Facebook live with Steve Biddulph - Thursday 27 April, 1.30pm

[RachelMumsnet]

At 1.30pm tomorrow afternoon we'll be joined by psychiatrist and best-selling author (Raising Boys and Raising Girls) Steve Biddulph who will be talking to us about his latest book 10 Things Girls Need Most, an interactive and reassuring guide to bringing up daughters.

During the interview we'll be asking Steve to offer advice and guide us through some of the most challenging aspects of raising girls - from birth to adult-hood. We'll be asking Steve how we can best help our daughters to grow up strong, free and happy.

Join us tomorrow (Thursday 27 April) at 1.30pm at www.facebook.com/mumsnet/ where you can join the interview by posting up any issues that you would like us to put to Steve. If you're unable to join us at that time, please post up your thoughts on this thread and we'll try and include them in the interview.

Everyone who likes the Mumsnet Facebook page and comments on the fb live will be entered into a draw to win a signed copy of Steve's latest book.

Please could Steve explain his remarks today on radio 4 , where he says one of the things girls need is a dad or dad substitute figure to be adventurous and do rumbunctious things with . Why does Steve think this is the solely attributable to dads ? or as he says a dad figure ( he said that after he said girls could be raised by two women but implied as long as one of them was 'dad like' i.e. only men or women pretending to be men can be adventurous. This strikes me as closet anti-feminism, and i was very shocked by the implication, and would love to hear Steve explain himself.

I bought and read this book last week. I agreed with much of it, but I feel that Steve Biddulph has got it wrong by suggesting that parents should ignore looks and clothing for their growing daughters. IMVHO it is vital to teach our girls, from a very young age, how to manage the pressures of a culture where female looks and clothing are pushed at girls from all angles. Burying our heads in the sand doesn't preserve innocence and will not equip girls to adopt healthy attitudes to their personal appearance.

Bobo - I'd be interested on a thread on that if you start it. I've been of the "not focusing on looks" crowd and focusing on enjoying being a kid. But i suspect it does make a difference at interviews /social occasions etc.

Let's see what Steve Biddulph has to say tomorrow, and then perhaps we can have a follow on thread from that?

Fab :)

My opinion, FWIW, is that knowing how to present oneself appropriately and in line with reasonable societal expectations as well as one's own personality, is a social skill like any other and is best learned early.

Theredjellybean really?! What a shocking lack of insight from the author his views sound very egocentric rather than based on facts.

I've had a skim through the Raising Boys and Raising Girls books and they strike me as a load of sexist codswallop...

I'd love to know whether Steve has read either Testosterone Rex or Delusions of Gender by Cordelia and whether he ever worries about reproducing the sex is mythologies that have historically disadvantaged the women and girls he hopes to make money by talking about?

Well I can tell you he's definitely read Delusions of Gender, it's referred to positively in Raising Girls and is also in the bibliography! I think Steve Biddulph gets a very unfair rap on MN. In my view, he's not suggesting girls and boys are innately different - just that they have different social pressures upon them, and as a parent you need to prepare for those.

Steve - I thought your book Manhood was really interesting (I read it after DH bought it). DH wants to know what impact you think social media is having on being a man.

I want to know whether you think men are infantilised by society and if so, what ought to be done about it.

I want to ask Steve, in this age when transgender issues are coming to the fore, is it not wrong to decide for them that your child is a boy or a girl and let them decide which sex they identify with when they are older?

Interesting discussion. We have a very looks focused dd and a very academic dh who is not of the jumping, climbing, rumbunctious type of male - he can't be that unusual! I'm not what you'd call physically adventurous either ...we sent our dd to Beavers/Cubs/scouts to give her another perspective.

In my view, he's not suggesting girls and boys are innately different

He bangs on and on about testosterone.

I pretty much brought my two girls up on my own with no males figures in their lives. I'm interested to know why this is thought to be a bad thing?

Both my girls are doing amazingly well, both doing well in studies and I have hopefully instilled an ethic of 'you can do anything you want'.

Why is it that only men can be seen to do things like rough play or the getting messy stuff? I have done everything with my girls that I possibly can.

I want to ask Steve, in this age when transgender issues are coming to the fore, is it not wrong to decide for them that your child is a boy or a girl and let them decide which sex they identify with when they are older?

You can't identify as a sex, you simply are one. As for identifying as a gender, the world would be a better place if we could just ditch those stereotypes altogether.

I've just logged into FB but nothing happening - am I doing something wrong?

I'm not able to see it either...

Did anyone show up for it?

Hi, all!

You can see the Facebook live video here.

But why couldn't we view it live? Or am I just a FB numpty?

He's quite hard work to watch.

Did he answer the questions discussed here?

TBH I gave up part way through. He was just too painful to listen to,- he's better on the page!