investment than sons in mating and relationship guidance, protection, and material provisioning.”

• “Sons received more investment than daughters in athletics and physical training, competitive encouragement, and sexual permissiveness.”

• “Daughters received more protection than sons.”

• “Mothers showed a stronger daughter-focused pattern in mating and relationship guidance”

• “Fathers showed stronger son-focused patterns in athletics and physical training, and mechanical and practical skills.”

Lifting Barriers: Boys’ Disengagement From Education: Volume 1, Scoping Study

Highlights:

• “Gender gaps that disadvantage boys, such as lower rates of completion of a full cycle of education in some contexts, have not always been adequately addressed in policy or practice.”

• “A review of national educational policies in 19 countries where boys have lower enrolment or completion rates found that only four of them – Bangladesh, the Gambia, Jamaica and New Zealand – include strategies specifically targeting boys”

• “Research in the United States of America indicates that boys, especially those from racial minority backgrounds, are disproportionately channelled from schools into more punitive educational environments, further disconnecting them from mainstream schooling and putting them at risk of delinquency and crime”

• “A United Kingdom researcher who works with working-class boys argued that the focus should shift from framing these boys as ‘failing’ to acknowledging that the educational system itself is failing boys”

• “Programmes should not frame boys as ‘problems to be fixed’; instead a strengths-based approach...should be adopted.”

Boys Want to Challenge Harmful Ideas About Manhood — Working With Them, Not Lecturing Them, is Key

Highlights:

• “Too often sex education misses the deeper opportunity to examine the messages about male-female relationships young men absorb – be tough, don’t show emotion, pursue sex as conquest.”

• “Asking boys ‘what would you do?’ goes further than reciting facts or lecturing boys about risk.”

• “Boys who learn the value and the skills of sharing responsibility for safe and healthy relationships don’t just benefit themselves, they benefit the girls and women in their lives too.”

Becoming an Approachable Parent

Highlights:

• “The issue is rarely whether you know what to say. The issue is whether your teen believes they can talk to you at all.”

• “We must learn to tolerate uncertainty. To resist turning every interaction into a teachable moment. To sit through opinions we dislike.”

Mass. Schools Doubling Down on Education to Protect Boys From Gambling Problems

Highlights:

• “Kids from the ages of 11 or 12 are not only seeing the ads, they’re absolutely being directly targeted in terms of gambling.”

• “If I’m low on money, I try to make a small bet, like $5, and earn back $20,” said Ortiz, an 11th grader who places bets about once a month.

• “This is a public health concern — not in the sense that it affects every boy, but for those kids who engage more deeply, the consequences can be serious”

If You Question Whether You’re Getting it Right with Your Son, Read This

Highlights:

• “We’ve spent a lot of time telling boys what not to…But you can’t build a young man on a list of don’ts. Boys need something to run toward, not just things to run away from.”

• “Every time we tell a boy that masculinity is toxic, he questions his value. Every time we tell a girl that masculinity is toxic, she becomes more hateful of boys.”

Why do we continue to expect [mothers] to bear, almost single-handedly, the weight of problems that concern society as a whole? — Amani Braa

I know many of you feel that weight. That’s one of the reasons being a mom of a boys feels so hard, so important, so challenging. We know our societies have been hurt by violent men, racist men, sexist men, selfish men, & even good guys who don’t speak up in the face of atrocious acts. We want to do better. We want to raise good men who will not contribute to (nor support) harm.

As I stated in the intro my book, Building Boys:

You don’t want to raise a sexual predator or a mass shooter. You do not want to raise a man who takes advantage of others, unleashes his anger and frustration onto innocent victims, or is so enamored with his own talent, success, or perceived “rightful place” in society that he doesn’t even realize or admit that his behavior is problematic.

We are trying, via our parenting, to right the wrongs of our world, while somehow raising joyous sons. And enjoying the process ourselves?

No wonder we’re tired and overwhelmed. No wonder we so often worry & feel like we’re failing.

Trying to Raise Good Men

I wish I could tell you that the pressure you’re feeling — to raise a good guy who won’t contribute to further wrongs — is all imagined. But it’s not. It is all too real. As sociologist Amani Braa pointed out in a recent Conversation article, “Whenever a young person is involved in an act of radicalization, especially an extreme one, society wants answers: Where was the family? What did they see, or refuse to see? But in reality, it is not so much the family that is in the firing line. It is the mother.”

