LET THEM BE BOYS: How Raising Two Sons Is Teaching This Mom to Be Brave. “As they have grown, my two sons’ preferences lean quite clearly toward activities for which I have no skill set, sports that scare me, and bodily functions that don’t leave me laughing. When their dad died before they were in kindergarten, I felt brokenhearted and especially displaced; how I could I raise men without one? How could I keep up with their antics when I didn’t have an ounce of testosterone on my side? In my journey to reinvent myself in the widowed life, I had to embrace a whole separate something: I had to start thinking like a boy. When you live in a frat house, sometimes you have to suck it up and get in the game. And that’s exactly what I did.”