Why parents of boys feel they are missing a manual

The instructions for raising a boy seem to have visibly multiplied in recent years. As they probably should.

"Don’t dominate. Don’t harass. Don't stalk."

"A no is a no, even if said just once."

"Don’t mistake persistence for romance."

"Don’t expect a woman to cook and clean for you."

"Don’t treat a partner’s independence as a threat."

All necessary lessons. But what comes after the don’ts list?

The old order changeth

For generations, the script for sons in India was relatively clear. Women were mostly expected to adjust around these responsibilities.

A son would carry the family name, inherit its assets, earn for the household and look after his parents. He would be the man of the house, his future tied to the family’s security, continuity and status.

Children learnt the arrangement early on: whose education was prioritised, whose career could be interrupted or sacrificed, who served and whose needs took precedence.

That order has been challenged, though not dismantled. Girls are claiming greater space in education, work and personal life. Expectations around marriage, domestic labour and women’s independence are changing, even if unevenly.

We are now asking boys to navigate a world where the old rules are being challenged, but we have barely helped them make sense of the new ones. Between entitlement and prohibition, something remains missing: preparation.

A son can no longer expect to provide for his family and assume the rest will fall into place around him. He must share the work at home, respect his partner’s choices and understand that love does not confer ownership.

What should boys learn?

But there is a gap between changing the rules and changing how children learn to live by them. We have expanded the possibilities available to girls faster than we have consciously redesigned the socialisation of the boys who will grow up alongside them.

The Aastha Kunj incident in Delhi, where a 17-year-old girl was gang-raped, allegedly by three men posing as policemen in a park, brought this question back into public view. It also showed how far the new freedoms still have to go: girls continue to be told to restrict their movements and be more 'careful', while the burden of safety rests on them.

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The familiar debate followed: Should girls be told to be more careful? Or would it suffice if boys are strictly taught to behave themselves?

“Bring up the boys right” is an urgent call. Yet it leaves another parenting question hanging: when you tell your sons to reject inherited ideas of manhood, what do you replace those lessons with? How do we help them make sense of the new rules?

Between entitlement and prohibition, something remains missing: preparation.

Parenting 2.0

Rahul Kumar (name changed on request) grew up in a tier 3 city in the Hindi heartland before moving to a metro for higher studies. Now, raising a 10-year-old son, he finds himself looking at two vastly different generations of parenting.

“I grew up differently. Where I come from, things have changed — we have malls and everything capitalism brought with it — but certain aspects of family and needs remain,” he says.

He sees a shift in his own extended family, where girls are being encouraged to become more independent and make choices. “I feel we are trying to make up for what the previous generation of girls may not have been offered. We are encouraging them to be more independent, to have greater agency and to make their own choices.”

Raising a son in a changing world

With his son, Rahul feels less certain about what to say, or how to say it.

“My son is growing up in a very fluid time, and I find it hard and worry about how to teach him right versus wrong. What was right and accepted once is frowned upon today,” he says. “Sometimes parenting feels more like catching up and reacting,” he adds.

He is also conscious of how easily men can be seen through the lens of violence. “When the world often sees men as the perpetrators, I wonder how to protect my 10-year-old from that blanket tag.”

The worry is understandable, but it is also worth asking what answers it. Most men are not perpetrators, yet every boy will help shape what his peers treat as normal, and that is where preparation comes in.

'No' as the safer answer

There is a difference in what Rahul describes. The effort to prepare girls for a world in which they can exercise greater agency is visible and deliberate, even as they still carry most of the burden of staying safe. With boys, parents have to unlearn inherited assumptions, choose words carefully and work out how to make the changing rules make sense as the boy grows up.

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“Sometimes my only response is to say ‘no’ to him even though it is not recommended in gentle parenting,” Rahul says. He admits that his fear that his son may be judged simply for being a boy is itself an inherited reflex, and that it triggers this response.

At the same time, he doesn’t want to be the father who hasn’t taught his son the ways of the changing world.

But what worries Rahul is how his son will react in a situation where rules are easier said than followed.

Beyond violence and fear

Swagata Raha, a legal researcher and restorative practices facilitator working on POCSO (The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) and juvenile justice cases, cautions against making the conversation solely about violence, sexual or otherwise.

“It’s high time we started thinking through these difficult issues rather than looking at them only through the lens of violence and the fear of harm. Our social response cannot begin only after violence occurs, nor can it be informed only by violence and fear. It must begin early, in childhood, with all children, through how we teach them to understand and relate to one another. If violence and fear alone shape this conversation, we risk failing the next generation,” she says.

Test of rejection

She believes that even when children hear the right messages at home, the social world can complicate these messages. “Even if parenting has conveyed these messages of respect and boundaries and consent, when they're with peers, it gets hard for boys to disengage,” Raha says.

Rejection is one such test. “We need to help young people understand and accept rejection and not see it as a ‘I am not good enough’ dilemma,” Raha says.

