And a wife with a healthy sense of humor. I pray for the same for my boys.

Wow. This is good to hear. As a mom of two boys, age 16 and 6 - I think sometimes based on their manners and mannerisms that they will be cavemen for sure. I'll keep trying, though!

I struggle with this exact thing and eventually track back all of the annoying behavior to the disrespect I have allowed to continue (and more than likely contributed to over the years myself by disrespecting my spouse) It takes sooo much restraint to keep from saying things to emasculate my spouse that we fall into a pattern of chiding and disrespect by 'harmless' snide comments and the like... The more I realize I'm doing it, the more likely I'll be able to catch myself sooner and sooner and maybe stop altogether.

Stefanie Mullen
www.ooph.com

I have three boys. They are all lovely and I love every boy thing about them. But MAN (pun intended) are we a different breed. I too try desperately to teach them, at the very least, the manners I would like to have in a husband, chivalry and respect for women.

My husband was raised with seven sisters and he is the most wonderful MANLY yet considerate man I have ever known. My teen boys are starting to show signs of just such behavior. Point is, they get there. I promise. Especially with a mom like you who will clearly ensure they grow up to be gentlemen.

Kristy,
This is such a funny, light-hearted article! Pre-kids, my husband and I went as guests to Defending the Cavemen, a one-man broadway show by Rob Becker. My friend who invited us was a couple therapist. The show was fantastic. I was howling with laughter rolling all over my husband. Needless to say, my husband was not as amused. Fast forward to present day. When I remind my elementary school age boys that if they do not intend to pee inside the toilet then they should clean up after themselves. "Why?" they ask.

I am a 51 yr old with a 12 yr old daughter, my husband was telling me what he thought was a funny story of one of his friend's son commenting on the Curling event at the Olympics that it should only be women competing because they use brooms. What the hell? I probably shouldn't have got annoyed but it is uninformed attitudes like this that parents teach their sons that keep the cycle going of keeping women "in their place" I was shocked that any parent would be cool with their son talking like that, but I don't know the parents of the child. Needless to say my husband was dumbfounded why I was irritated, so I am dealing with uninformed behavior also and depending on him to help me raise our daughter to be a strong confident woman... I don't know, but I applaud mothers that take the time to help their sons become the men they would be proud of and make a wonderful contribution to society as a whole when they are raised to respect women not find ways to "keep them in their place".

On this topic, I recommend the book "Raising Cain" and how the lack of an emotional language and awareness is negatively affecting our boys, especially as they grow into teens. It's the kind of insight that helps me filter my own gender bias AND motivates me to make sure they are equipped to avoid the range of issues the 2 male therapist dads treat and see in large numbers.
Plus they suggest some simple (but hard) things to do in the quest to help boys understand emotions.

Oh, for everyone's sake including our sons, we need to see see how differential treatment is responsible for different behaviors in our boys and girls. There is a growing Male Crisis that will become worse over time followed by a public increasingly led to believe boys need special instruction, develop more slowly, etc. These and other wrong thoughts by educators will come out in the press as the college gap reaches around 65% to 35% in favor of Females (already 61 to 39).
When these false thoughts hit the press, your sons, my sons, and every other wonderful son, brother, and father will become laughing stocks in society and press. The false genetic beliefs are dead wrong and "a dead end" to helping our sons compete more equally academically and also in the growing imbalance in the information age.

The Male Crisis is more complex than many think. This is the reversal - In the nineteenth century, we lived in a very physical world and one that required much strength and courage for boys and later men. This created a form of treatment from a young age to create this strength. "Note, our sons are usually not given the attention and stabilizing care our daughters are and are also led by many more aggressive, less protective, environmental pressures outside the home."
1. Boy children even less than a year old were (and are) given more aggressive treatment to make them tough to compete in the big physical world.
2. Boys were (and are) not given kind, stabilizing, nurturing, mental, emotional, social, verbal, interaction and other kind, caring treatment for fear of coddling the Male child, again to make them tough.
3. Boys were (and are) by design not given love, honor, respect unless they display some form of achievement, status, image, etc. All of this was designed to make boys tough.
Girls were (and are) given more protection from that big physical world, because it was very physical and bad back then. Since girls did not have to be tough, girls could be(and are) given much kind, stabilizing, mental, emotional, social, verbal, interaction from a young age without regard to need for strength. Also since girls did not need to be strong, they were (and are) given love honor, and respect simply for being girls. This protective treatment extended (and extends today) through adulthood.
Now we are living in the information age where the need and means to make a living have been "completely reversed". The toughness, aggressive, neglectful treatment given boys is still in place even from infancy. This is creating higher average stress that impedes thinking, learning, and motivation to learn (mental reward received for mental work expended). It also creates higher activity in working class Males, less stability there – activity is used as a natural stress relief. In addition boys fall behind in writing due to higher muscle tension created by the high average stress that affect handwriting ability and motivation to write. Note, Middle/Upper class kids do not have this problem of need for higher activity nor do they have the higher muscle tension that inhibits handwriting skills and motivation to write. The lack of kind, caring mental, emotional, social, verbal interaction create a tremendous lag in mental, emotional, social, and verbal skills. In addition, this creates more wariness of social contact due to lack of accumulated skills and more aggression given to boys from a young age. This defensiveness also creates the Male Ego or defensive front boys, later men put on to help protect them from aggression they have received. This further impedes positive social interaction with significant others (teachers).
Girls on the "other hand" are now reaping a windfall of many fine information age skills. The much protection and care girls receive from infancy onward create lower average stress, ease of nature (less need for activity for stress relief), and lower muscle tension that makes handwriting easier, more neat, and more rewarding. The much kind, positive, stabilizing, verbal and other social interaction increase their mental, emotional, social, verbal, and academic skills along with a feeling of love and support as they use that instilled social knowledge in a school setting with teachers. Since girls were (and are) given love, honor, respect, (no need to be tough) simply for being girls, they have an almost assurance of good treatment in society through adulthood. This protection also allows for much more freedom of expression to both vent, gain further support, and more care. This is why girls mature faster than boys. These differences have been socially created.

