Sensitive, the Novel

Michael Ian Black just wrote a piece for the NYT called "T he Boys Are Not All Right ". In response to this and to general cultural hand-wringing about the state of the youth, from tablet-addicted toddlers to violent young adult beta males to the "lost generation of millennials", I submit this. Call it a hunch, but from the very beginning, we figured that our first-born twins would be girls. When the news came that both were boys, we went through a period of resetting. For my husband, this involved a minor crisis of conscience. I remember him reluctantly admitting, “But I don’t know how to teach boys to be men. I’m not that kind of man.” I was too overwhelmed to say this to him then, but, with the benefit of hindsight and time travel, I would go back and say, “That’s precisely why I love you. You’ve never been that kind of man.” My spouse is compassionate, strong, earnest, and brilliant. He is steady and loving. He provides. He is not handy – at all – and he d...