Shabs, I was thinking about your H when I was in the shower.......NO NO NO, not in a Paolo way but in an irritated for you way
You can't raise 'soft' boys.
(WTF, can't stand that attitude)
And there are two strong reasons why.
(1) My mum is adopted. She has been brought up a certain way and yet she remains very unlike her adoptive mum in so many ways. This is think argues the nature/nurture debate very well. And proves your H wrong in his statment. You cannot make a boy soft (whatever relevance SOFT has in the normal world!).
(2) Bringing up twins shows that you can treat two people exactly the same at exactly the same time with exactly the same exposure to all things and with exactly the same family dynamic and end up with two different people. As my HV said, "same recipe, different cake".
My point to your H is (and it aint my argument it must be remembered), is that no matter how you raise your boys...........ultimately it has no bearing over what nature that person has. That was pre determined at the cell stage, a long time ago.