--- title: How to Raise a Sweet Son in an Era of Angry Men description: The author and television personality writes about all the angry men, and the young son she is raising to be sweet and compassionate canonical: https://time.com/5045028/raising-boys-faith-salie/ author: Faith Salie article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-12-01T19:29:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:54.106Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How to Raise a Sweet Son in an Era of Angry Men og:description: 'Sweet boys grow up to be men who recognize the strength in being vulnerable and empathetic' og:url: https://time.com/5045028/raising-boys-faith-salie/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt362a2f4da4c1185d/6988f35597cdff1fee6b3759/how-raise-sweet-son-era-angry-men.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: how-raise-sweet-son-era-angry-men og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How to Raise a Sweet Son in an Era of Angry Men twitter:description: 'Sweet boys grow up to be men who recognize the strength in being vulnerable and empathetic' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt362a2f4da4c1185d/6988f35597cdff1fee6b3759/how-raise-sweet-son-era-angry-men.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How to Raise a Sweet Son in an Era of Angry Men > Sponsored content. 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President Donald Trump says tougher gun laws would not have prevented a mass shooting at a south Texas church, arguing that more restrictions might have led to more casualties_ by [Faith Salie](https://time.com/author/faith-salie/) ## Faith Salie Dec 1, 2017 7:29 PM UTC  Peter Cade—Getty Images by [Faith Salie](https://time.com/author/faith-salie/) ## Faith Salie Dec 1, 2017 7:29 PM UTC Hours after I gave birth to my first child, my husband cradled all five pounds of our boy and said, gently, “Hi, Sweetpea.” Not “Buddy” or “Little Man.” _Sweetpea._ The word filled me with unanticipated comfort. Like most parents, we knew what we’d name our son but never discussed how we’d speak to him. I was witnessing my husband’s commitment to raising a sweet boy. Because this is what the world needs now, urgently: sweet boys and [people who grow them](http://time.com/money/4986040/the-parenting-fantasy-that-holds-women-back/). There are so many angry men among us. There are angry women, too, but they’re only beginning to claim this emotion that has long been denied them. Women’s public anger delivers deliberate messages—it’s pussy hats, reclaiming our time, and #MeToo. It’s the kind of anger that gives girls voices. Men’s anger tries to shut down the voices of others. Today’s angriest women galvanize; today’s angriest men murder. A man uses his car to assassinate [an anti-Nazi protestor](http://time.com/4917524/joe-biden-trump-charlottesville-response/). A man [shoots a congressman](http://time.com/4846569/steve-scalise-intensive-care-shooting/) at his baseball practice. A man [commits mass murder](http://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/) at a Vegas concert. A man massacres [worshippers in their church](http://time.com/5011233/trump-texas-shooting-mental-health-guns/). A police officer [slaughters his own family](http://time.com/1057/utah-policeman-kills-his-family-then-himself/). The headlines blur, but they invariably seem to feature men whom the media informs us felt lonely or powerless. And a significant number of American men who actually possess power — but are not murderously angry — are [pridefully aggressive](http://time.com/5033593/charlie-rose-cbs-news-fired/). The President [tweets furiously](http://time.com/5031118/donald-trump-ucla-basketball-players-lavar-ball/), with violently bad syntax, spastic punctuation and apoplectic capitalization, venially attacking not only swaths of people but individual citizens of the country he has vowed to protect and defend. The world has turned so upside down that the most public displays of masculine vulnerability have come lately from late-night comedy host [Jimmy Kimmel](http://time.com/5044420/jimmy-kimmel-roy-moore-twitter/), who’s shed tears talking about children’s healthcare and gun control. It feels like another century when President Obama wept while remembering the victims of [Sandy Hook](http://time.com/pete-souza-obama-book/) — a Brigadoon of political empathy not to return during the current administration. My son is now 5, and I’m also the mother of a 3-year-old girl. I’m thrilled that my daughter is growing up in a time where American girls are encouraged to be both fierce and kind, simultaneously strong and compassionate. The t-shirts that declare “Girls Rule the World” offer an empirical falsehood, but at least the aspiration is there. My daughter recently delighted me when she deemed her makeshift “kite” — a rainbow scarf tied to a stick — a fencing foil and ran about the woods parrying and proclaiming, “_En garde_!” But I delighted even more in my son when, at a birthday party where the balloon artist presumptuously twisted pneumatic swords for all the boys, my boy asked for a balloon heart. Boys have always known they could _do_ anything; all they had to do was look around at their presidents, religious leaders, professional athletes, at the statues that stand erect in big cities and small. Girls have always known they were allowed to _feel_ anything — except anger. Now girls, led by women, are being told they can own [righteous anger.](http://time.com/4848454/linda-sarsour-jihad-comments-donald-trump/) Now they can feel what they want _and_ be what they want. There’s no commensurate lesson for boys in our culture. While girls are encouraged to be not just ballerinas, but astronauts and coders, boys—who already know they can walk on the moon and dominate Silicon Valley—don’t receive explicit encouragement to fully access their emotions. Boys are still snips and snails and puppy dog tails. We leave them behind from birth. Walk into any baby store, and you’re greeted immediately in the boys’ department by brown and neon green layettes festooned with sharks, trucks, and footballs. Onesies for newborns declare, “TOUGH LIKE DADDY.” The boy taught from infancy to be tough is emotionally doomed. (Mind you, I’m all for a onesie for any gender that announces, “RESILIENT LIKE MOMMY.”) The clothes marketed to my daughter feature [unicorns](http://www.extracrispy.com/drinks/2614/i-tried-the-starbucks-unicorn-frappuccino-to-find-out-what-rainbows-taste-like), rainbows, rockets, dinosaurs, and sequins in every color imaginable. They are whimsical and sparkly. My son recently asked