Its a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons by Andrea J. Buchanan

Its a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons Reviews

• 
  Molly

  I bought this book days after the ultrasound. I have a near-two-year-old daughter; I was convinced this second would be a girl too. (And, in all fairness, I was convinced with Maya that she would be a boy, so much so that I balked at the announcement, asking the tech to check again, so it turns out my motherly intuition is completely out of whack, and I've had to make peace with that.) I was ready for a boy then, but somehow, after twenty-two months of re-analyzing my feminist attitudes, I'm going to have to re-learn where I stand all over again. I was prepared to share my American Girl Dolls and tell her about the sisterhood and give her a copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves. Now I have to figure out equivalents. This will probably be the first sequence of many narratives I use to bolster myself up, but I have confidence when I think of all the women I admire who have raised and are raising sons. Maybe I won't foul this up.
  
  I think I was a bit frustrated at the earlier pieces in the book--so many of them were the same reiteration: I thought I'd have a daughter, I was meant to have a daughter, I knew how to raise a daughter, but I got a son. And then the comparisons of boys and girls.
  
  One I had to read aloud to my husband: "Spinning around until he had to stagger around dizzily also figured prominently in his play, as did putting things like putting trash cans on his head and walking into walls. Several times he inexplicably got his head stuck in the banister. I've never known a girl to do that" (33). And as our daughter leapt from end table to his unsuspecting lap, my husband said what I was thinking, affectionately, "She should come to our house."
  
  As I write this, my daughter has thrust the emptied toy drum onto her head and she is guffawing at the macho black dog of ours as he skitters away, snuffling in fear. (And, in more fairness, he's a complete weenie--afraid of camping mattresses, laundry hampers, wine buckets. It's not hard to scare him, though Maya is sort of exceptional in this department, as she's a big aggressive in her love of all pets.) And here I'm already falling into the trap that annoyed me a bit in the book: touting examples of masculine versus feminine toddler behaviors as a way of appeasing that gender-ideal in our own heads. I want to say: she loves blocks and her choo-choos and her babies and is busier than any other toddler I've met, save her cousin when he was her age, perhaps.
  
  In the end, she is an individual, and those were the stories I loved the most, the ones that strove to send the message that parenting is about celebrating who that *person* is as opposed to that little girl or little boy.
  
  My favorite piece was "Pretty Baby," which took a look at one son whose favorite color was "darky pink" and oohed over the magic of The Nutcracker on Ice. The piece opened with the you-voice, bringing the reader in, letting that reader imagine he or she was sitting behind them, observing her son's fascination of glittering snow and pink costuming, then goes on to defend her son's passions, which aren't just about pink or boyishness or girlishness but being a child with a solid sense of wonder, and instead of landing in the predictable place where the you shames the author's allowances of her son, the you gets to say, "Your son is lovely," and I think that is exactly the perfect thing to say about a child whose heart is clearly big and ready to swallow up the world in all its beauty.
  
  See, it's not about equivalents. It's not about being thrilled that your son loves pink and nurturing his baby dolls and that your daughter knows more names for bugs and is willing to play in the dirt from dawn to dust. It's not about making peace with trucks and princesses.
  
  My daughter, too, is lovely. And I love that. I can't wait to meet my son, because I think he will be lovely too.
• 
  Erin

  It's A Boy is a series of short essays by female authors (including Jodi Picoult and Jacquelyn Mitchard) on various aspects of being a woman and raising a boy. I found them, by and large, to be thoughtful, poignant and relatable. There were certain topics that didn't really pertain to me (having a boy after having a girl; dealing with a teenage boy) and others that really resonated with me (worrying about how to best raise a boy; watching your boy develop a definite preference for trucks and masculine items despite your desire to create a gender neutral atmosphere). I really enjoyed reading the collection and think it's one of those books that'd be a great gift for any mother of a son.
• 
  Kate Higgins

  I read "It's a Girl" after Louisa was born and enjoyed that a lot, so this was required reading after Thomas was born. Once again, I really enjoyed it. I found a common experience within these pages about raising these little alien beings. And that is so very comforting! While I'd love to say that gender doesn't matter, it is a scary thing to me to raise something that I am not. Girls I know. Boys?! Eeek! Who knew that this fear is so common among mothers?! Comforting, indeed.
• 
  Kerri

  Really disappointing collection of essays for me. I pushed through the fact that I could not identify with One Thing in all the pregnancy-to-toddler essays, (as a mother of FOUR boys I was incredulous) hoping that there might be some bits of wisdom or at least humor in the older boy sections. No. Mostly vulgar comparisons to teenage boys in the mother's past or otherwise disdaining of their growing man. So sad I wasted my time.
• 
  Jenny

  If you are a mother of a son of any age you have to read this collection of essays. I read it just after my son was born and it gave me such a glimpse of what might be down the road for us. I checked it out of the library, after reading a review of it in Brain, Child Magazine. I liked it so much I bought it. I expect I'll get more out of it as my son gets older.
• 
  Stacy

