Nevertheless, if we enjoy their humor and their energy, all the while we put limits on them, they will thrive. What they detest is a steady diet of shame and comparing them unfavorably to girls. It is usually the father who is gone. Mothers are doing a heroic job of single-parenting boys, but it is tough, especially when they get to be adolescents. MichaelT - EMA, the boys who don't have bio dads are usually from divorced families where the dads wander off and don't support and spend time with their kids.
Boys are in a bind.
From the beginning, literally from birth, we tell them to be strong. At the same time they are little and vulnerable. Boys often express grief, sadness, bewilderment, confusion, hurt and shame as anger, because they think it looks strong and masculine. But the truth is that when boys have been raised in families that criticize and hit them, and they have been brutalized by a teenage group, and their adult role models are violent, they are well down the road to being beyond recovery. Their anger is permanent.