I Don’t Know how to Do Boy, but I’m Bringing Snacks

I’m having a son soon, and I’ve realized something that feels both important and extremely stupid.

I do not know how to interact with boys.

I mean, I do. I’m not a cryptid who hisses at Little League. I went to boys’ birthday parties. I had guy friends, plenty of them, from childhood to now. I know how to nod at another man in a parking lot like we’re both undercover and the mission is “buy paper towels and reveal nothing.”

If

 we’re talking about my real friendships, the ones where I actually told the truth? The ones where I didn’t feel like I had to be “a guy” performing “a guy”? Those were usually with girls.

When I was a kid, my best friends were mostly girls. Later, some friendships stayed platonic, some turned romantic, and some drifted into that adult category of “we love each other, but everyone has jobs and children and scoliosis now.” And then I married Christa, and we had two daughters, and my daily life became a steady, beautiful immersion in Girl World.

Now, suddenly, there’s a boy on the way, and I’m standing at the edge of Boy World like a tourist holding a phrasebook titled Essential Boy Phrases.

Page one
“Nice throw, buddy.”

Page two
“Go… sports.”

Page three
“Do you want to, uh… punch the air and yell at a television together?”

Look, I’m not saying boys are aliens. I’m saying there’s a vibe I don’t naturally default to, and it’s the kind of vibe you can’t fake without everyone smelling the fear on you.

Also, and I can’t stress this enough, I have spent my entire life dodging a certain genre of male bonding that seems to require doing something slightly dangerous while refusing to acknowledge any emotion beyond hunger.

I can do hunger. Hunger is universal. Hunger is my love language.

What is the boy equivalent of sitting down and immediately talking about what’s true? What’s the boy version of “Tell me what you’re thinking” without it sounding like a therapy intake form?

Because when I imagine my future son at seven years old, telling me about some tiny tragedy that matters only to him—someone didn’t pick him for kickball, someone laughed at his drawing, someone said “you run weird”—my brain doesn’t go to “toughen him up.”

My brain goes to “come here, I’ll burn the whole school down.”

That might be more of a me issue than a gender issue, but still. It’s data.

I’ve even noticed it with nieces and nephews. Not in some dramatic way. Not in a way that makes me feel guilty at 3 a.m. Like I said, I’m not a monster. But if I’m honest, I’ve always found it easier to talk to girls. I can drop into their imaginative world without needing a map. I can listen to their stories, their little social universes, their strange, earnest questions, and I don’t feel like I’m supposed to fix it or fight it or turn it into a lesson.

With boys, there’s sometimes this unspoken pressure—real or imagined—to keep it simple, keep it light, keep it moving. Like conversation itself is suspicious. Like too much eye contact might summon a guidance counselor.

I know, I know. We’re not doing stereotypes. We’re enlightened. Boys cry, girls climb trees, everyone is a person, and the only true gender is “tired.”

I agree with all of that.

But, I also know how the world nudges boys. How early they get taught the little scripts—be tough, be funny, don’t be needy, don’t be soft unless you can make it look like a joke. And I’m not naïve enough to think our son will be immune to culture just because his parents have good intentions and an emotionally literate Spotify Wrapped.

So, part of my panic is not “What do I do with a boy?” It’s “How do I protect a boy from the worst parts of Boyhood without making him feel like there’s something wrong with him for being a boy?”

Which is an exhausting sentence, and he isn’t even here yet.

This is where I’m supposed to say something like “I’ll teach him to throw a ball,” as if balls are a moral curriculum. But honestly, I don’t care if he throws a ball. I don’t care if he likes trucks. I don’t care if he’s gentle or loud or obsessed with dinosaurs or obsessed with words or obsessed with the mystical spiritual practice of taking apart electronics for no reason.

I care about whether he feels safe being fully himself in our house.

And, the weirdest thing is, I already know the method. I’ve been practicing it with Charlotte and Rowan. It’s attention, plus snacks. Not as bribery, not as a tactic, but as a basic parenting truth: most crises shrink by half when someone is fed.

Not surveillance. Not control. Not “Dad has Opinions.” Just the act of actually seeing them—what makes them light up, what makes them fold in on themselves, what makes them brave, what makes them mean when they’re scared, what makes them generous when no one is watching.

Parenting, at least the part I trust, is less like “training a child” and more like “meeting a person repeatedly.” You meet them at breakfast. You meet them in the backseat. You meet them when they’re sick and weird and dramatic. You meet them when they’re radiant with pride over something that looks like nothing to you—some scribble, some joke, some tiny victory.

So, maybe this entire piece is just me confessing that I’m scared of an imaginary version of my son.

A cartoon boy. A boy made of stereotypes and movie scenes. A boy who arrives pre-installed with an interest in football and emotional constipation.

But, my son won’t be that. He’ll be himself.

He’ll be a baby first, which means the main activity is “exist loudly.” He’ll be a toddler, which means the main activity is “attempt death in creative ways.” He’ll be a kid, which means the main activity is “become a person in public.”

I won’t need to learn how to interact with boys.

I’ll need to learn how to interact with him.

Still, I’m keeping the phrasebook.

Just in case.

“Nice throw, buddy.”

“Go… sports.”

And, my personal favorite, the line I’ll probably say the most, because it’s the only honest one—

“What the hell are you doing?”

Then I’ll sit down beside him, and I’ll watch. I’ll learn.