  Really good. As the new mother of a son, this book validated some of my feelings (what? I'm not having a girl?!) and helped me envision my future as the mother of a toddler, child, and teenaged boy. Some essays were stronger than others. All in all, a very worthwhile collection.
• 
  Devon

  Read July 2008
  
  I really enjoyed this collection of essays on raising sons. I have three of them myself and was very excited to get my hands on this book that tells the tales of mothers and their challenges and joys when raising their sons from conception to the dreaded teenage years. There were obviously some essays that I enjoyed more than others such as Susan Ito's "Samuel" about a woman and the son she never had. "Things You Can't Teach" by Katie Kaput a transgender woman trying to raise a son, "Pretty Baby" by Catherine Newman a hilarious essay about a woman trying to raise a son without the confines of societal norms and Jacquelyn Mitchard's "The Day He Was Taller" a touching essay about the day she realized her son was becoming a man. All of these above mentioned essays made me laugh or cry and I thoroughly enjoyed them all.
  
  So one may wonder if I liked all of these essays so much why am I only giving the book three stars. Well that is because many of the essays despite being fairly entertaining did not touch me...I could not relate. The beginning essays mostly focused on women's disappointment at learning they were having a boy. Now, trust me when I tell you no one has wanted a little girl more than I did and when I found out I was having twin boys after already having a three year old son I was a bit miffed to say the least. However, no matter how much I wanted a girl I never cried over the fact that I was having boys, my disappointment did not run as deep as many of these women's seemed to have at the news of a boy. I was just happy to be having healthy babies. So on this issue while I could totally understand, I couldn't completely relate.
  
  Also, many of these women writers wanted to raise their sons to be free of the confines society forces on boys. Which is all well and good but I cannot, personally, relate to letting my son wear earrings and necklaces to preschool just because he felt like it. I cannot conceive of buying my son pink clothes and shoes from the girls section of the store just be cause he really likes pink and I don't tend to give my sons dolls over trucks because I want them to be more open minded. I am just not one of those mothers so again I couldn't relate.
  
  Overall I think this is a good collection of essays centered around raising boys especially since there are not a lot out there like it. Therefore, I would recommend it to mothers of sons even if you cannot relate to all of the essays some are guaranteed to touch your heart.
• 
  Kim

  What a wonderful collection of essays. As I read through the essays, I found myself nodding along, smiling, and reflecting upon my own experience as the mother of two boys. From the initial shock of "What do I DO with a boy?" when I found out my first was a boy, to the disappointment of not having the opportunity to raise a girl, to the joy of discovering the special bond (it's true, it exists) between mother and son, to the changes that occur as your boy moves toward adolescence, I found my own feelings echoed in the words of these women. Now, having been a mother to boys for more than a decade, I can say with certainty that it is nearly impossible for me to imagine being a mom to anyone else, and I, too, find myself telling new moms with boys that they are in for a [good] treat. I recommend this collection to anyone with ambivalent feelings about raising a boy and anyone who is the parent of a boy - it can be both a trip down memory lane, as well as a guide for what's ahead.
• 
  Jamie

  This was a great little collection of essays about mothering boys. It left me with an awareness of just how short babyhood is, and now that I've been done with it for a few hours, it is making me appreciate the physicality of my relationship with Max all the more. He won't always need me so intimately, and the way we are together will have so many stages. I liked that this book helped me to think further about gender roles, about the varying ways "boyness" manifests, and about what it means for mothers to have sons.
  
  I don't feel very sharp these days--my ability to critically think and express the nuances of my thoughts is not what it used to be (I blame it on the baby!)--so I realize that this review is not very eloquent or specific. Right now, I can't do much better than this: I really loved this book.
• 
  Jennifer

  Like many books about the experience of motherhood, this is a compilation of different mothers talking about their experiences. In this case, the common thread is the challenges and joys of raising boys. (There is a "girl" version of the book as well). The essays range from mother's discussing their disappointments on finding out they were having a son instead of a daughter to the advantages of raising a son versus raising a daughter. The mothers are at all different points in their motherhood -- some have teenagers, some with toddlers, some with grade schoolers. As with any compilation with essays written by different writers, the reader will find they like some more than others. But, overall, as a mother of a son, I enjoyed reading the viewpoints of other women raising this most "alien" of species to me!
• 
  Brandy

  I'm a little better than halfway through this, and I'm waiting to see if the balance will ever shift away from women who are SO FLUMMOXED by having a boy, and then marvel at their boys who act like, well, boys, but are still remarkably gentle and kind. On the whole, I like personal essays, but there's not a lot of diversity of opinion (or even socioeconomic class) represented in this collection, so it seems like the same essays over and over.
  
  To be fair, I may just be grumpy with this book because the binding broke and the text block split in two after I'd turned only a couple of pages, and it's hard to juggle while they're both stuck to the cover.
  
