Dad's Book Club
DBF will take one book per quarter and allow our members to share their views or favorite quotes on any particular passage or chapter. We expect some members may or may not agree with the authors.
Member's Choice Book Beginning February, 2011-
A quest for enlightenment.
Real Boys by William Pollack Ph.D.
Dad’s Best Friend.org Book Club
The chaos of boyhood is so much in our faces. The first chapter in the first few paragraphs makes the reader sit back and breath a deep sense of normality. The chaos of boyhood is an American epidemic that stretches beyond my home. What a relief.
Kagin723
So I never thought I would be opening my mind concerning my son. After 4 generations of deep South religious beliefs my first born son announces to us that he his gay. I can’t begin to describe what that did to my wife and me. Personally, I have to lean on God and my wife for strength. Although I will never agree with his state of mind, I will never accept it, I can’t totally abandon him. He is my son and this is a place he will always be able to call home.
Simon111
The author describes boys as being deeply troubled. Deeply troubled boys become deeply troubled men who become deeply troubled fathers who in turn beget deeply troubled sons who do not understand that they are in fact deeply troubled. This is book is deep and seriously enlightening.
Seth900
I’m impressed by the fact that Pollack’s work here is actually the result of listening to boys. I can’t recall a time where my father actually took time to listen to me. My son is only 6 years old, yet there are times when he says things that seem to make time stop. There is that flicker of awakening where his soul speaks to mine. Each time but in various expressions his voice seems to say, Daddy don’t leave me, stay close by my side.”
Titolou554
The following quote got my attention immediately. “Adam was a quiet and rather shy boy, small for his age. In his bright blue eyes I detected an inner pain, a malaise whose cause I could not easily fathom. I had seen a similar look on the faces of a number of boys of different ages, including many boys in the “Listening to Boys’ Voices” study. Adam looked wary, hurt, closed-in, self-protective. Most of all, he looked alone. “ Circumstantially, so many boys are suffering from this positional loneliness. It’s so prevalent in my community and I’m not just talking about boys who have no father in the home. This book is has been very enlightening.
Scarlani478
The notion that a boy has a an emotional schedule that I as a father should recognize and respect is completely foreign to me and yet it makes so much sense.
Leo209
OMG! “A boy’s need to be silent-and then his subsequent readiness to share what he is feeling-is what we will call the timed silence syndrome.” They actually have names for these symptoms? Real Boys has opened my mind to pathways of healing and freedom. I love my sons and this book has given me an opportunity to understand them.
Chuckwagon300
I already knew my son was wearing a mask around his true feelings. I just made the mistake of trying to tear it off multiple times. Thank to God, there is a better way to allow him a trust zone to express himself.
Felix888