Feminist Parenting of Boys MAY Bookclub: Jenni Murray's "That's My Boy!"

[blackcurrants]

Looking forward to our discussion on Wednesday, 18th May at, erm - when do people fancy? sometime after the kids are in bed?
7pm? 8pm? I'm five hours behind you all, but around then would work for me, too.

[Firkytoodle]

8pm sounds good to me as mine are usually (fingers crossed) asleep by then.

[tougholdbird]

Have ordered the single copy in my area from the library, hopefully will get it in time to join you on 18th. After 8:00 best for me, but I can always sneak in late if you start at 7.

[MadameBoo]

Marking place.

[joaninha]

oooh can I join in too? There I was feeling pretty glum because I just got back from DS's school where I found out that he got into trouble today for hitting another boy who was teasing him. All confused (do I let him have it or do I just think "boys will be boys"?) I came onto Mumsnet looking for advice and lo and behold - this thread was calling out to me!!

So, it's Jenni Murray "that's my boy", 8pm Wed 18 May right?

[blackcurrants]

That's right jo - and I hope you were able to talk to you DS constructively about it all. I don't think "boys will be boys" exactly, but I do think "Boys are socialised not to have/show emotions other than anger and dominance" - poor wee buggers! This is going to be a really interesting read!

If we start at 8pm that's 3pm my time and there's no chance I'll have to stop and do bedtime for a while - but if you would prefer 9pm that should still be safe for me. I'm open to suggestions and changes :)

[tougholdbird]

Meh. Library tell me I might get book for Tuesday next week.

Looks like my insightful comments and stunning critique may be confined to the book cover design.

8 is fine for me

[Firkytoodle]

I got mine 'fufilled by Amazon' at £1.27 incl postage. Ordered 9th, despatched 11th and arrived today.

Looks excellent and quite an easy read.

[blackcurrants]

oh dear - I just got paid yesterday, so finally ordered this today. Just realised it's got to come to me from the UK - might not make it for Wed. Oops! Expect me to be 'asking very interested questions' and 'prompting discussion' a lot, on wed :)

[blackcurrants]

argh, just got the amazon email - "expected shipping date JUNE 10th" - ffs!
Oh well. I will find this thread super useful and interesting when I do get to read it!

[darleneoconnor]

I just saw this book in a charity shop yesterday- what are the odds?

marking my place,

[blackcurrants]

Argh! I still have no book AND (because I've been offered a last minute ticket to my friend's PhD Graduation Ceremony - yay!) I am not 100% certain I will be back in time for the start of our discussion.

SO : profound apologies, I'm going to skip in pretty late - I can't wait to read your thoughts, please have a ball without me and I'm going to be adding to the thread when I've actually got my hands on the book. I swear our next book will be more organised with lots of time to find and read the book for everyone!

[Firkytoodle]

I've read half of the book but have been distracted by the fact that DC have both been unwell since friday. I'll try and read as much as I can before 8pm but I dont think I'll be in sparkling form, especially as they have passed it on to me.

[tougholdbird]

I've just about managed a third, so will be there but prob late due to soccer training (DS, not me)

[dizzy77]

Evening all. So, how does this normally work?

[Firkytoodle]

Not sure Dizzy, I havent done this before either. I guess we could start with what our personal impressions are about the book (in my case minus the last 50 pages which I havent finished)

[dizzy77]

Righto. Multi tasking just: completing fish & chips so will get some thoughts down. And prepare for comment!

[joaninha]

Hi all! Yeah that sounds like a good idea - I guess we all just chip in!

I mean I really liked it, especially the "Schoolboys" chapter because it showed how the "boy crisis" is not as bad as everyone likes to make out, but I have to say I found it a tad idealistic in that JM has a good feminist hubby, a nanny and a fab job - and couldn't relate to all of it.

But it was definitely interesting.

[dizzy77]

OK: here goes. First time doing anything like this, please be nice!

Practical, readable, pragmatic. Jenni's real-life approach and mix of research and ?war stories? spoke to me in a way some of the more academic texts may not do so. I loved reading her 2 paragraph demolition of Steve Biddulph in the introduction which presumably led to his rather sneery amazon review, and the way she willingly threw a lot of other accepted ?wisdom? out of the window eg the chapter long rebuttal of the cliché ?boys will be boys?; and as Joaninha says in the schoolboys chapter too.

Later in the book I became more frustrated, maybe because it's dealing with things that are a long way off for me, but also where much has dated somewhat since publication, eg talking up new legislation and parliamentary intent in the UK which I presume is of little use to those outside the UK, and which seems somewhat idealistic in our cold new regime. I also found that whilst Jenni acknowledged that the whole book could be seen as something of a proud exhibition of her brilliant boys and the great job, feeling her way, that she and her partner had done whilst raising them, didn't make the impression this started to give me towards the end very much less annoying.

I've already started making practical use of the techniques suggested in this and other books: eg checking the adjectives I apply to the rapidly growing month old blue-dressed specimens of my AN group, and even in a discussion with DH this evening about Ken Clarke's ill advised comments on rape using some of the ideas Jenni suggests for how he (gulp) might broach the subject at the right time with DS.