It's a Boy Women Writers on Raising Sons

by Buchanan, Andrea J.

• ISBN13: 9781580051453
• ISBN10: 1580051456
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-11
• Publisher: Seal Press

Summary

The most popular question any pregnant woman is asked, aside from "When are you due?", has got to be "Are you having a girl or a boy?" 

When author Andrea Buchanan, already a mom to a little girl, was pregnant with her second child, she marveled at the response of friends and total strangers alike: "Boys are wonderful," "Boys are so much better than girls," "Boys love their mothers differently than girls." 

This constant refrain led her to explore the issue herself, with help from her fellow writers and moms, many of whom had had the same experience. The result is It's A Boy, a wide-ranging, often-humorous, and honest collection of essays about the experience of mothering boys. Taking on topics like aggression, parenting a teenage boy, and wishing for a daughter but getting a son, It's A Boy explores what it's like to mother sons and how that experience may be different, but no less satisfying, than mothering girls.

Author Biography

Andrea J. Buchanan is the author of Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It (Seal Press). Her work has been featured in the Christian Science Monitor, Parents, and Nick Jr. magazines, in the collection Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers (Seal Press); and on numerous web sites, including hipmama.com and phillymama.com, for which she writes the popular web-syndicated column “The Dark Side” and her blog literarymama.com. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two children, Emily (5) and Nate (almost 2).

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(10)
It's a Boy
Expectations	11	(10)
Stephany Aulenback
It's a Boy!	21	(8)
Andrea J. Buchanan
You've Got Male!	29	(6)
Jody Mace
Exile in Boyville	35	(6)
Marrit Ingman
Son of a Guy	41	(8)
Ona Gritz
A Son's Love	49	(4)
Caroline Leavitt
My Three Sons	53	(8)
Jennifer Margulis
Breaking the Curse	61	(8)
Marjorie Osterhout
Will Boys be Boys?
The Bully's Mother	69	(12)
Karen E. Bender
Will Boys Be Boys?	81	(6)
Rochelle Shapiro
Zen and the Art of Extracurricular Activities	87	(6)
Gayle Brandeis
Full House	93	(6)
Faulkner Fox
It Takes a Village	99	(18)
Jennifer Lauck
Becoming a Boy	117	(8)
Robin Bradford
Reading to My Son	125	(8)
Kate Staples
Samuel	133	(12)
Susan Ito
The Velvet Underground
Entering the Den of Math	145	(8)
Gwendolen Gross
Chonan	153	(6)
Suzanne Kamata
Things You Can't Teach	159	(6)
Katie Kaput
Scaredy-Cat	165	(8)
Jodi Picoult
The Velvet Underground	173	(8)
Susan O'Doherty
Pretty Baby	181	(8)
Catherine Newman
Our Bodies, Their Selves	189	(8)
Marion Winik
Shape-Shifter
Making the Cut	197	(10)
Jamie Pearson
(Almost) All Grown Up	207	(6)
Maura Rhodes
The Teenage Boy	213	(4)
Katie Allison Granju
The Day He Was Taller	217	(4)
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Shapeshifter	221	(6)
Melanie Lynne Hauser
Space Invader	227	(6)
Lisa Peet
Surrounded by Children	233	(8)
Kathryn Black
Notes	241