The very worst thing about having sons has got to be the somewhat strident, always unsolicited advice that I receive on bringing up boys. All the conversations inevitably revolve around respect and sensitivity, the subtext being that boys are programmed to grow up into violent brutes, an inevitability that can only be averted by the intervention of everyone who has some free advice to dispense. There is a perennial stream of forwards and open letters to ‘mothers with sons’ which turns into an avalanche sometime around the Women’s Day. This year, on schedule, I was forwarded a particularly irksome...

The very worst thing about having sons has got to be the somewhat strident, always unsolicited advice that I receive on bringing up boys. All the conversations inevitably revolve around respect and sensitivity, the subtext being that boys are programmed to grow up into violent brutes, an inevitability that can only be averted by the intervention of everyone who has some free advice to dispense. There is a perennial stream of forwards and open letters to ‘mothers with sons’ which turns into an avalanche sometime around the Women’s Day. This year, on schedule, I was forwarded a particularly irksome...

In the TV series ‘Friends’, I watched the episode where Monica talks about games little girls play – in particular, the game of marriage. This is the game where “Girls spend their life dreaming of and planning for the perfect wedding with the perfect guy.”  As wonderful as marriage is, can any institution live up to this hype? Can any man live up to the billing of “the perfect guy” and fulfill the heightened expectation of a woman who has been “waiting for him all her life”? THE HAPPILY-EVER- AFTER MYTH Where there is a vulnerability to be exploited, voila –an industry springs up to make money...