Family Relationships: Father and Son

With gender roles rapidly changing, traditional distinctions between "men's work" and "women's work" are becoming obsolete. By training children to reject things that have been stereotypically assigned to women, you are depriving them of countless opportunities and sources of pleasure. Also, your husband's comments and actions could be damaging. In addition to hurting the child's feelings in the short-term, his words can have a long-term effect on their self-esteem, as well as their attitudes towards women, themselves and their father.

Instead of "toughening them up," this type of approach can negatively impact the types of parents, friends, husbands and citizens that the children will become. If the kids happen to be gay, this could have an even greater negative impact on their development.