Um, wow. I am a bit overwhelmed by some of the comments here...especially that by polkadotworld. Good grief, men "unevolved", narcissistic (the most narcissistic people I know are both women), "lower life forms"? I hope that, if you have daughters, my son never, ever encounters them. I am one year older than you, and I "judge" humans as individuals...not by gender. Talk about unevolved.
My husband is incredibly intelligent, one of the most reliable, trustworthy people I have ever known, and is absolutely fascinating. Like me, he has never stopped learning, is interested in the entire world around him, has a vast array of interests, reads widely, is capable of holding a conversation on almost any topic, and loves me and respects me deeply. My 12 year old son, who is in middle school, is loving, compassionate, defends his friends, male AND female, has adored the same girl for years (she is brilliant, loves history and riding horses and reading, and is hardly your typical girly-girl...and I just found out recently that she adores him too, and has for years), has wanted to be a paleontologist since he was three, has been eating with utensils and using a napkin since he was about 18 months old (we didn't have to fuss much, he liked being a big boy), has a delightful sense of humor and the absurd, has his own collection of over 200 books, already has an eclectic taste in music (no death metal, no gangsta rap)...o, and is brilliant and gets straight A's in school and isn't all that interested in organized sports. My husband and son are the antithesis of narcissistic...both love to give, both deeply care about other people's feelings (my son still gets out of the car, gives me a kiss and says "I love you" when I drop him off at school), and neither are violent or aggressive.
O, yes, there are farts and belches...but never in polite company, never in public, and usually accompanied by an "excuse me" or a ridiculous giggle. And, my dears, women do it too, and not always so discreetly ("o, you bad dog!"). Yes, there were soldiers, trucks and "guys"...and I was on the floor, making up silly songs and playing right along side them. In fact, as a child (oldest of three girls, and a largely absent father, due to his job), I preferred trucks, and soldiers, and dearly wanted an articulated, full scale GI Joe with OUTFITS that I could change. Didn't get one, though, got an expensive Italian fashion doll that I put on a shelf instead.

My son is the boy I'd want my daughter to marry. If your sons are acting like troglodytes, maybe you should take a good, hard look at how they are being raised. I've known too many men who are smart, interesting (and I've known plenty of women who were in the lower double digits of the IQ spectrum, and dull as dish water as well), kind, trustworthy, totally honest, mannerly, clean, and all around decent humans to believe that it's a simple matter of gender-based inferiority (if a man said that about women, wouldn't that make him a "chauvinist pig?" Is that oinking I hear?). Maybe your expectations are too low, or your parenting techniques lack...a certain degree of "me parent, you child...you listen or there will be consequences". Yikes, I know, primeval, the concept of a parent taking charge and instructing the children...and well, consequences being issued for inappropriate behavior (I did not say punishment, or, gods forbid, discipline, or spanking, or even harsh language, you'll notice). If your nine year old has to be reminded to use his utensils, your five year old sets the table for only himself, and the almost two year old has taken to kicking you in the leg at random times (actually, not that unusual at that age, a lot of young toddlers test limits like that. However, it is up to YOU to provide and firmly set those limits, no questions), then I suggest that it is more than their male-ness that is causing the problems. Something is deeply amiss. Your kids are not hearing you, much less listening to you. You say your husband is not a "strong, capable, family man". Does that mean he's not helping with the raising and boundary setting for the children? If not, why not? Is your husband acting as a father to your children, as a meaningful, active presence in their lives? And is he acting as a partner for you, which to me means a friend, a lover, a person who supports, respects, listens to and actually acts to enrich and improve your life? Or is he just a vague lumpish presence with to real attachment to, interest in, or influence on the family unit? If the latter is the case, then you are, unfortunately, the responsible one with the big decisions to make, regarding your own life and survival and that of your children.
In the interest of the "gender" issue: if the three children were girls, and the eldest was insisting on wearing make-up, refusing to eat, asking for provocative clothing (and they DO make such things for the tweener set...with trashy comments splashed across the seats of the pants and the chest on the tops), and the middle and youngest were engaging in IDENTICAL either bubble-centric or aggressive behavior...would you be referring to them as "cave-women", and relegating their behavior to the dubious realm of stereotypical gender related issues? I think not. I suspect you, and everyone else, would be much more sympathetic, and understanding, despite the obvious inappropriateness of the behaviors.
In the end, men and women are hard-wired completely differently, a biological, sociological and evoloutionary necessity. Sometimes I think women do more to perpetuate the cause of gender typing, bias and prejudice, and the destruction and havoc it creates, then men do.

While I have 2 girls [pre-school and toddler], I think that leading by example is probably still the best route. I understand that my tough years are the teenage ones. Hang in there!