How to Raise a Boy named one of On Boys Podcast’s favorite books of 2023!
Dr. Reichert at the Clinton Global Initiative 2023 Meeting!
Dr. Reichert participated on a panel on Men’s Mental Health at the Clinton Global Initiative 2023 this past week. The panel included Melissa Terry, CEO, Movember; Rodrigo Alonso Barazza Garcia, Regional Co-Director, Americas en Global Fund for Children; and Mahmoud Khedr, Youth Advocate. Learn more here!
I’m excited to speak at #TheMARCSummit presented by @catalystinc — a thought-provoking, virtual experience that redefines how we understand and embrace what it means to be a man. Check it out here!
How to Raise a Boy now out in paperback!
How to Raise a Boy makes Greater Good Magazine’s list of Favorite Parenting Books of 2019!
The magazine published by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California Berkeley has selected How to Raise a Boy: The Power of Connections to Build Good Men as one of its Favorite Parenting Books of the year. Check out the blurb and the rest of their selections on their website!
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“What a growing number of them have discovered, he contends—and what he hopes his book will illuminate for more—is a perverse irony at the heart of American masculinity. As an ethos, it reveres self-possession, competency, fortitude, and resilience. But as a behavioral code, it demands submission—quiet acquiescence to a narrow set of stereotypes that fence off whole realms of human experience.”
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Building Better Boys – Good Life Project
In this conversation, Dr. Reichert addresses a number of societal myths and offers more constructive, science-backed reframes. At a time when we’re all reexamining questions of gender, identity, behavior and the way we bring ourselves to the world and our roles in teaching those who look to us as models of behavior and values, this topic has never been more important.
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“As you get older, people will tell you that character is innate and fixed, that some have it and others don’t. Ignore these people. They haven’t seen what I’ve seen and they haven’t heard what I’ve heard. It’s my job to watch boys grow up and let me tell you this: You can change yourself into the person you want to be. You have the chance to do that every day.”
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Interview — The Good Men Project
“The cultural disruption of traditional masculinity has invited a new level of honesty about the routine casualties of boyhood.”
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Conversation with Jennifer Fink — On Boys Podcast
“How do you raise boys to become great men?”
Raising Boys with a Broader Definition of Masculinity — Interview with The Atlantic
“There are lots of signs that these cultural norms are shifting. I think this generation of boys is having a different experience and responding to a different set of opportunities than any prior generation.”
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It Doesn’t Take a Man to Raise a Boy — Time
“The peer pressures of boyhood are so powerful, a strong sense of self is necessary if a boy is to avoid unhealthy identities. All parents need to remember that our connection with our sons is their primary fortification.”
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“It was never easy being the parent of a boy. For years now, a crisis has been building for men, a crisis brought to a head by the #MeToo movement. Many parents raising boys are now questioning and waking up to the skewed ideals surrounding masculinity. What are we teaching our boys about what it means to be a man? How do we prevent our sons from making the kinds of mistakes we see and hear about all around?”
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5 Tips for Getting Your Son to Open Up to You — Brightly
“It’s hard for parents — or for anyone reaching for a boy, such as teachers or coaches — not to feel like a failure when their sons reject their generous, thoughtful invitations to connect. It feels like a comment on our job performance. For parents whose stress is already high or who are already struggling with self-esteem, anger and hurt are natural reactions. The boy becomes the problem — an attitude that boys quickly pick up on and attempt to shield themselves from.”
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“They smoke more, fight more and are far more likely to die young than girls. But their tendency to violence isn’t innate.”
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What the New Gillette Ad Misses About Boys — Psychology Today
“But the conversation about the ad, and maybe the ad itself, seem to miss the most important point. Where, we should be asking, does male misbehavior come from? How are so many boys transformed from innocent, empathically-attuned human hearts to become perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault in later years?”
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Listen to Dr. Reichert on WHYY's Radio Times
Host Marty Moss-Coane moderates a conversation between Dr. Michael C. Reichert and Dr. Michael Lindsey, professor of poverty studies and Executive Director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy at New York University.
Listen at whyy.org →
The Seduction of Football and How It's Destroying Today's Boys
By Michael C. Reichert
"What Jason’s parents felt, even if they didn’t see it clearly, was that their son drank the cultural brew and had become intoxicated. He was all too willing to sacrifice himself for the higher purpose offered by historic masculine values ⏤ even though routine casualties have always been an inconvenient truth about boyhood."
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Will #MeToo dating rules bring on an 'end of men'?
By Michael C. Reichert
"Modern sexual mores ask a lot of millennial and Gen Z men, who are being whipsawed between two unyielding cultural forces. While the movement for gender equality offers everyone, including men, a better deal overall — and has the advantage of being fair — traditional masculinity continues to teach boys lessons in dominance, exploitation, shame, and loss. From this clash, some fear an 'end of men' — or at least an end to the historic masculinity most males take to heart."
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James Comey vs. Donald Trump: What makes a good man?
By Michael C. Reichert
"Indeed, Comey’s initial moral claim was promptly challenged, as the president responded in his preferred Twitter vernacular to cast Comey as an 'untruthful slime ball.' The Republican National Committee echoed his view, amplifying the message on Fox News, and the rest of mainstream media weighed in as well: An April 10 Washington Post story said that Trump 'may well be the most corrupt major business figure in the United States of America.'
As a psychologist specializing in male development, I am not surprised that the scout/scoundrel trope is once again being used to explain men’s character."
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The Parkland Shooting Calls Attention to Male Violence – The Atlantic
By Michael C. Reichert
"Male violence is rooted in the conditions provided for boys: In compelling them to distance themselves from those they depend on, shut down their necessary emotions, and harden themselves in an effort to feel no pain, male conditioning violates boys’ basic natures and sets them up to act out in ways that hurt others. Inadvertently, lessons intended to toughen boys in preparation for manhood make them lonelier, less adaptive, and less resilient. Like a one-trick pony: domination, anger, and aggression all the time."
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This Reality Show is Helping Men Who Have Lost Their Way
by Michael C. Reichert
"What is modeled, though, in the interaction between the Fab Five and their clients is the power of caring relationships to rehabilitate men who have been left behind. As the five men prepare to say goodbye to their charge, they share that they have “fallen in love with him,” saying, “You are such an amazing man.” Receiving such genuine appreciation, Tom breaks down in tears. It is clear he has never experienced such attention and support, and he admits he will miss his makeover team. “We all just want to be loved,” one of the Fab Five explains, with tears flowing all around."
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