Book Review: The Way of Boys by Anthony Rao

I have two boys. I am not worried about their development - physically, socially, intellectually and emotionally. They are two normal boys making our daily lives a roller coaster of emotions. They laugh, they cry, they throw tantrums and charm us with kisses afterwards. They make me angry. They get angry with me. That's perfectly normal and my sons are perfectly normal in imperfect ways.

He should be the smartest and calls my son the dumbest. I silently observed from a distance when he wanted to attack my son several times because my son won in a game and he lost. He was crying uncontrollably and seething with anger. His mom was clearly embarrassed. And so, every chapter of the book became relevant to me, to my sons, to my sons' friends and my sons' future friends (don't I have a tendency to be a monster mother-in-law?).

It has always bothered me whenever I hear people say, most often with certainty, that this boy or that boy has ADHD, an OC or is autistic. Before I read this book, I had been taken aback by the arrogance of the certainty of some people's pronouncements about a certain boy and his behavior. The people who declare their judgment over a certain boy - and labeling them for life - do not have the qualifications to be experts on the subject. And yet, they have inflicted the damage on the boy's personality by wrongly labeling him.

Rao's discussion of boys' natural tendency to be hyperactive gives parent readers of this book a reassurance that boys shouldn't be boxed according to how we want them to behave. Let them be free, let them grow naturally. On the other hand, parents of boys on the end of the line should not be too stressed out with their boys' shyness. Interestingly, even those who are seem to be target of bullying will, at some point, come out of their shell and get tired of being bullied.

Perhaps, one of the important things I learned from reading this book is that we should not sanitize boys' play. Adults have a tendency to make things equal by making boys win equally. I also appreciate the discussion on parents joining in on boy's bad guy play. I always wondered how the menacing Captain Hook could be so scary but at the same time wanted by boys. My Firstborn used to love playing Captain Hook, although he recognizes that Captain Hook is the villain to Peter Pan . Personally, I am guilty of infusing moral lessons during playtime (take turns in winning, we shall be friends again). I realized, I had been killing the excitement there.

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The Gray Room. Go to FRIDGE for a beer, the darn door comes off in your hand. No wonder - someone left your CHAINSAW running in there. You don’t like people touching your tools so you kick the BOOKSHELF, knocking off a STACK OF BOOKS uncovering a SILVER KEY. Hmm, wonder what that’s for. Still angry, you smack that stupid GRIMREAPER POSTER and it falls aside to reveal a MIRROR. So that’s where she’s been hiding it. How selfish. Grab the Key and the chainsaw and head right to - The Pine Room. Notice that it’s June, and the #@^%# CHRISTMAS TREE is still up. Get even more angry. Well, you’ll just help trim the tree…with your CHAINSAW!! Vrooom… Oh, Looky here, Deck the halls with Smith and Wesson, Falalala. Take the PISTOL from the tree and kick your girlfriends stupid BOOKCART across the room. Aha! That’s where she hides the SAFE – But how to open it? You’ll soon find out. Storm off to- The Gray Room. You’ll take care of her special secret MIRROR. Take the POWERDRILL to it, and it falls away to reveal …ANOTHER HIDDEN CABINET! This must need the GOLD KEY. And inside is…Your good GARDENING SHEARS!!!! (Man, your girlfriend is a psycho or something. All these secret hidden things…this is getting weird) Ok that’s the last straw. Run back to –

How about the stick figure is the bad apple in the happy family. Mother, father and sister are all well-educated middle class people reading all kind of interesting intellectual books. But he just won't fit in and his punishment (learned from Dr. Phil) is having to sit on the toilet in the middle of the room. But he still escapes because he watches a lot of Jerry Springer and McGyver.

The new cheats of London exposed; or, The frauds and tricks of the town laid open to both sexes, Being a guard against the iniquitous practices of that metropolis. Containing a new and clear discovery of all the various cheats, frauds, villainies, artifices, tricks, seductions, stratagems, impositions and deceptions, which are daily practised in London ... Interspersed with useful reflections and admonitions ...

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