Coming of Age Rites or Ceremonies for boys

[FatherArn]

my little guy is no where near this age but I've been talking about it with hubby and some friends who have all boys..

i've heard of red parties for girls but what if anything have you done for your boys and what is the trigger?
A certain age... his first wet dream... what?

just curious i would love to hear stories..

[katarn]

oops i posted while my dh was signed in..

[MillingNome]

This is going to sound sad, but I don't know of any. We're kind of bad about that here in the American cultural, if you ask me. Other than a few religions that have rites, I can't think of any...

[Teakafrog]

This is a good question. My cousin has brought this up about her boys (a little older than my DS), but we don't know either. She has read about how important the rite of bar mitzvah is in helping Jewish boys realize they are growing up and need to act more adult-like. But we as Christians don't have anything similar. Will be watching this for ideas!

[LadyMarmalade]

I have no idea. I noticed the other day (when he was parading around naked) that my 8.5 year old's penis looks bigger than it did a few months ago, and it occurred to me at the time that I have absolutely no idea about the development of boys (sexually). I don't know what age to expect his first wet dream. I don't even know what age he'll start to sprout pubic hair. I'll have to ask DH when these things happened to him.

[captain crunchy]

I'm just a lurker (our dd is only 7 months ) and we have a girl... but maybe you could do something like what the mamas do with their daughters in terms of perhaps your partner could take him for a good meal, maybe a movie they would like to see, perhaps get him a shaving kit and offer to "teach" him how to shave (ya know when he gets those 3 upper lip hairs ) ... and in between that, talk about what it means to be a *man*... not only in terms of sexually, but in terms of respect for yourself, for women, body care, wet dreams, good stuff like that...


Dunno if your guys are into camping or anything like that, but maybe a "retreat" with just the *guys* where they go for a couple of days and talk about stuff while doing "guy" things etc...

(I put "guys thingS" in quotes because I don't think these things are just for males and can be for both genders ... but just throwing out ideas that most boys may like)

[LizaBear]

subbing here too - even though my DS is only 3 1/2 !

[katarn]

Yea. we've been talking about this more lately and we mentioned it to a dad who has a son in boyscouts.. He said that there is a special honor or somthing that boys can get if they go out in the woods all alone with no tent and spend the night out in the woods alone. I'm not sure what ammenites they can bring.. but that sounds like a cool thing.. If we modified it... Like the Dad and son could go camping then one night ds could trek out on his own.. Then come back to camp the next day.. during which they could talk about becoming a man and what it means and how his body is changing and blah blah blah all that good stuff.

[teacup]

I wonder if there are any books about this topic for boys? I know there's a great one for girls: Promiscuities by Naomi Wolf.

I urge every parent and all women to read the book.