Braa was specifically writing about Muslim mothers and the pressure heaped on them to somehow both detect signs of radicalization and intervene in order to prevent an extreme act. But I think that same framing applies to moms of boys in the United States and elsewhere as well. We’re supposed to detect signs of radicalization (by “the manosphere,” by online influencers, by looksmaxxers, by misogynists & anyone else) and then we are supposed to intervene & prevent harm. While the entire economic ecosystem continues to serve damaging content to our sons — and profits while doing so.

We’re being asked to do too much, with too little support.

The Spotlight Always Finds Mom

Don’t get me wrong: I definitely think moms (AND DADS!) should be alert for signs of trouble. I definitely think moms and dads have a responsibility to instill values and ethics in their children. I also think that moms, dads, and other caring adults can make a tremendous difference in the life of a child simply by consistently showing up for him.

I don’t think we should expect moms to singlehandedly resolve radicalization or hate or gun violence. Not without additional societal support and legislation.

We Can’t Carry This Alone

Maybe the first step is simply naming what’s happening.

We are carrying an enormous amount of responsibility for outcomes that are influenced by families, schools, communities, corporations, social media platforms, public policy, and culture itself. Yet when something goes wrong, the spotlight often swings back to mothers.

That’s a heavy load to carry alone.

Which is why I don’t think the answer is for moms to try harder. I think the answer is for us to stop carrying this work in isolation.

We need spaces where we can talk honestly about the pressures we’re under. Spaces where we can share what’s working, admit what’s not, learn from one another, and remind each other that raising good men is important work—but it was never meant to be a solo mission.

That’s part of why I created my Boy Mom Circle. (Our next gathering is tomorrow evening!) Not because I have all the answers, but because I know none of us should have to carry these questions and concerns by ourselves. And because I know there’s power in numbers.

Together, we can share the weight and advocate for change.

Here’s to building boys!

Jen

IN THE NEWS

“She Should Have Seen It Coming”: How Radicalization Policies Put the Burden on Muslim Mothers

Highlights:

• “Social, political and security responsibilities are gradually being shifted onto mothers.”

• “Mothers are frequently held up to demanding norms that cast them as being responsible for their children’s behaviour, upbringing, morality and future.”

• “An idealized image of motherhood gradually transforms into an almost impossible demand: to be capable of anticipating, understanding and preventing social, political and security issues that go far beyond the family sphere.”

Beyond Risk: Building Positive Childhood Experiences for Boys & Young Men

Highlights:

• “More mental health providers alone are not the answer. Young men need many different kinds of support, not just clinical support.”

• “When young people have a trusted adult in their corner, things appear more manageable and hopeful.”

• “Progress tends to look less like one big policy change and more like many small, steady investments in the adults who show up for young people every day.”

Let’s Hear it From the Boys: Public Health Has a Male Blind Spot

Highlights:

• “The HPV vaccine prevents cancers affecting both sexes, including the oropharyngeal cancers that disproportionately affect men, and yet the messaging around it has, for two decades, been overwhelmingly oriented toward girls and the people raising them.”

• “The health education of a 22-year-old man in 2026 does not come from his pediatrician. It comes from Joe Rogan…It comes from Andrew Huberman…It comes from a constellation of carnivore-diet evangelists, peptide stackers, biohackers, and testosterone optimizers”

• “The boys are listening, all the time, to whoever is willing to talk to them in language that respects how they think about their bodies.”

What does summer look like for your family?

The answer to that question, I’m assuming, depends a lot of what season of life you & your boys are in:

• If your boys are preschool/early elementary school age, you’re probably spending a lot of time trying to juggle work and childcare — trying to figure out how the $*%* you’re supposed to work & care for/supervise/have fun with your kids (without going broke or losing your mind.)

• If your boys are a bit older & into sports — well, you’re probably spending your weekend traveling from tournament to tournament and spending a lot of time sitting on the sidelines or in the stands. (And spending a lot of money at the concession stand!)

