Today my new short book What do boys want? is available on Amazon.
This is based on my recollections of childhood. The book explores how adults often fail to see or understand what the child sees or thinks, explaining how a small boy has a very different perspective to his mother. It also captures social history, contrasting adult views of boys when I was young to changed views today.
It charts some of the more crucial moments when I learned an important truth about the human condition. It reveals the problems learning to walk, the need to go mountaineering on furniture made for giants, the frustrations of not being able to do things, and the problems of responding to grown ups who whilst trying to be nice were patronising or asking impossible to answer questions. I saw my bedroom as an action set for my cars, toy soldiers and model aeroplanes, whilst my mother saw it as a challenge to try to make it a tidy bedroom.
I never wanted to play with dolls, choosing boys toys out of preference. From an early age I was drawing what my car might look like when I was grown up.
March 26, 2025
I bought my two, now adult, sons up as a single mother after their father left home when they were both pre-school. I was lucky to have very supportive parents, as were they.
I bought Steve Biddulph’s book “Bringing up Boys” and went to one of his lectures. It all made sense to me and I put his ideas into practice: cubs, scouts, team sports, lots of outside activities, male role models. I didn’t focus on grades, although they were both very bright, instead I focused on character development. In due course, they got paper rounds, then casual jobs.
Sir John’s comment about his bedroom made me smile. My eldest wanted me to board the loft so he could set up his Hornby train set there, something I couldn’t afford to do. Instead, it got set up around his bedroom so I had to climb over the track to navigate the room. The carpet didn’t get properly swept for several years
State child-rearing and the over-feminisation of the education system has failed boys. It’s no wonder so many seem “lost” these days.
March 26, 2025
I have bought it. Norris McWhirter asked me my earliest memory. He could remember being very tiny and being only half – his twin being the other half. A unique perspective, recognising part of yourself in another being.
I remember being in my pram and not able to walk. I remember strategising and deciding when to let on that I could talk. I told on nannies who did not do as my mother had instructed, but only after I was safely back with Mum.
Adults who remember should chronicle all of this because the children can’t.
Well done!
March 26, 2025
I remember playing in the street from an early age before I started school. Cars were not so numerous -even in Paddington – at the time. My primary school in Little Venice had a playground on the roof. Class size of about fifty kids. I went back recently and our house was split into separate flats which would sell for more than the suburban house we moved to in the suburbs (on the other side of the North Circular). The suburb has now sadly turned into a dump
I could go to the local shops for errands, having been given specific instructions on what to buy. It was the time of ’15 minute cities’ before supermarkets. All was on the doorstep, apart from department stores.
Over the years things were getting better. New consumer durables. Longer holidays, trips abroad. All was well while there was full employment. There were only a few tramps, not widespread homelessness. Few signed on the dole, it would be regarded as shameful.
It was a white society. There were a few blacks around but they were gainfully employed and not causing trouble. You could walk around Harlesden in the 1960s and the black kids were no bother. It was the white kids in the council flats you had to be wary of.
March 26, 2025
The TV series “Seven Up” followed the lives of a number of children from different backgrounds from the age of seven to middle age and beyond.
It was interesting to see early differences and how they affected future lives.
March 26, 2025
What an excellent subject matter. I look forward to reading it!
March 26, 2025
Quite a normal childhood which sadly today not available to most children
Being indoctrinated at school about LGBT alphabet, white supremacy and other fashionable memes, there’s no wonder todays children are confused
Being told there are 50 plus genders and you can identify as a goat will destroy the population
No other sect or religion subscribes to this nonesense
Like climate change it’s just another way to destroy us
March 26, 2025
‘identify as a goat’…
March 26, 2025
Great idea for a book.
Another annoying thing for a child is that parents do not appreciate how our perception of time differs.
My mum used to say “not long for your birthday” when it was 3 weeks away. If you’re 5 years old, 3 weeks is the equivalent of an adult’s 3 years!
March 26, 2025
Indeed at primary school a weekend was ages not a thought to Monday morning. Easter, Christmas & Summer Holidays were for ever.
