With humor, insight, and honesty, Ruth uses her experience as a mom and a journalist to explore strategies that support boys’ mental health and help them construct a healthy relationship with masculinity.
BOYMOM
Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity
by Ruth Whippman
Harmony, June 2024
Ruth Whippman, a lifelong feminist, was thrilled by the emergence of the #Metoo movement. But as a mother of three boys, she found herself frightened, conflicted, and surprisingly defensive. The sheer volume of evidence of terrible male behavior was impossible to deny, but she looked at her sons and found it hard to believe they could ever cause harm. These complex emotions, shared by so many mothers of boys, led Whippman to ask herself the question: How do we raise boys to be compassionate, responsible men in a world where toxic masculinity is still the norm?
Combining elements of memoir, the latest scientific research, popular culture, and reporting from the frontlines of contemporary American boyhood, BOYMOM is Ruth’s deep-dive answer to that question. It turns out that boys need more parenting than girls, not less. She unpacks surprising and controversial truths about boys’ socialization and the “undercare” of boys that can lead to a lack of relational skills and empathy. She uncovers how even the most well-meaning moms can inadvertently perpetuate damaging stereotypes and provides tools to foster emotional literacy in boys.
Ruth Whippman is a British author, journalist and documentary film maker, who spent ten years in London working at the BBC as a Director and Senior Producer. Her essays, cultural criticism and journalism have appeared in the New York Times, Time magazine, New York Magazine, The Guardian, HuffPost and elsewhere. Fortune described her as one of the « 25 sharpest minds » of the decade. She is a regular speaker at venues including TEDx, Google, The Moth and Somerset House in London. She lives in California with her family.
Diagnosed with ADHD at age twelve, Jessica struggled with a brain that she didn’t understand for most of her life. Determined to figure out why she was struggling, Jessica sought out more information about ADHD. She reached out to experts, read articles and peer-reviewed studies, and shared her discoveries in the one place she would find them again—YouTube, where her channel How to ADHD has since earned a devoted following. And in her first book, Jessica reveals the tools that have changed her life while offering an unflinching look at the realities of living with ADHD. She explains how ADHD affects everyday life and shares ADHD-specific strategies for adapting your environment, routines, and systems. With quotes from Jessica’s online community, chapter summaries, and reading shortcuts designed for the neurodivergent reader, HOW TO ADHD will help you recognize your strengths and challenges, tackle “bad brain days,” and be kinder to yourself in the process.
When journalist Gina Rushton, afflicted with endometriosis, admitted she had little time left to make this decision, the magnitude of the choice overwhelmed her. Her search for her own “yes” or “no” only uncovered more questions to be answered. How do we clearly consider creating a new life on a planet facing catastrophic climate change? How do we reassess the gender roles we have been assigned at birth and by society? How do we balance ascending careers with declining fertility? How do we know if we’ve found the right co-parent, or if we want to go it alone, or if we don’t want to do it at all?
In HIGH FIVE DISCIPLINE, mom and practicing pediatrician Dr. Candice Jones shows parents a better way. This positive parenting guide helps parents understand child development and how the ways that children are disciplined shapes not only their behavior but their overall health and well-being.