He'll Be OK: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men, by Celia Lashlie, 2005 Print

asp?isbn=186950528x He'll Be OK: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men, by Celia Lashlie, 2005

This book is a refreshingly male-positive un-PC look at the "boy crisis". Here's a blurb and a few quotes to give you an idea of the book's tone and subject matter.

In September 2004, Celia Lashlie completed the Good Man Project. The project, which facilitated discussion within and between 25 boys' schools throughout New Zealand, aimed to create a working definition of what makes a good man in the 21st century. What arose from the project was a significant insight into the minds of teenage boys, and what they are feeling at this period in their lives.

He'll Be OK
There are also some challenging suggestions for parents, as well as a call for women in particular to rethink the way they interact with the men in their lives - their sons and their husbands - if they want to see their sons become the good men they want them to be.

"When we talk about the boys at co-educational schools being more socially adept, more 'mature', are we in fact saying that they've learnt earlier than boys educated in single-sex schools just what expectations women have of them?"

"The central issue in the lives of adolescent boys is getting mothers off the bridge of adolescence, and fathers on to it"

"I was fascinated by the degree to which the boys believed women were in charge, both within their world and in the wider community. This attitude was clear in comments such as these: 'I pick an answer and hope it's the one she wants to hear', 'They can have sex any time they want while we have to work out whether they're up for it', 'Part of being a man is putting up with women'.

"Women need to accept the reality of men rather than forever wanting to change it and them"

"Male intuition is a highly developed skill that most men use with almost no conscious awareness of exactly what they're doing"

"The challenge for women is to recocgnise the communication that's occurring in the silence and trust it, rather than insisting that everything be openly discussed"

"We women aren't letting our boys learn about action and consequence because we keep interfering in the process. We must stop if they're to have any chance of a successful and enjoyable life."

"There's one thing I'd ask on behalf of the boys being raised by their mothers: Is it really concern for his safety that's stopping you from letting him spend time with his father or is it a cloak you're hiding behind for other reasons?"

"Men's voices aren't heard as clearly as they should or could be and it seems acceptable to poke fun at them"

"There's a tendency in society to assume that views expressed by women are right until proved wrong and that those expressed by men are wrong until proven right"

"Girls and women should be able to do anything, not everything. Women often confuse the two."

You can hear radio interviews with the author, Celia Lashlie at

mp3 http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200703/r131478_436453.mp3
mp3 http://dadsontheair.net/shows/Dads_on_the_Air_2007-04-17.mp3
 
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