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BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity Audiobook
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Combining painfully honest memoir, cultural analysis, and reporting, BoyMom is a humorous and heartbreaking deep dive into the complexities of raising boys in our fraught political moment.
“Rapist, school-shooter, incel, man-child, interrupter, mansplainer, boob-starer, birthday forgetter, frat boy, dude-bro, homophobe, self-important stoner, emotional-labor abstainer, non-wiper of kitchen counters. Trying to raise good sons suddenly felt like a hopeless task.”
As the culture wars rage, and masculinity has been politicized from all sides, feminist writer and mother of three boys Ruth Whippman finds herself conflicted and scared. While the right pushes a dangerous vision of fantasy manhood, her feminist peers often dismiss boys as little more than entitled predators-in-waiting. Meanwhile her home life feels like a daily confrontation with the triumph of nature over nurture.
With young men in the grip of a loneliness epidemic and dying by suicide at a rate of nearly four times their female peers, Whippman asks: How do we raise our sons to have a healthy sense of self without turning them into privileged assholes? How can we find a feminism that holds boys to a higher standard but still treats them with empathy? And what do we do when our boys won’t cooperate with our plans?
Whippman digs into the impossibly contradictory pressures boys now face; and the harmful blind spots of male socialization that are leaving boys isolated, emotionally repressed, and adrift. Feminist gonzo-style, she spends months interviewing incels, reports on a conference for boys accused of sexual assault; crashes at a residential therapy center for young men in Utah, talks to a wide range of psychologists and other experts, and gets boys of all backgrounds to open up about sex, consent, porn, body image, mental health, cancel culture, screens, friendship and loneliness. Along the way, she finds her simple certainties about male privilege seriously challenged.
With wit, honesty, and a refusal to settle for easy answers, BoyMom charts a new path to give boys a healthier, more expansive, and fulfilling story about their own lives.
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"This is a wonderful and timely book. Whippman is a gifted writer; funny, smart, vulnerable and wise all at the same time. As a mother of 3 boys, getting to the bottom of what boys want and need is part of Whippman’s mission, but it’s one from which we can all benefit. At a time when there is cultural confusion about what’s causing so many men and boys to suffer or fail, BOYMOM provides much-needed insight, wisdom, and clarity—not only for those raising sons—but for anyone a stake in the future of boys and men. In other words, practically all of us."
— Joshua Coleman, author of Rules of Estrangement
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In this beautifully written book, Ruth Whippman draws on her experiences raising her own three sons as well as cultural critique and reporting to imagine a new future for boys in our post #MeToo world. By turns funny, heart-rending and revelatory, Whippman manages to deliver both an important contribution to the feminist literature as well as an emotive page-turner. A must-read, not just for mothers of sons but for anyone with boys or men in their lives.
— Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space -
In her courageous book, Ruth Whippman takes on a subject long considered off-limits for mothers: boyhood and its myths and misconceptions. Weaving her moving journey as a mother to three sons through a remarkably lucid review of child development and masculinity literatures, she offers a powerful critique of our contemporary model for raising boys. In the end, she lovingly affirms boys’ right to be themselves and to exercise their own imaginations for the men they want to become.
— Michael Reichert, author of How to Raise a Boy -
Provocative and probing . . . Ruth Whippman, a mother of three rowdy boys, investigates the changing orthodoxies of manhood in America. She discovers loneliness and failed good intentions, but also a longing for connection, and moments of grace. Whippman shows that we ought to think harder about who we want our boys to become.
— Pamela Druckerman, author of Bringing Up Bébé -
Ruth Whippman’s evocative and deeply-reported account shines a light through the darkness of outmoded societal ‘rules’ of masculinity that can limit boys—and men—from connecting with their full humanity. This excellent book offers a roadmap for how to work together for liberation from these constraints. You will care about the boys and men you read about. I loved it.
— Devorah Heitner, author of Growing Up in Public -
Whippman grapples with difficult questions about modern boyhood searchingly and with good cheer, never settling for the easy answers and never flinching from painting herself in an (often hilariously) honest light. I found myself wishing she could be my guide through far more than just the thorny task of raising sons. This is a beautiful and wise book that will offer a balm to many mothers.
— Yael Goldstein-Love, author of The Possibilities -
BoyMom is funny, heartrending, and revelatory. Ruth Whippman manages to deliver both an important contribution to the feminist literature and an emotive page-turner. . . . A must-read.
— Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play -
Provocative and probing . . . Ruth Whippman investigates the changing orthodoxies of American manhood. She discovers loneliness and failed good intentions but also a longing for connection and moments of grace. Whippman shows us that we ought to think harder about who we want our boys to become.
— Pamela Druckerman, author of Bringing Up Bébé -
Weaving her moving journey as a mother to three sons through a remarkably lucid review of child development and masculinity literatures, Whippman offers a powerful critique of our contemporary model for raising boys.
— Michael Reichert, author of How to Raise a Boy -
This book challenged and educated me, gave me hope while refusing easy answers. . . . A necessary addition to the canon of motherhood books.
— Amanda Montei, author of Touched Out -
This evocative and deeply reported account shines a light through the darkness of societal rules that limit boys from connecting with their full humanity, and offers a road map for how to work together for liberation. I loved it.
— Devorah Heitner, author of Growing Up in Public -
BoyMom is a revelation. So relatable, funny, and engaging—full of eye-opening insights that will transform my parenting.
— Melinda Wenner Moyer, author of How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes -
Whippman is a gifted writer: funny, smart, vulnerable, and wise. This wonderful and timely book provides much-needed insight for anyone with a stake in the future of boys and men.
— Joshua Coleman, author of Rules of Estrangement -
A fabulous and much-needed book.
— Pragya Agarwal, author of Sway and M(otherhood) -
Ruth Whippman is a rare talent with an even rarer set of skills, deftly combining forensic academic research, dazzling wit and disarmingly punchy prose that leaps from the page and leaves you wondering how something so clever and so urgent can be so much fun to read.
— Charlotte Philby, author of Part of the Family, A Double Life and Edith and Kim -
A scathing indictment of the harmful ways masculinity impacts the lives of boys and men . . . Every mother of boys will relate.
— Minna Dubin, author of Mom Rage -
Whippman takes readers on a deeply reported and eye-opening journey through the perilous landscape of modern masculinity. She skillfully upends limiting stereotypes along the way and shows how caring, intimacy and relationships make possible richer lives for all genders.
— Brigid Schulte, New York Times bestselling author of Overwhelmed and director of The Better Life Lab -
Ruth Whippman is a rare talent with an even rarer set of skills, deftly combining forensic academic research, dazzling wit and disarmingly punchy prose that leaps from the page and leaves you wondering how something so clever and so urgent can be so much fun to read.
— Charlotte Philby, author of Part of the Family, A Double Life, and Edith and Kim
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