Raising Sons to be Husbands [parenting]

I am a mother of sons and I am raising husbands. When my son was three years old, he considered pink his favorite color and he loved to play with his kitchen set. These would not even merit mention but for the fact that the moms around me felt it was “interesting.” It is amazing how invasive society’s rules about our gendered lives really are. It has always been important to me to help my boys express themselves fully. What that means in reality is giving them opportunities to recognize, name and confidently feel a full range of emotions. Anger, silliness, and joy. These are the more socially acceptable emotions for boys. But fear, sadness and a deep sense of connection are so much harder to nurture.

Here are two moments in my son’s lives (Insert: Your future sons-in-law) that I treasure:

My teenage son’s camp friends have just spent a long weekend at our home as part of a camp reunion. My husband drives the boys home and our son joins them to say goodbye. My husband comes home amazed to have witnessed the emotional farewell of these close friends-hugging and all!

I walk into the living room where my son is reading a book on the couch. As I get closer I see that he is crying. Gently, I sit down next to him and ask him if he is okay. He looks at me. “Yeah”, he says through tears, “but this book is so sad. The children in this book are being treated so meanly.”


Thankfully, we don’t have to leave this important process to chance. There is wisdom out there in the world to help. Our goal as parents should be to normalize our children’s emotions. There are no bad emotions, only unhelpful responses to them.

Introduce your children to the language of emotion
When children pretend play, ask them how a character feels? You can also label emotions and connect them to what you are seeing. (“That boy jumping up and down in the picture looks really happy doesn’t he?”) Go beyond happy, glad, mad and sad. Find opportunities to use more nuanced words like frustrated, wistful, and confident.

Help kids recognize emotional courage
In the words of the authors of Raising Cain, “Many adults display emotional courage in their work or personal lives, but rarely do we allow our children to witness our private moments of conscience or bravery.”

Show your love openly
Dads, this one is especially important for you. Hug your son, kiss him, and tell him how much you love him without condition. No dad around? Borrow a mentor and a role model who will care about him, do things with him and make an emotional connection.

Let boys be boys
Boys can be sensitive and caring and they are not going to express it exactly like girls. Honor and appreciate them for their capacity to take action, their willingness to be inclusive and their structured games and fidelity to fairness.