âBrownâŚengages intellectually with thorny issues involving language, school culture, and the more troublesome aspects of todayâs parent universe.â âThe Washington Post
âTo Raise a Boy is a clear-eyed and sometimes shocking view of the world that we have created for boys, and a call for change.â âPeg Tyre, author of the New York Times bestseller The Trouble with Boys
A journalistâs searing investigation into how we teach boys to be menâand how we can do better.
How will I raise my son to be different? This question gripped Washington Post investigative reporter Emma Brown, who was at home nursing her six-week-old son when the #MeToo movement erupted. In search of an answer, Brown traveled around the country, through towns urban and rural, affluent and distressed. In the course of her reporting, she interviewed hundreds of peopleâeducators, parents, coaches, researchers, men, and boysâto understand the challenges boys face and how to address them.
What Brown uncovered was shocking: 23 percent of boys believe men should use violence to get respect; 22 percent of an incoming college freshman class said they had already committed sexual violence; 58 percent of young adults said theyâve never had a conversation with their parents about respect and care in sexual relationships. Men are four times more likely than women to die by suicide. Nearly 4 million men experience sexual violence each year.
From the reporter who brought Dr. Christine Blasey Fordâs story to light, To Raise a Boy combines assiduous reporting, cutting-edge scientific research, and boysâ powerful testimonials to expose the crisis in young menâs emotional and physical health. Emma Brown connects the dots between educators, researchers, policy makers, and mental health professionals in this tour de force that upends everything we thought we knew about boys.
Johns Hopkins chair of the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health Robert Blum says, âThe story of boys has yet to be told, and I think itâs a really important story.â Urgent and revelatory, To Raise a Boy begins to tell that story.