• If your boys are high school aged, they’re either self-motivated to get up early and go work out at the gym (for sports) OR they’re staying in bed ‘til far closer to noon (or past noon) than you’d like. They’re spending a lot more time with friends, video games, and their phone than with you, and you’re worrying/trying to figure out how to balance their autonomy against your need/desire to know what they’re doing (and to keep them safe.)

Whatever season of life you’re in, summer with boys can be challenging. Here are a few Building Boys resources that may help:

• My Top 5 Keep-’Em-Busy Summer Suggestions

• Summer Safety: Preventing Injuries

• Summer Safety: First Aid Essentials

• Tips for Getting Your Son to Read This Summer

• Rough & Tumble Games to Play with Your Boys This Summer

• Keeping Bored Boys Occupied During the Summer Holidays

Tell me: How’s your summer going so far? What’s the most challenging part? The most enjoyable part? Got any fun traditions you’d like to share?

Here’s to building boys,

Jen

IN THE NEWS

Male Puberty is Understudied — But When It Starts May Predict Long-Term Health Risks

Highlights:

• “There were about 1.67 times more published research papers on female puberty than male puberty between 1990 and 2016”

• “Better understanding the relationship between puberty timing and disease risk in men may enhance identification and prevention of chronic illnesses.”

• “More than half of American male deaths in 2023 were considered premature…The leading causes of these early deaths include heart disease, cancer, and diabetes — conditions that have been tied to the timing of puberty.”

• “Expanding what is known about male puberty provides more evidence for how best to meet the needs of boys.”

Teen Boys Are Choosing AI Girlfriends Over Real-Life Relationships

Highlights:

• “The study, conducted by Male Allies UK, surveyed 1,000 boys aged 12 to 16 and found that a hefty 85% of them have spoken to a chatbot, 20% know a peer who is ‘dating’ an AI chatbot, and over a quarter prefer the attention and connection of a bot partner to a real, human-to-human relationship.”

• “AI validates, affirms, never tires, never pushes back. For an adolescent boy still assembling a sense of self, that kind of frictionless attention can feel like intimacy”

• “It is not hard to understand why a young man finds comfort in a technology specifically engineered to welcome him, never judge him, and appear to understand him, especially when the human voices in his life are either demanding something impossible or dismissing him entirely”

It’s OK if Your Kids Don’t Love to Read: It’s Not OK if They Can’t Read

Highlights:

• “Reading is wonderful, of course. But it is one of many worthwhile ways to spend time, and not every intelligent, curious, capable person will choose to spend hours reading books for pleasure.”

• “Millions of boys who rarely crack open a novel still grow up to be productive, thoughtful, capable men.”

The Joy of Educating Black Boys

Highlights:

• “Black boys are not problems to fix. They are gifts to nurture and pour into.”

• “Many Black boys enter schools already carrying labels: ‘too loud,’ ‘too difficult,’ ‘too far behind,’ or ‘unmotivated.’”

• “Black boys deserve to learn in environments where they see themselves reflected positively in books, leadership, conversations, and curriculum. They have to know their history matters, their voice matters, and their identity is not something that needs to be erased to succeed.”

What Happens When Teen Boys Start Biohacking Puberty with Peptides

Highlights:

• “We are no longer talking about boys simply feeling inadequate online. We are talking about boys beginning to view chemical enhancement as a rational solution to inadequacy.”

• “The modern teenage boy is quietly being taught that his body is a project requiring constant optimization, and that failure to maximize it reflects laziness, weakness, or lack of discipline.”

• “Unlike traditional eating disorders, male body-image pathology often hides behind socially celebrated behaviors: discipline, gym culture, clean eating, supplementation, self-improvement, and ‘grindset’ masculinity.”

• “Teenagers are increasingly purchasing injectable research chemicals through gray-market suppliers, anonymous Telegram channels, influencer affiliate links, overseas manufacturers, and ‘research only’ websites”

Middle school is a confusing time — for boys AND their parents!

It’s a time when boys pull away & pivot their attention to their peers. A time when grades, academic achievement, and organization seem particularly important (to parents) & not-at-all interesting (or important) to most boys. A time when misunderstanding between boys & parents can spark unnecessary conflicts that can consume the whole household with fire, metaphorically-speaking.

