After #MeToo, how are we now to raise our boys?

Last week, my friend Claire sent me a picture. It showed a mannequin in a high-end fashion store window wearing a T-shirt that bore the words, "Don't trust boys."

Funny? Serious? Post #MeToo, you could read it as either. But Claire was furious. "How is that OK?" she fumed. "I'm trying so hard to raise men of solid character, why would we put this on them? And why would we want little girls to believe this?"

Like me, Claire is a mother of three little boys (hers are four, two and four months and mine seven, four and 23 months). We struggle with the same things - how to get our children to sit still long enough to eat (and digest) their dinner; how to rein in the poo chat; how to get them to put their shoes on without asking a million times; how to deal with their endless energy, especially when you live in a large city with a small, or no, garden. We've even started a WhatsApp group for fellow mothers in the three boys club to share tips and tricks - and sympathy when being utterly outnumbered sometimes gets us down.

It has been, I imagine, ever thus for mothers of sons, for whom their offspring are sometimes so alien; so other. They seem utterly unfathomable, even as we love them beyond measure for their puppy-like enthusiasm for life. But increasingly, it seems, the world is also throwing up more complex questions for those of us with male children.

After #MeToo, is it now acceptable for others to openly say that all boys are a threat? How, then, do we raise our sons to become strong, good men? Are we even allowed to say that we want our sons to become strong men any more - or even to think, in these gender-fluid times, that boys and girls are different - and might behave in different ways and need different things?

Psychologist Steve Biddulph believes so. His book Raising Boys became an instant bestseller when it hit the shelves 20 years ago and now he's brought out an updated version for the 21st century. It contains quite a bit of new content - taking in the contemporary understanding of gender as being on a continuum, amongst other things - but, he says, "there are still biological differences for most boys". The majority, says Biddulph, are less brain-developed at birth, which puts them on "a different schedule" to girls, and "there are also stages that boys have which are different to girls - the full-on fours, created by luteinizing hormone at age four, seems to lead to much more need to run about and be active, which of course is important for their brain development." It is, Biddulph adds, "so wrong" to put boys into sit-down schooling at that age - words that may have mothers of reception-age sons rolling their eyes in agreement.

It is a relief to know that the differences I see between my sons and their female contemporaries (who will sit quietly and colour in for an hour) are real, and normal. And Biddulph is not the only one out there trying to help parents such as me. The Parent Practice, which runs courses and workshops for parents at all stages, devotes dedicated sessions to raising boys, focusing on how to bring out the best in our sons.

At a session on "channelling physicality, encouraging cooperation and boy discipline", I and eight other parents of sons share our highs and lows and pick up some genuinely useful advice. We learn that boys learn better if they're moving around, that allowing them to play-fight is a good thing, as it helps them channel their energy and release pent-up emotion in a safe place. We also hear that giving detail about what good behaviour means and looks like is enormously helpful, and that the website nosweatshakespeare.com has a great range of insults that could help our boys not only curb their language but increase their vocabulary.

That said, Juliet Richards, our course leader, is adamant that she wants to "get away from the idea that we put boys in specific boxes. Even if they are a 'real boy', it doesn't help to keep them there." Likewise, Biddulph points out that some boys will be very macho, some girls very "feminine" and some will be in between. What harms society and children is if we try in any way to box them in.

"The needs of society have changed", adds Biddulph. "We don't need men who can wrestle buffaloes any more. We have to raise kids for now, and today we want communicative, emotionally open boys and men. The old form of boy-raising was essentially to create cannon fodder - the obedient soldiers of empire. That's where the stiff upper lip and the mute stoicism came from - along with the alcohol dependency and wife-beating and child-beating when those men unravelled. We have a much healthier ideal of manhood now." 

But do we? One could argue that society is suffering something of a crisis of masculinity: on the one hand we have those men whom Jordan Peterson, psychologist and writer, identifies as the "man-child", those reluctant to make choices or to own their choices, living in permanent immaturity. On the other, we know that suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK. There's also the big new challenge Biddulph identifies in his new edition: how to help our sons develop a healthy sexuality in a world where the availability of pornography has exploded.

This is, he says, the "new big talk" to have with our sons, one that both parents need to tackle and get out in the open "in a friendly, positive way", teaching them that "happy sex is friendly, nobody is hit or hurt, people go slow and look into each other's eyes and talk and laugh".

These sorts of conversations are increasingly having to permeate every area of life. As one fellow mother puts it, "I want to teach my son that 'yes enthusiastically' is what yes means - not just 'no means no' any more. If someone's going along with what you want and not smiling, don't keep going. Personal boundaries have changed, there's the personal space issue." She adds, somewhat grimly: "The things that boys can be accused of are unthinkable to me". Her eldest son is four.

Are we mothers of sons doomed, then? Unhelpful T-shirts aside, Biddulph is encouraging. "It is a challenging time to be male," he acknowledges. "But I think we can rise to that challenge." He points out the many advances in our understanding of boy biology, the increasing desire of dads to become more involved with their boys' upbringing, the acceptance of gay and transgender kids which helps all children feel they can be themselves.

"It's getting much easier to raise boys, and this is a far better time to be a boy than in the past," he says. Just so long as we keep them away from certain shop windows.