Raising my Black Boys
Raising my sons has always been a pleasure. I don’t know when the flip switched from joy to fear, but I constantly balance the two in my hands and heart, both of which feel helpless at times. You see, my boys are getting older, and they no longer don the sweet, chubby faces of infancy. […]
Yes, Boys Can Dance
It’s 2019. I can’t believe I have to say this, but here it goes: BOYS CAN DANCE. One day after releasing a podcast episode with the creator of #MyBoyCan, a international movement founded by Sassy Harvey after her 4-year-old son was told he must be either “gay” or “a girl” because he attended dance class, […]
The Everyday Challenges of Raising Boys
The hardest thing about raising boys, in my opinion, is dealing with the myriad challenges that present themselves every. single. day. I’ve been parenting boys for more than two decades now and there’s not a day that goes by that I’m not presented with some situation that I don’t quite know how to handle. My […]
Your Son Could Be Your Son For Life, Even After He’s Found A Wife If you Avoid These Mistakes
Mothers of sons are often led to believe that, at some stage, their son is going to leave them. We’ve all heard the ditty ‘A daughter is a daughter for life, but a son’s only a son until he takes a wife.’. It’s enough to send fear into any mother’s heart, and it gives […]
Stop Assuming Boys Are Bad
“Something unexpected happened…” That’s the lead-up to this CBS New story about a middle school boy who befriended a 5 year old with autism: It’s supposed to be a simple feel-good story, the kind the news feeds us every now and then to remind us that all is not lost and that there is still […]
Why We Talk About What It Means to “Be A Man”
No one has ever asked me what it means to be a woman. I realized this recently, after two of my brothers began debating what it means to be a man. One of my brothers wrote out his thoughts after seeing the trailer for The Mask We Live In, an upcoming documentary that focuses on […]
Being a Man
Being a man has nothing to do with being a tough guy, or hiding your emotions, getting in fights, or getting the most woman. That’s not being a man. That’s an immature boy, that is not a man. Too many grown men who cling to being a boy and who won’t grow into a man. […]
Why “Be a Man” Is the Worst Thing You Can Say to a Boy
“The three most destructive words that every man receives when he is a boy is ‘ Be a Man.’” – Joe Ehrmann, Coach & NFL player
Junior Seau, Sports Illustrated & Playing Thru Pain
If you follow football (or the national news), you probably know that former NFL great Junior Seau committed suicide at the age of 43. News reports speculate that repeated brain trauma, the result of years in football, may have contributed to his self-inflicted death. As a healthcare writer and nurse, I find that possibility intriguing, […]
Boys and the Arts
I watched the Tony Awards, the Oscars of the theatre world, with my 12-year-old son last night. We critiqued the musical numbers, commented on the plays and predicted the winners. And at the end of the night, my 12-year-old son watched me jump off the couch and applaud my childhood best friend as he took […]