Raising Boys

STEVE BIDDULPH is one of the world's best-known parenting authors, with books in four million homes and 24 languages. He has been a family psychologist for more than 30 years and has been voted Australian Father of the Year by the Australian Father's Day Council. He lives in Tasmania, Australia. THE AUTHOR SCOOPHave you ever met a famous person?What do you mean? I am a famous person! But seriously, the royal family uses my books and mentions them. We have mutual friends. I guess that’s one degree of separation. But I hate dropping names. So I won't say which royal family!   What's the history of your name?My dad researched our name. It turns out, the biddulphs were vikings. But I like to think they were gentle Vikings. They would crunch onto the shingle in their longboats and rush ashore and give parenting seminars.Any unusual hobbies?My wife. Well actually she has the unusual hobby. We raise wombat orphan babies, which takes two years with each one, and release them in the wilderness. In Tasmania where I live, there is still some wilderness, and we fight to keep it free. Baby wombats bring some wild nature into our homes and they are food for our souls. They do, however, eat furniture.  Know any good jokes?My father actually told me this, and we like to remember him by retelling it, “What did your father do before he died? Answer: “He went AAAARRRGHHHH!”  What was the first book you can remember reading? Reading? Or eating? I ate The Little Red Engine. First I read Homer’s Odyssey. No kidding. I was a bit ahead of my age. I also had stayed clear of books after that eating episode.   If you had to boil your book’s message down to just a couple sentences, what would it be? Boys need to be loved. They must be exercised every day. They absolutely must cook. At the age of nine, a boy’s attention span overtakes that of a border collie. So start them cooking family meals right then. Teach them how to safely handle a sharp knife, and boiling water (the most dangerous thing in the house). Get them started!