Wild Things

It’s important to understand male development in these flexible and fluid terms, because what’s present and needed in a boy’s life at age two doesn’t disappear by the time he’s five or twelve; rather, it becomes part of a bigger whole. It’s not uncommon to find toddler-typical behavior present in adolescents (or forty-year-old men, for that matter). Equally so, there are several identity-forming stages within the span of boyhood that are similar to one another.