At age 8 I used to bus my younger sister to her nursery school then go to walk on to mine. Also during the holidays I was out nearly all day from about age 8 onwards mainly playing football, fishing, table tennis, tennis, golf… hardly every saw my parents only went home to eat or sleep. No smart phone or tablets or wifi one TV three channels. My elder sister did maths with a slide rule and log tables. Calculators simple ones came when I was about 15. Scientific ones two years later!
March 26, 2025
The longueurs of the Summer holidays. Age, independence and money resolved that.
Surprised you did not have log tables. It was the wireless for my early years then a telly with two channels.
We did not have modern woke lessons. We had Commonwealth Day which replaced Empire Day. The globe still had lots of pink and places like Tangyanika and Nyasaland. I used to play in a four ball with a Rhodesian, an Afrikaaner and a man from Nyasaland who was a partner in a big City accountancy firm. He spoke with Received Pronunciation and I always had to look up where Nyasaland was.
March 26, 2025
Yes, you are always at 100% if your life. When you are 2 your next birthday is half a life away. When you get to my age it’s like living in a vortex – I’m leaving the Christmas tree up this year, it’s just not worth taking down!
March 26, 2025
In answer, good parental role models, preferably two. An education commensurate with their talents. Challenges outside their life experience, that strengthens their ability to deal with everthing that life throws at them. Plenty of physical sport and a good diet. Lots of preceptive encouragwment to guide them to a productive lifestyle. Good looks help, but are not esseential . All leading to a determination to succeed. Good luck.
March 26, 2025
“An education commensurate with their talents“ Kemi is against Grammar Schools fine to have schools for talented sport and music students but not for the more academic it seems.
March 26, 2025
Boys want to be manly. If the nearest to them who is manly is Stormzy then that’s the manly they become.
March 26, 2025
A frend of mine decided to bring up her two twin children the same one boy on girl and bought them a plastic construction toy with spanner. The girl wrapped the three spanners in tissues and put them to bed.
Boys and Girls and men and women are “on average” hugely different – evolution ensures this. The books and magazines they read, the games they play, the subjects they study, the jobs they choose…
We could however do with some more babies see the book The human Tide. The future belongs to those who show up!
But JR saying the genders are different is surely a hate crime or soon will be.
Mel Stride just replying to Reeves two PPE Oxon people. Hard to take him seriously when he says Net Zero is in the Conservatives DNA since Thatcher. Well consult some sensible engineers and physicists and get ths lunacy out of their damn DNA!
March 26, 2025
After al the pay gap might be nothing to do with discrimination just the choices gender choices in jobs, degrees, work life balance (as it clearly is!)
Teachers nurses mainly femail and engineers builders oil rig workers, refuse collectors…
March 26, 2025
Interestingly if you give monkeys toys to play with they show the same male/female differences is how they play with them and which ones they choose!
March 26, 2025
Sir John,
Great topic (both interesting but also useful as things like this affect the culture and so politics).
1. Humour / laugher / developing one’s personality and character (Just William)
2. Adventure (Treasure Island / Huckleberry Finn / Swallows and Amazons)
3. Heroism (the film Jason and the Argonauts, the Greek myths in general)
4. To get physical (climbing trees, playing rugby, play fighting with other boys – Huckleberry Finn)
5. Space to be on own (involving some sensible element of danger such as climbing rocks by sea – Huckleberry Finn / Swallows and Amazons)
6. To get muddy / dirty / wet in the outdoors (Huckleberry Finn)
7. Creativity / Imagination / entrepreneurship (building dams in streams, reading Arabian Nights and Charlotte’s Web, playing a guitar, sketching, setting up a business selling sweets and washing cars etc).
8. To hunt for food (fishing / Huckleberry Finn)
9. Friendship (The Hobbit)
10. Judaeo-Christian values (Humility, Love, Honour parents and family, Work Ethic, Patriotism – Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lord of the Rings) and beliefs.
March 26, 2025
‘Huckleberry Finn’ does not pass ‘woke’ nowadays. We were read ‘Uncle Toms Cabin’ in primary school.
Even old comics would not pass ‘woke’ now.
March 27, 2025
My list. Female aged 5-10
Enid Blyton ( Minus Noddy), William, Jennings, Billy Bunter, Various lives of The Saints, Chalet School series, A J Cronin, The Robe by Lloyd C Douglas, Dickens, Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind, The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier.