me, “Mom, why are girls’ clothes more interesting and beautiful than boys’ clothes, and was the person who decided that a man or a woman?” I didn’t have a good answer. Yes, they’re merely clothes, but they’re the material in which we wrap our children. A society bombarding boys with symbolism about being tough, self-contained, non-sparkly and unmagical says, “Boys will be boys, but girls can be anything.” Our boys absorb messages about what they cannot be or do or feel. The message comes from the man in the lobby of our building who says to my son, upon seeing him joyfully pushing his play baby stroller, “What are you doing? That’s supposed to be your sister’s!” The message: _Caregiving is for girls, not boys_. It’s served by the waitress who presents my kids with pictures to color — a dinosaur for my son and a butterfly for my daughter — before the kids wordlessly switch pictures. Message: _big/scary is for boys; fragile/beautiful is for girls_. It’s delivered by the dad in the elevator whom I watch chastise his 4-year-old son with, “Stop crying! Do you want your friends to think you’re a little baby?” _Despite your lack of executive function, shut down your feelings, because kids make fun of a boy who cries_. It’s emailed from the mother in my daughter’s nursery school class organizing a book swap, asking for “gender-neutral books” because some 3-year-old boys “wouldn’t be crazy about princess books.” _All books aren’t for everyone; boys don’t like stories that might involve an XX protagonist_. The message is loud and clear from the couple who ask my son to switch trucks at an amusement park, because they don’t want to take a photo of their 2-year-old boy in a magenta truck. _Boys are blue_. (No matter that, until the mid-20th century, the color conventionally associated with baby boys was, in fact, pink—signaling the muted vitality of red—while girls were clad in the placid blue of the Virgin Mary’s robes.) We don’t need to raise kids with gender neutrality or deny intrinsic differences between boys and girls. We do need to recognize that children, regardless of gender, harbor innate sweetness that we, as a society, would do well to foster and preserve. Sweet boys grow up to be men who recognize the strength in being vulnerable and empathetic. Men who aren’t threatened by criticism or perceived competition from people whom they deem “Other” — be it skin color or sexual orientation or religion or education or whatever. Sweet boys are children who’ve been given, by their parents and wider society, the permission to feel everything and to express those emotions without shame. At a young age, this should be done explicitly, in organized forums for discussions at school. It must be done relentlessly and organically, in our family homes. Parents must invite their sons to be sad, afraid, hurt, silly and affectionate, and must embrace them as often as they snuggle their daughters. Sweet boys learn early on that they can defend themselves against loneliness by reaching out and asking for support rather than turning into people who, literally, grab for power. Sweet boys evolve into open-hearted men who aren’t confused about consent and sexual boundaries, because they experience women as equals. A man raised with access to the same gamut of emotions and choices as women does not say, “[Women are special](http://time.com/5028380/donald-trump-on-roy-moore/),” as Donald Trump recently averred after disbelieving Roy Moore’s accusers; he does not delegate sugar and spice and humility and gentleness to the ladies, while defining himself through anger, lust, and pride. Boys will not be merely boys. If we let them, boys will be _human_. Nearly a century ago, the poet Louis Untermeyer painted a powerful portrait of the “large and quiet kindness” of his father with: _Your sweetness was your strength, your strength a sweetness_ _That drew all men, and made reluctant hands_ _Rest long upon your shoulder._ _Firm, but never proud…_ _It was, like victory rising from defeat,_ _The world made well again and strong—and sweet._ If we’re lucky, the sweet boys and the fierce girls will grow up to save us all. _Salie is a contributor to_ CBS Sunday Morning _and appears on NPR’s_ Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! _She’s the author of_ [Approval Junkie: My Heartfelt (and Occasionally Inappropriate) Quest to Please Just About Everyone, and Ultimately Myself](https://www.amazon.com/Approval-Junkie-Occasionally-Inappropriate-Ultimately-ebook/dp/B013NIBBJO/?tag=timecom-20). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5045028/raising-boys-faith-salie/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5045028/raising-boys-faith-salie/"},"headline":"How to Raise a Sweet Son in an Era of Angry Men","datePublished":"2017-12-01T19:29:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:53:54.106Z","description":"The author and television personality writes about all the angry men, and the young son she is raising to be sweet and compassionate","url":"https://time.com/5045028/raising-boys-faith-salie/","keywords":["Parenting"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt362a2f4da4c1185d/6988f35597cdff1fee6b3759/how-raise-sweet-son-era-angry-men.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Faith Salie","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/faith-salie/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt362a2f4da4c1185d/6988f35597cdff1fee6b3759/how-raise-sweet-son-era-angry-men.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"how-raise-sweet-son-era-angry-men","caption":"father and child on the beach , child looks up .","creditText":"Peter Cade—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/parenting/","name":"Parenting"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5045028/raising-boys-faith-salie/","name":"How to Raise a Sweet Son in an Era of Angry Men"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Trump Thinks Guns Helped Stop 'Hundreds' From Being Killed in Texas Church Shooting","description":"President Donald Trump says tougher gun laws would not have prevented a mass shooting at a south Texas church, arguing that more restrictions might have led to more casualties","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Hml9gock/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-11-07T13:39:29.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Hml9gock.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5045028/raising-boys-faith-salie/","duration":"PT1M21S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5045028/raising-boys-faith-salie/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```