Our Gender, Ourselves

The changing American family.

by Peggy Drexler, Ph.D.

Female Role Models: The Absent Conversation

In my work studying the sons of single and two-mother families, I found deep concern about the lack of male role models for these boys. But shift genders, and girls and female role models is a conversation we seldom seem to have. Read More

Fathers and Daughters and Moms: Is There Room for Everyone?

My father died of a heart attack when I was 3 years old. I went to sleep with a father, and by the time I woke, I no longer had one. My mother, in her grief, subsequently removed all traces of him. Read More

The Myth of the Perfect Mother

What's so hard about mothering? Aside from being everything to everyone -- including the eternal fountain of love, connectedness, support, and protection -- moms function as personal shoppers, cooks, janitors, bankers, and repairmen. Read More

From Boys to Men: Raising Independent, Open-Minded Sons

More than just about anything, Fiona’s boys hated having their nails trimmed. They were rough-and-tumble types, with a penchant for superheroes and playing with sticks. So Fiona came up with a diversionary tactic: nail polish. “At one point, both boys had toenails in every color I own—purple, gold, fire engine red, green,” she recalls. Read More

Mom Is Alright: Redefining The Modern-Day-Mom

My son was nearly two years old and had yet to utter a word. It was driving me nuts. He was my first child. Like many new moms, I felt a special pressure for him to succeed. That's our burden as mothers. For decades, women have been told that when it comes to our children's achievements—or shortcomings—we hold all the cards. Read More

Five Ways to Not Raise Bullies and Mean Girls

Quentin, 3-and-a-half, was happily darting around the playground, like usual, when out of nowhere another little boy ran right up and kicked him in the shins. Quentin looked stunned, like he couldn't believe what had just happened. But he didn't kick back. Read More

Does a Male Role Model Actually Have to be a Man?

As media gleefully unwrap glittery celebrity packaging to reveal damaged goods, it's increasingly clear that we can't rely on public figures to provide the trail-makers that young boys can follow to manhood. Read More

When Faith and Policy Trump People

There's an increasingly sensitive tripwire between faith and policy these days. To question the latter is to incite charges you're denigrating the former.

It's especially difficult when you're talking about the Catholic Church -- which, yes, has failed miserably in its handling of abuse, but has done so much over the years for so many. Read More

Raising Confident Sons Who Have Respect for Others

A while ago, I was rushing up the street, carrying groceries and my briefcase, barely closed from all I had stuffed inside it, trying not to be late to pick up my daughter from basketball practice. One of her classmates, 13-year-old Damien, was walking from school toward me. I'd known Damien and his family for years, as part of a study I was conducting on boys and moms. Read More

Ask Not What Your Dog Can Do for You …

Every day, it seems I read about some wonderful thing our dogs do for us.

They cure our stress, they lower our blood pressure, they help our cholesterol. They find us when we're lost, they sniff out our diseases, they wake us up in the middle of the night when the couch is on fire. One of them even helped us get Bin Laden. Read More

Women and Work: How Goes the Revolution?

We're more than 30 years into "the quiet revolution." So you'd think we'd have a little better handle on it by now. It began in the late '70s, when women started to surge into colleges and graduate schools, and take their place in medicine, law, business, and other professions once reserved for men. Read More

Fear Factor: The Religious Right's Problem With Women

The world has seen the terror and confusion on the porcelain face of eight-year-old Naama Margolese, who was insulted and spat on by ultra-Orthodox men as she walked to school in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. The Haredi, to use Israeli term, found her bare arms so immodest that they screamed "whore!" Read More

Men, Women, and the Pursuit of Happiness

It seems with every new study, a few more bricks pop loose from the façade of gender assumptions. Read More

Fear for the Women of Afghanistan

As the United States begins to tidy up its affairs in Afghanistan, I have a bad feeling about the women we'll leave behind. Read More

Parenting Gay Or Straight (How) Does It Matter?