Tried some on my offsprogs. Not interested in the slightest.
Times change
I’ll read the JR Book when the Library get it.
March 27, 2025
We weren’t allowed to read Enid Blyton at school although ended up reading. I much preferred The Railway Children. Thought it was going to be boring – brilliant.
Charles Dickens is just a titan of children’s (/ adult) books. I was obsessed by him. He taught me to love reading (and to write). The salty personalities. The humour. Etc. Read David Copperfield four times. Oliver Twist. Great Expectations. Christmas Carol. And the brilliant Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers.
I’d also add Tintin, Asterix and Lucky Luke (the Vatican declared Tintin a Christian hero and role model for children).
March 26, 2025
There is a often a lack of decent fathers present (encouraged by the benefit system) and not many male teachers either. 76% female at primary school and 65% female at secondary school. (They seem to like teaching as it often fits in with their family I assume also women seem to prefer people. Hence doctors (engineering on people) is 60% female engineering on cars, planes, tanks, oil rigs, power stations…80%+ male!
March 27, 2025
You make valid point here. But you can’t legislate against this. But what you can legislate for is reintroduce National Service. Minimum one month. But increased to two and three months with special free courses for useful things if they choose this option (and special prizes of treks to the Himalayas etc tor candidates who do very well). But everyone must do one month. Either military service or voluntary local work. This would really help young men to man-up and increase patriotism.
I think private companies would also be delighted to hire young people with some self-disciple. My cousin who works for American investment firm in London says sooo many of the young hires today are just lazy / spoilt / don’t want to work / lack disciple and maturity – both genders.
March 26, 2025
Jung’s Shadow Work is also essential for adults to grow up properly from childhood wounds / trauma (which everyone carries from one degree to another even if one’s parents were saints).
Psychologists tell us that by the time of five, we’re almost formed into how we are going to live out our adult lives. Those years are so formative psychologically. And part of ‘growing up’ is doing the challenging work of SHADOW WORK when we delve into the deep recesses of our own psyches to uncover all the things that make us insecure and angry from childhood. These wounds have to be addressed and healed before we can become properly grown-up and happy.
When Odysseus and Hercules travelled into the underworld, this is partly a metaphor for the Greek heroes going into the recesses of their own psyches and dealing with the monsters that lurk there. Sadly, from one degree to another, we won’t deal with our own internal monsters, but instead focus on the monsters in others (this is called projection) – and this can lead to so much dysfunctionality from addictions (drink, cigarettes, drugs or addicted to things in general) to problem relating to others, depression, and so on that can affects our jobs, productivity – and our economy overall as well as health and so on.
Tolstoy’s War and Peace is really about the war inside us (that we have to fight the monsters inside us). And this also connects with Christianity, learning to love self (in healthy way) before we can then love others etc (and learning to receive love). Something like that.
If more people did more shadow work, our country would be a lot happier and more functional in every sense including the economy, productivity, health, the arts, much lower crime, much lower NHS bills, much lower taxes overall.
March 26, 2025
“I never wanted to play with dolls, choosing boys toys out of preference. From an early age I was drawing what my car might look like when I was grown up.”
So what do your think of the Jaguar rebrand?
Males and females buy rather different cars too. They now the new ones all look very similar due to safety and emissions laws and people being pushed into EVs a very still policy they do not even save CO2 not that CO2 is an issue!
March 27, 2025
That’s a very good point.
I would add though that a King (a husband) must lead but a smart King listens also to the advice of his supportive Queen (wife). At least in the happiest / most fulfilled marriages. But ultimately the man must decide. Lead.
March 26, 2025
Can anyone explain the P/E ratios of Toyota X 7.4 and Tesla X 176 ?
March 26, 2025
Perhaps. To borrow a Nigel Lawson term, it is irrational exuberence that nowadays in contrast to the 1980’s no longer requires teenage scribblers to take hold. Toyota is large (near its limit?) and cautious whereas Tesla is the manifestation of the exciting future without limits. Recall Tesla is not just a maker of vehicles.