  [edit] Finished. Opinion unchanged, despite having a friend in Tech Services fix the binding for me.
• 
  Catherine

  I picked this book up at the thrift store when I was expecting my son. I didn't get around to reading it until some time after he was born, and maybe the new maternal hormones played a role, but I loved this book. The essays are heartwarming, touching, humorous, familiar... all that's needed to turn me into a puddle of sentiment. I hope to reread it again, now that I have a few years of motherhood under my belt, and see if I feel any differently about it. I am sure I will be even more sentimental for this second reading, since I remember a lot of the essays lamenting on just how quickly children do grow...
• 
  Sandee

  The first essays are mothers who really wanted girls or wanted their boys to be less boy-like (or more boy-like). Not much about the raising of sons but more about how their expectations of their children were not met.
  
  The later essays are about boys turning into teenagers which I'm not ready to face yet. I only read the first one, realizing I'd read later essays by same author and know her son-in-transition is now dead after falling in with the wrong crowd and developing a drug problem. Too sad to think about where kids may end up.
  
  I think I like my clueless parenting where I'm not sure what will happen next but it's all an adventure.
• 
  jess

  like most anthologies, this was rather hit-or-miss. it's not a how-to guide to raising boys, or very much like a "parenting book." a lot of the stories are irritating in that charming gender-assumptive way. i really appreciated katie kaput's piece on being a queer trans teen momma, and a few of the other pieces were insightful or clever as well. it wasn't a total wash, but it lacked a lot of the critical thinking, feminist perspectives, insights, and commentaries on raising boys that i was hoping for.
• 
  Cassie

  I read this collection of essays at the right time, as I'm in a particularly difficult season parenting my 2.5- and 4-year-old boys. This collection was a good reminder that these years, difficult as they seem, are something to be cherished and will pass by way too quickly. I didn't relate to or even enjoy a few of the essays, but the ones I did love left me highlighting passages and saying, "Yes. Exactly this."
• 
  Katrina

  I enjoyed most of these short essays about mothering boys. It was a little repetitive, with many of the essays echoing similar themes: I didn't want a boy but now that I have him I love him; I wanted my boy to break gender stereotypes but he's very masculine; or having a teenage boy living with you is like living with something non-human. The few that broke this mold were refreshing, and all were well-written.
• 
  Katy Spiller

  Excellent collection of a number of different mothers' accounts of raising boys. This was a good book that gave me a glimpse of what was to come when I learned that, after growing up with two sisters, I was pregnant with a boy (and now have two). Emotions vary across each account due to the experience recorded. While some are emotionally difficult to read (especially for a new/expecting mother), the book is very real.
• 
  Christine Rains

  I picked up this collection to read about other women writers raising boys. There wasn't anything about being a writer raising children, but the essays about being mothers of boys were fun and touching even when I didn't connect to some of them. I liked reading about moms raising sons who were very stereotypically boys and others who were not stereotypes. My son loves pink and kittens and the Three Stooges. Thanks for sharing your stories and giving me the warm fuzzies.
• 
  Jenny

  I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. It was OK. Not terrible but not great either. Expecting a boy, I was hoping to read a few more stories by women who weren't so very very disappointed to be having a son. But almost every essay name dropped Proust and expressed disappointment over the fact that there was a boy coming instead of a girl.
• 
  Aubrey

  My favorite essay in this book was by Catherine Newman, but there were many touching, funny, thoughtful essays about raising boys - from infancy to adolescence. I read to know I'm not alone on my path, and this book helps with that.
  
  Re-read in 2011 while pregnant with #2. Loved just as much this time.
• 
  Nara

  Some of these essays were nice, but I was ultimately unimpressed. They were more focused on the personal than the political, and the political is what interests me more. Not that the personal isn't political, god knows, but I prefer the connection to be made overtly.
• 
  Jess Gill

  i found the stories in this book funny, sad, insightful and most of all, reflective of what it's like to think about raising a boy, and how your ideas and thoughts about parenting adapt and change along with the individual your son is.
• 
  Michelle

  Wonderful book - I truly love reading compilation essays - they're fast reads, even when you swear you have no time to read. This one is very touching. I pick up the book to read over and over as Owen gets older. There is also a similiar book for Raising Daughters.
• 
  Marc

  Intersting short essays of women writers on their sons. A number of them seem to have had issues/concerns with having a boy, or came from all-female households. Interesting to see the female perspective.
• 
  Mindi

  read this at least five times. it keeps getting better and better. it's poignant and funny -- granted i'm a sucker for collections of essays anyway, but this one keeps me coming back again and again.
• 
  Meghan Anderson

  Overall I enjoyed the book. I could relate to some of the earlier essays especially and was encouraged by some of the later ones. I especially loved Pretty Boy towards the end and feel better about letting my little man explore his feminine side or not as he sees fit.