Mollycoddled men ‘have better lives’

IF boys were treated like girls as babies they would become better at self-control, work and relationships, a leading psychiatrist claimed yesterday.

Men who were “mollycoddled” as babies are more likely to be successful at work and in relationships than those who were taught to be tough, Dr Sebastian Kraemer told the British Royal College of Psychiatrists’ annual conference.

Males are more vulnerable from the start, said Dr Kraemer, who works at Whittington Hospital in London. In a lecture entitled The Fragile Male, Dr Kraemer, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, said male foetuses are more likely to die in the womb and, once born, are three weeks behind in their development than girls.

“More males are lost or damaged in the womb than girls - everything that can go wrong in obstetrics goes wrong to boys,” Dr Kraemer said.

Boys are twice as likely as girls to suffer from reading difficulties, autism, Asperger’s syndrome and disruptive behaviour. They were also more psychologically vulnerable to their parents divorcing, or their mother suffering from postnatal depression, the academic said.

If boys were treated in a gentler fashion it would have a permanent, positive effect on the developing brain. “It hardwires self-confidence that is not based on bluster, a self-confidence that is genuine and doesn’t need to be constantly asserted.

“In other words, you will have a more confident but less aggressive adult male.”

“Boys would act more like girls, not in a more feminine way but more like a girl in that they would be able to hold themselves together,” he said.

“They would be less prone to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and would perform better at school. So don’t toughen up baby boys. It will not make them tough. Boys are more fragile and need to be picked up.”

The ‘ideal’ male, said Dr Kraemer, was epitomised by Clint Eastwood in his role in High Plains Drifter, a lonely cowboy with “no name, no relationships, no manners and probably useless as a father”.