Avoiding conflict with your son during these years is next to impossible. (And also, not desirable. Boys learn a lot via conflict.) But understanding what’s normal, what’s developmental, and what boys actually need during this stage can help parents respond with more calm, confidence, and perspective.

That’s one of the reasons I was excited to connect with Jennifer & Corey, the parents behind Raising Middle School Boys, a Substack focused specifically on navigating these often-messy years. I asked them about what people misunderstand about middle school boys, what parents most need to know, and what boys themselves need most from the adults in their lives.

Here are their answers:

What do you think most people get wrong — or misunderstand — about middle school boys?

RMSB: The most common mistake is treating behavior as the story rather than reading it as information. A boy who is sullen, checked out, or picking fights is not a problem to be managed. He is communicating something for which he does not yet have the words. When adults respond to the behavior without curiosity about what is underneath it, they can miss the boy entirely.

The other thing people consistently underestimate is how much middle school boys still need the adults in their lives. They perform indifference remarkably well. But beneath the shrugs and the one-word answers is a kid who is watching closely to see who stays steady, who notices, and who keeps showing up even when he makes it challenging or downright difficult. The need for connection does not disappear at eleven. It just starts to go underground.

Help us understand what’s normal and typical for this age. What does typical 6th grade boy behavior look like at home and at school? How about 8th grade?

RMSB: A sixth-grade boy is often still straddling two worlds. He may still want to build things, roughhouse, and sit close to you on the couch, and then catch himself and reassemble into someone a bit more careful. He is beginning to feel the pull of peer approval intensely, but his identity is still porous enough that he has not fully committed to a social performance yet. At school, he is adjusting to a more complex social landscape, more teachers, more hallways, more chances to be seen or left out. At home, he may be louder, hungrier, and more emotionally reactive than he was a year ago. That is not regression. That is puberty arriving, and it is right on schedule.

By eighth grade, the performance is more polished. He has a clearer sense of where he fits socially, and he protects that position. He may be more private, quicker to shut down a conversation that feels too close, and more invested in his peer relationships than in anything happening at home. This can feel like distance, and sometimes it is. But it is also development. An eighth grader who is pulling toward independence while still gravitating toward you in unfamiliar situations is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing. The goal at this stage is not closeness on your terms; it is staying available on his.

We know middle school is a time of transition for boys, but we don’t often talk about it as a time of transition for parents. What transitions will parents face during their boys’ middle school years?

RMSB: The hardest one, and the one parents usually seem least prepared for, is the shift from being needed to being chosen. When boys are small, your presence is simply assumed. Middle school is when they start deciding how much of you they want in the room. That recalibration is disorienting even when you know it is healthy.

Parents are also forced to grieve versions of their son that are quietly disappearing. The kid who wanted to tell you everything. The one who reached for your hand. He is not gone, but he is changing, and there is real loss in that even when the change is good. Parents who make room for that grief, rather than rushing past it, tend to handle the transition more gracefully. We will speak from our own experience here. Not long ago, we stumbled across an old video: our son at three years old, walking into Disney World, one small hand wrapped around his dad’s. Watching it stopped us both. That little voice. Those wide, completely unguarded eyes. That version of our boy is not coming back, and sitting with that truth for a moment actually hurt in a way that surprised us.

We loved him fiercely then, and we love the man he has become just as fiercely now. He is 22, a college graduate, and getting married in 45 days. By any measure, he is exactly who you hope your child becomes. And still, that little person belongs to a chapter that is finished, and there is real grief in that, even when everything is going beautifully. Perhaps especially when everything is going beautifully.

If you have felt that too, you are not being sentimental. You are being human. That grief is real, it is valid, and it takes as long as it takes.

And then there is the identity reckoning that happens in the adults themselves. Raising a boy through early adolescence has a way of surfacing your own unresolved experiences from that age: who you were in the hallway, where you fit, what you wish someone had said to you. That is not a problem. It is actually an opportunity, if you are paying attention.

In your experience, what do middle school boys most need from their parents?

RMSB: Presence that does not require a performance. Boys at this age are performing constantly, for their peers, for their teachers, sometimes even for themselves. Home should be the place where the performance is not required. That means tolerating the silence without filling it, staying in the room when things are hard, and making it clear through consistent action that your interest in him is not conditional on him being easy or impressive or okay.

