Saving Our Sons

A New Path for Raising Healthy and Resilient Boys

By: Dr. Michael Gurian

Narrated by: Joe Farinacci

Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's Summary

Boys and their communities are challenged today in ways they have not been before. Dr. Michael Gurian has studied and served children and their families for 30 years. His The Wonder of Boys (1996) is credited with sparking the "boys’ movement". In Saving Our Sons, he features the latest research in male emotional intelligence, male motivation development, neurotoxicity and the male brain, and electronics and video game use. 

Linking practical solutions with strategic new policies based on 20 years of field work through the Gurian Institute, Dr. Gurian provides a seven-stage model for the journey to manhood in the new millennium. Moving effortlessly between the practical and the political, Dr. Gurian also tackles social and cultural issues facing our sons. 

Two of the audiobook’s chapters provide listeners with successful ways to challenge governmental and academic institutions, as well as the media, to see boys fully and fairly. In its eight chapters, Saving Our Sons is a unique combination of powerful writing, new research, practical strategies, and passionate social advocacy that helps our nation act on behalf of boys and young men - one home, one school, and one community at a time.

©2017 Michael Gurian (P)2018 Michael Gurian

neccessary reading

really important read for all. sons or no, we need to help society and boys

The right to become a man

In a world where race and gender are still a source of discrimination and where technology has become the main source of information and the transmission of art, culture, sport, education and gaming has not only provided endless hours of entertainment to millions of people of all ages across the world, while utterly wrecking the prospects of many a young boy or girl through addiction, it is paramount to find out how male testosterone maturing teenage brains have difficulty coping with the vast amount of visual information games and online porn provide.
As an international teacher with over 20 years experience, I fully support the notion that boys are lagging behind and failing to thrive in Western cultures. As a woman teacher I can testify that bringing up the issue in front of colleagues can be difficult, although I believe the main difficulty lies in the general public's acceptance of the notions rather than teachers themselves, who as front line workers can witness the apathy and poor motivation that is a pandemic in our classrooms and lecture halls all the world over.
However, I believe that in order to raise the stakes and continue working towards educational parity and developmentally appropriate schools and universities, we should accept that a future where both men and women compete for the top positions in society and at work while raising beautiful families is possible. His point that men's commitment to their profession often overshadows that of many women, who prioritise family over profession for a number of vital years bears true, but is born out of general statistics as well as the science he explains very clearly. Nevertheless, within those trends there are others and one of them shows that more than a hundred years of opportunities do and can render women such as Jacinta Arden or Maya Angelou. Women who can lead are not the obstacle to men leadership, rather a fair companion at the top.
Whereas the vast majority of the information in the book is not only enlightening but possibly life saving for future men, their families and neighbours, the paragraphs where Gurian states women will never fully conquere what others describe as the 'glass ceiling' as a group could have been left out. The prediction falls outside science's scope. The rest of the book does not.
Another small question I would like to point to is that Gurian openly addresses the American public, ocassionally drawing international evidence to reinforce his points. As a European reader, I wonder whether the author doubts the point would have come across to his American public with a more nuanced international addressee. The subject matter and evidence, the issues dealt with are international. So, I believe, should be the reader he uses to address to. Unless, of course, this has been done following publisher guidelines.
I believe the title really captures the sense of urgency that failing to act upon the issue would bring to both families and societies alike. Our sons need us and Michael Gurian does a great job of telling us why.