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BookDads.com: Book Review - The Boys are Back
By Simon Carr
BookDads.com
Excerpt
September 1, 2009
Are fathers the same as mothers? This is the central question that underlies Simon Carr's heartfelt and searingly honest memoir, The Boys Are Back (also made into a motion picture). Carr's answer to this question is a resounding "No!" as he recounts his adventures as a single widowed father of his five-year-old son Alexander. Most of the story takes place after Simon's second wife has died from cancer, and he is left on his own to raise their son. Their family then becomes bigger when his eleven-year-old son Hugo from his previous marriage comes to live with them as well. The challenges of being a single father become further complicated by Simon's bereavement, Alexander's grief over his lost mother, and Hugo's struggles with finding a place in his divorced family. Throughout, Simon drifts back and forth in time to recount his experiences as a father to his sons both in and out of his marriages.
Much of The Boys Are Back concerns Carr's take on how to parent as a father rather than as a mother, and it's an issue that he takes head on. His wife was the primary caregiver prior to her death, and after she is gone Simon has to learn how to connect with his son. He discovers that he has to do so as Alexander's father instead of as a substitute mother, and that he has to allow his son to be a little boy. In the absence of his wife's influence ? and staunchly resisting the well-meaning advice of "mommy culture" that descends on him from other mothers, grandmothers, and the like ? Simon develops his own approach to raising a boy. This means lots of physical activity and physical contact. It means setting a few unbreakable ground rules and letting everything else go...
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