Book Review: "Secure Daughters, Confident Sons" by Glenn T. Stanton

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Boys and Girls are different.  This is more than biology, it is psychological, social, cultural and spiritual too.  Glenn Stanton brings a book that he felt he could not rest until it was completed.  Secure Daughters and Confident Sons shows his passion with presentation of what the author feels is authentic masculinity and femininity with a dose of advice to parents.  It contains a gentle rant against political correctness and the culture's homogenization of gender roles but he doesn't get stuck there.  For the most part his stories and advice are sensible and useful.  Still two things bug me.

First, Mr. Stanton assumes a healthy family system for the most part.  There are some mentions of things that would be helpful for the single mom household.  This is a good guide to pre-parents or new parents but doesn't really deal with childhood behaviors that are already out of hand.    At the end of the book he does add helps for families with challenges by using a gut wrenching personal story.  It will be better received by those who share the Christian world view but he does leave the door open to others.

He does not use a lot of scripture but does keep the Bible's principles within reach.  For the most part I agree with him personally but he tends to apply the particulars of what "the" man and women are do universally.  My little world has a lot of unique brokenness, multiple parents, single moms and grandparents raising kids. Roles are not as cut and dried as this most of the time. Much of this may seem out of reach by many of my parents.  I do applaud his tasteful and frank treatment of sex and sexuality, especial chapter 12.

Second,  the spiritual dimension of growing young people, especially boys, is missing.  I was surprised that he did not fit the spiritual into the parenting patterns and strategies.    He treats the sociological- psycho-sexual thoroughly  and with non-technical language but but leaves out the walk with Christ.  An age appropriate treatment of  spiritual practices would have helped him make his case.  In his defense, this opens up the book for a broader audience and not just the churched.  However, I kept waiting for prayer, at least, to come up and it never really did.

Stanton's writing is clear and the book well organized.  His stories are personal and honest.  The chapters flow well and he concludes each one with a bullet point summary and "Q and A".  The notes reveal a fairly broad bibliography.  It is not written for group study but could be useful for a parent's support group.  The book has merit and I am glad that I read it. It seems more of a statement of the culture than a parenting book but his bottom line is to give families a tool to be and become healthier.  I am on a quest for a Men and Boy's ministry with an eye on those families with absentee dads.  This will go on the shelf with the other material that I am collecting for that project.

You can read a free excerpt from chapter one at http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/catalog.php?isbn=9781601422941&view=excerpt

Thanks to Multnomah Press for giving me this book in exchange for this review.  Thank you for reading it.

Alan the "Thoughtful Pastor" blog