March 28, 2025
exciting ? Wrecking roads, sucking electricity better used for anything else, firing all that pollution into the sky, and enabling wars from outside the planet? Futile or madness – or both?
March 26, 2025
Could this be a brilliantly timed ploy to lay your claim to be Minister for Men, Sir John? There seems insufficient thought about the condition of men and boys.
Starmer very recently turned down calls for such a Minister: perhaps he will think afresh. Your friend Kemi could outflank him by giving you the shadow portfolio anyway.
March 27, 2025
They have a minister for Women and Equality (it is always a Woman needless to say). How can you be for both Women AND Equality? It is almost as absurd as being Minister of State for Energy Security AND Net Zero!
March 26, 2025
Wow JR, your recall starts very early. Nappy changing – yuk!
I remember being worried about what the toilet swallowed. Was it discerning? I remember asking my mother for some money (to test whether it accepted toilet paper only or would swallow any paper). Anyway it swallowed the £5 she lent me. The result of the test was very distressing for us both.
I hated toys altogether. I like live things, our bantams, the dog. When he was banned to his kennel in the back yard, I went with him, reversing into his kennel so we could both glare at the kitchen door.
We are all different from the outset, but the communication problem is universal. The walking issue, with half a beach towel between your legs! A stumble and your arm is yanked out of it’s socket to prevent the fall.
Rodney and I were left in charge of an 11 week old baby boy recently. He was in his chair on the coffee table. We did not know what to do, then I remembered a story told by Powell, I made my mouth round and said ‘O’ when you say ‘O’ you mouth makes an O. Rodney is a linguist, he said ‘Hello’ with exaggerated mouth movements. Suddenly the little voice said ‘Hello, Hello’.
Best first words I ever heard – the parents don’t believe us!
March 28, 2025
Perhaps it had the desired effect – you won’t be risked a second time.
March 27, 2025
What was your first car? Mine was a Morris Minor Shooting Brake, in which I commuted to the RN Engineering College in Plymouth. To compete with rich Australians I upgraded to an Sustin Healey 100/6. Fell in love them and owned a succession oh Healy 3000s which I found could easily outrun a police car. Got married and bought a Citroen 2CV. It had character and was incredibly adaptable, carrying anything, even ladders and heavy furniture.
March 27, 2025
“I never wanted to play with dolls, choosing boys toys out of preference.”
I suggest watching a two-part BBC documentary/experiment titled “No More Boys and Girls. Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?”. It’s no longer available on the iPlayer, but can be found on YouTube.
One of the things it highlights is the attitudes of adults in choosing toys for small children and how those choices follow traditional stereotypes. In the experiment, they dress up girls in boys clothes, and vice versa, and then see which toys from a selection that various adults choose to use to play with the child. The adults typically chose stereotypical toys based on their assumption of the gender of the child based on the child’s clothes.
One suspects that your choice of toys was strongly influenced by the choices of others from a time too early for you to remember, and as this documentary shows, that can be very driven by stereotyping.
March 27, 2025
More than two million British car owners take their vehicles to Kwik Fit centres each year, including electric (EVs) and hybrids as well as petrol and diesel models. The company’s analysts looked at which models were disproportionately more likely to be brought in for tyre changes than the average car in every area of Great Britain and calculated the index figure for each model.1 From its Maintenance Index 2025, Kwik Fit has ranked the models by the number of locations in which they were most likely to have had tyre changes.2
The Kwik Fit ranking is led by the Tesla Model 3, which topped the table in 54 areas across Britain. This is more than twice as many as the model family in second place, the Citroen Berlingo, which comes top in 24 locations. In third place is another Tesla, the Model Y (16 areas), followed by the Mercedes CLA (9 areas). The top six is completed by the BMW 4 series and the Volvo XC40 (both with 7).
Possibly a combination of poor potholed roads and weight of cars.
March 28, 2025
It should be a less dry subject.My sons bedroom was full of electrical wires and switches, whereas my bedroom at a young age simply had the basics: a bed and a closet with a view of the garden my dad had spoiled by building a garage on the lawn.l had one book given to me by my grandfather “What is Man” by Mark Twain.
Cars are for necessity,not for show and anything showy makes me bristle.