The Boy Crisis

A dad needs to be able to contribute a countervailing consideration to mom’s fear: the value of learning to explore with dad as a GPS as needed, so they don’t get too lost.

being an involved dad creates a “dad brain” that replaces his single-man desires. He’ll experience a decrease in the testosterone previously used in the hunt for sex and recovery after rejection, and an increase in oxytocin emanating from the joys of loving and being loved by an infant who needs him.

The discipline of postponing gratification is the single most important discipline your son needs.

As the workforce increasingly evolves from muscle to mental, and rote tasks are increasingly handled by robots or computers, humans will be increasingly required for our emotional intelligence and empathy.

Rather than his motto being “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” the motto for the evolved boy is “When the going gets tough, tune in to know when to tough it out.”

But while the changes in a dad’s brain do resemble those in a mom’s, the dad brain also drives contributions that are different from mom’s. For mom, it’s baby talk and staring into the baby’s eyes; for dad, it’s playful touching and behavior, physically moving the baby, and introducing the baby to new objects.34

If your son is nontraditional, he needs to know that the most important work of his life is selecting a woman who is free enough from social constraints to free him from social constraints.

We want him to be assertive, but not aggressive; to be empathetic, but not naive; to be “a doer,” but also introspective; to be perseverant, but not stubborn; to be prepared, but not obsessive; to help people, but not enable them . . .

Between quality childcare and longer parental leaves, the bigger contributor to a healthy and productive son is a longer parental leave.