Boys also learn from what they see: how fathers speak to their wives and daughters, who cooks and cleans, whose time is treated as free and whose work is taken seriously.

Accepting rejection can be difficult in a culture that gives boys limited room to acknowledge hurt. “Emotions are considered signs of weakness. It's assumed women are too emotional and that men are rational — boys are often taught. ‘Don’t be a girl, don’t cry,’ is what they are told.”

The feelings do not necessarily disappear. “Emotions among men find their way through anger, physical aggression or even suppression that is not healthy at all,” Raha says.

How to accept rejection gracefully

Counselling psychologist Anushree Shukla points to the pressure created on boys when masculinity becomes a measure of status. “When manhood is tied to status, strength or authority, rejection and failure can feel like threats to identity,” she says.

In such situations, a refusal which should disappoint feels more like a humiliation to manhood. Shukla says learning to pocket such refusals with grace requires one to be able to feel hurt without turning that hurt into someone else’s problem.

Somya Kapoor Sharma, a middle-school teacher and mother of an eight-year-old boy, tries to give children a way out of difficult situations. “I have often told my students and my son that there is always an option.”

That option could mean stepping away from a group, refusing to join in or approaching an adult for help. It also depends on whether a child believes he can admit to mistakes without being mocked or immediately punished.

Parents and teachers can only say so much. Boys also learn from what they see: how fathers speak to their wives and daughters, who cooks and cleans, whose time is treated as free and whose work is taken seriously. The strongest lesson on respect is usually the one a household practises every day.

When should bade bhaiyas step in?

And when parents and teachers are no longer within reach, who is there to show the way?

Community researcher and documentarian Gagandeep Khadar of the Dilli Dehat Project emphasises the role of community spaces on a child’s mental and psychological development. He recalls the impact that community spaces such as chaupals, panchayat ghars, playgrounds, akhadas and informal gatherings by the Yamuna had on young children in the earlier days.

Khadar says such spaces brought people of different ages and experiences into contact. They were not necessarily free of prejudice, but they offered young people opportunities to encounter lives and perspectives beyond the immediate authority of home and school.

“Here a child could encounter disagreement, watch how older people handle conflict and learn that having differences doesn’t mean your idea is being rejected,” he says.

“And then, there would often be a bade bhaiya (elder brother) — an older boy or young man the child could turn to for help or guidance. Because the bade bhaiya isn’t a parent or a teacher, he might be easier to approach about things the child may find uncomfortable discussing with parents.

Beti Bachao, Beta Samjhao ('Save the Daughter, Inform the Son'). It is not an official slogan, but it captures a question we have been slow to ask.

“A younger boy could learn by watching how his bade bhaiya handles a difficult situation. Or simply having someone who would listen also works,” Khadar says.

He says the bade bhaiya figure is part of the child’s neighbourhood and wider social world, and is someone who could make him feel he didn’t have to figure everything out alone.

As physical community spaces become less central to children’s everyday lives, such encounters are becoming rarer. Not that community spaces were free of harmful ideas: older boys could easily reinforce prejudices. But they also offered opportunities for someone to notice, question, or intervene.

The need to belong, and who answers it

Khadar’s phrase, “Let someone accept me too; let someone appreciate me too,” gets to the heart of the need to belong.

"Today, a boy might turn to gaming chats, online peers or influencers for answers about masculinity. He may find friendship and support — even a kind of online bade bhaiya — but he may also encounter ideas that leave him feeling more isolated or misunderstood," he says.

“The question is whether he has someone in his life he trusts to help him make sense of what he hears. Can he bring an uncomfortable question home, admit that he feels hurt or confused, and expect to be heard rather than mocked?” he adds.

Research scholar Divyansh S, who studies internet communities and gaming, says the changing nature of children’s social spaces makes it important to pay attention to where they spend time. Virtual worlds such as Minecraft and Roblox can offer friendship and belonging, but they can also expose children to cyberbullying, predatory behaviour and social comparison.

“The solution isn't as simple as cutting their access to these spaces. The key is engagement with the kids and trying to understand these spaces,” says Divyansh.

Solution lies in engaging, not ignoring

Beti Bachao, Beta Samjhao ('Save the Daughter, Inform the Son'). It is not an official slogan, but it captures a question we have been slow to ask. We have spent generations teaching girls how to navigate a world that often asks them to adjust. We are now asking boys to navigate a world where the old rules are being challenged, but we have barely helped them make sense of the new ones. Between entitlement and prohibition, something remains missing: preparation.

Boys and girls are both absorbing messages from the world around them. What is that world teaching them about power, relationships, and what they can expect from one another? Parents matter, but they cannot answer that question alone. Schools, communities and the wider culture all have a part to play.

The instructions for raising a boy will probably keep multiplying. What matters is whether every “don’t” comes with a “here is what to do instead”: how to hear no, how to feel hurt without hurting someone else, how to ask for help. A boy who learns that is not losing his place in the world. He is learning to share it.