It's a Guy Thing

Pollack, a director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital and a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School, spent years talking to boys and their families. He analyzed boys' relationships with mothers, fathers, teachers, coaches and friends. He studied the sensitive issues of teen-age violence and suicide. He considered biological explanations. In "Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood," Pollack concludes that boys' academic and emotional difficulties stem from a single traumatic event: their separation from their mothers. . .

In general, though, Pollack's tone is calm and considered. Chapter by chapter, he describes boys' relationships with mothers, fathers and friends. He explores boys' experiences in school and in sports groups. He considers the special problems boys face in adolescence. Throughout "Real Boys," Pollack gives parents suggestions for helping their sons, and his counsel is almost always sound. . .

In recent years, educational researchers have focused considerable attention on the academic and emotional difficulties faced by girls. Pollack deserves credit for giving equally serious consideration to the problems confronted by boys. But there is something disturbing about defining the needs of children exclusively in terms of male or female. For although there are significant differences between the sexes, the basic psychological needs of boys and girls are identical. Children, all children, need and deserve precisely the same things—loving, respectful guidance from adults, and schools that value individual abilities and unique ways of thinking.