They also need adults who are honest. Boys are watching to see whether the values you talk about are the ones you actually live by. They notice the gap between what you say and what you do much faster than most parents realize. Modeling accountability, including apologizing when you have gotten it wrong, teaches more than any conversation about integrity ever could.

And they need someone who is not afraid of this stage. Boys can feel when the adults around them are anxious or overwhelmed by their development. A parent who can stay curious rather than alarmed, who treats the hard moments as information rather than emergencies, gives a boy permission to be exactly where he is.

What do parents of middle school boys most need?

RMSB: Permission to be imperfect and reassurance that imperfect is enough. The research on this is actually quite comforting: what predicts good outcomes for boys is not precision parenting. It is consistent, warm, responsive presence over time. A parent who keeps showing up, who repairs after conflict, who stays curious about their son even when he is difficult, is doing the most important work there is. You do not have to get every moment right. You have to keep coming back.

Parents also need community. Raising a middle school boy can feel isolating, particularly when you are not sure whether what you are experiencing is normal. (It almost always is.) Finding other adults who are in the same season, who can offer a reality check or simply the comfort of shared experience, matters more than most parenting books do.

And honestly? They need someone to remind them to enjoy it. Not every moment of it, because some of it is genuinely hard. But the ordinary Tuesday evenings, the long stories that take twice as long as they should, the late-night conversations that start about nothing and end up meaning something. Those moments are happening right now, and they will not look exactly like this again.

What’s one thing you wish every parent of a middle school boy understood sooner?

RMSB: That your relationship with him is the intervention. Not the right consequences, not the right strategy, not the right script for the hard conversation. The relationship itself, maintained through consistency and warmth and a willingness to repair when it gets strained, is the most powerful thing you have. Every major protective factor in the research on adolescent boys points back to the same place: a consistent adult who notices, who stays, and who makes it clear through action that the boy matters. You are that adult. That is not nothing. That is everything.

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Thanks Jennifer & Corey!

Here’s to building boys,

Jen

IN THE NEWS

Landmark Finding That Showed Brains of Kids with ADHD Mature Later Was Actually a Mirage in the Data, New Research Finds

Highlights:

• “Two decades ago, a landmark study showed that the brains of kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) take longer to mature. But new research suggests that this result, which was based on brain scans from a few hundred children, was a mirage.”

• “What was thought to be a hallmark of the ADHD brain, the study found, instead reflects average sex differences in how the brains of boys and girls develop over childhood.”

Looksmaxxing Isn’t Just a Tik Tok Trend — It Often Reflects Severe Body Image Issues in Teen Boys & Young Men

Highlights:

• “The behaviors associated with looksmaxxing look suspiciously like symptoms of eating disorders and body dysmorphia”

• “Despite the widespread recognition that eating disorder-related content is harmful to mental and physical health, looksmaxxing has yet to be addressed by social media platform policies. Instead, prominent looksmaxxers are treated as internet celebrities”

I was Devastated to Learn I Was Having a Baby Boy. I’m Far From Alone.

Highlights:

• “Whenever a well-meaning acquaintance or stranger asked whether I was having a boy or a girl, I didn’t even try to hide my displeasure: ‘A boy. Ugh.’”

• “So much of my gender disappointment revolved around the chaotic scenes I’d witnessed involving young boys… My hormonal brain flashed to visions of a raucous toddler who wouldn’t stop climbing the walls while my best friend’s daughter calmly played with dolls”

• “It turns out that my gender disappointment didn’t have anything to do with the baby in question. My baby is wonderful. All babies are wonderful. It’s us parents who have shit to work through.”

• “the fear I heard echoed in almost every conversation: I don’t know what to do with a boy.”

• “The stakes of raising your son wrong in this world are intimidatingly high…Unless we lock our sons in a room without an internet connection, they are sure to encounter misogynistic, racist messaging disguised as male empowerment on a daily basis.”

Contrary to Stereotypes, Gamers Tend to be More Inclusive Than the General Public, Study Finds

Highlights:

• “The scientists…looked specifically at players of shooter games…[&] found that shooter game players were also more likely to hold inclusive values regarding gender roles and equality compared to the general public.”

• “Across every model tested, the authors found no evidence that playing video games broadly corresponds to an increase in exclusionary values.”