Zach Walls is a 19-year-old engineering student at the University of Iowa - handsome, intelligent, articulate, passionate and raised by two mothers. Read More

Juggling Work and Family

I've never liked the term: working mother. It says that I am some kind of subcategory; not a full member of the club. Read More

When Daughter Passes Dad

You don't have to spend a lot of time with the statistics to see the liberation of female possibility in everything from advanced degrees to corporate career tracks to single mothers by choice.

Progress has caused considerable commotion in the genders. Read More

Mothers and Sons: How Close Is Too Close?

Is your son in danger of becoming a mama's boy? That's the stereotype so many people associate with sons raised by women alone. Like most stereotypes, it simply doesn't hold up to reality. In fact, fostering a close connection with your son actually strengthens and confirms his identity and helps him grow toward independence.Hugs and kissesWho says boys don't need hugging? Of course they do. Read More

Thanks to the Technologists

Just for the record: I'm thankful for my family, my work, my country, and those fighting to keep me safe. Read More

Society's Veneration of the "Traditional Family" Adds to Holiday Burden

Whether or not Santa's sleigh is full for your family this year, if you're a mom, it's a cinch that you will once again be lugging some heavy baggage around from now through New Year's Day. Read More

Mother Blaming Has to Stop

Having a boy compounded the sense of responsibility I felt as a new mother. The world seemed to expect more. Those raised expectations brought with them an even higher level of anxiety, due in part to work I'd been doing as a clinician in a well-known outpatient child and adolescent psychiatry department. Read More

I’ll Miss Newspapers When They Slip Away

A recent Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism study found two out of three people surveyed feel that - no matter what their own reading habits - the demise of their local newspaper would seriously harm their ability to get local news. Read More

I'm Authentic, Really, I Mean That

I keep hearing about authenticity. It seems to be the go-to description for all who would be bonafide; a self-sticking seal signifying that what you see is what you get, and what you get is worthy. Read More

Why Can't Docs Be More Like Dogs?

I was sitting in the doctor's office 20 minutes early for an appointment that would be a half hour late thumbing through a six month old magazine, when I came across an article on the amazing things being done with service dogs. Read More

Why Can't Men Love Like Women?

I was having one of "he can't connect emotionally" conversations. A friend was telling me about her relationship angst over his inability to understand her needs and to talk about his. Even though I'm in research and not therapy, as a psychologist, I get that a lot. As I listened, a question occurred to me: is she confusing love with the expression of love? Read More

Four-legged Counseling: Cold Nose, Warm Heart, Great Therapy

One of my rules of life is never to sit beside anybody who is three weeks into a low-carb diet or just bought a puppy. Read More

Is This the End of the Alpha Male?

And so, the recession drags on. Nobody feels it more oppressively and relentlessly than the men who have been cast out of all those industries they called their own.

In downturns past, there was always the certainty that, as nasty as things are right now, this too shall pass. Eventually, the pain will subside, the wound will heal over, and things will return to normal. Read More

Why Dogs Are Better Than Therapy

It was one of those days in our house where an argument was hanging in the air like a gas leak -- just waiting for a spark.

Like most houses, the combustion -- when it inevitably came -- was not the kind that lifts the roof off. More like a sustained rumble of muttered asides and one-word answers. Read More

When Mothers Leave

I was watching a news report about a mother who had just returned from Iraq after many months away from her three small children.

It was a heartwarming reunion. Watching the hugs and tears, and with deep respect and admiration, there was still a small voice deep from the reaches of my own motherhood experience, that asked: "How do leave your children for such a long, dangerous, time?" Read More

The Downsizing of Femininity

Last week I posted a piece about how men are changing, closing with a question: are men less masculine today, or simply more liberated?

The piece drew over 1,250 comments; a bit unusual, I thought, for the middle of the summer and a topic that has nothing to do with heat waves, debt ceilings or Charlie Sheen.

Clearly, the question struck a nerve. Read More

Peggy Drexler, Ph.D., is a research psychologist and the author of Our Fathers, Ourselves: Daughters, Fathers, and the Changing American Family (Rodale; May 2011).

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