Boys rule! Hannah Evans explains all in new book MOB

By Lisa Salmon Saturday, January 26, 2013
9:00 AM

Hannah Evans is a MOB three times over.

MOB Rule: Lessons Learned By A Mother Of Boys by Hannah Evans, published by Bloomsbury, priced £12.99. Available now. Picture: PA Photo/Bloomsbury.

And as a MOB - Mother of Boys - she has come to the conclusion that bringing up boys “is like dealing with dogs”.

While males, or FOB (Fathers of Boys), may initially take offence at the analogy, her reasoning does, perhaps, make more than a little sense.

Evans, a mother of three aged seven, nine and 10, explains that “boy pups” need feeding at least three times a day, a tree or a toilet to mark his territory, clear commands of no more than one syllable such as “Stop!” or “No!”, love which may be shown in manic displays of tummy tickling, and most importantly, to go out to let off steam, twice a day, every day.

“Or be warned,” she says, “it will be you, not just him, who is climbing the walls.”

Hannah Evans' three sons. Picture: PA Photo/Handout.

It’s such observations that make Evans’s new book, MOB Rule, so easy for other MOBs to relate to.

The book is no guide on how to bring up boys - Evans herself concedes that as an ordinary mum of three, she’s certainly in no position to dish out advice.

All she’s doing is describing what it’s like to be the single female in a house brimming with testosterone.

Evans, 40, insists that despite the sweat, tears and occasional blood she has to deal with, being a MOB is “marvellous”, even though she’s heavily outnumbered in a household where competition is key, farting is fun, and it’s a much better idea to make an exploding volcano from mum’s bicarbonate of soda and vinegar than it is to bake girlie fairy cakes.

“Making a mess in the name of science is an important part of the mainly male mindset,” she cheerfully concludes.

“That selfsame mindset which means that our family home, once a balanced amalgamation of husband and wife, has been almost totally transformed into an ode to the boy, a temple to testosterone.”

From potty training and dealing with “little boys’ bits”, visits to A&E, and the questionable joys of family camping, most, if not all, of Evans’s often amusing experiences with Toby, Barney and Josh - known in the book as Sensible Son, Binary Boy and Feisty Fellow - will ring bells with every MOB.

“The reaction I’ve had to the book from other MOBs is that it’s great to know you’re not alone,” says Evans.

“Mothers of boys - and probably mothers of girls as well, but I wouldn’t know - have certain things that they tussle with in common.

“The book isn’t about how to raise boys, it’s much more a reflection of the issues that come up for me as a woman surrounded by boys.

“It’s about being a girl and having to deal with something that you’re not quite used to.”

And that, of course, includes “farting and willies”.

“While farting is fascinating, boys go wild for their willies,” she says, recalling how the household collapses in mass male hysteria when FOB Charles joins in a rhyming game, asking: ‘What rhymes with cart?’

Like many dads, Charles, who’s in the Navy, can be as bad as any of the younger male members of the family, laments Evans.

“At home, stripped of rank and responsibility, he joyously joins the pack and becomes easily as excitable, absolutely as competitive, totally as tumultuous as his sons,” she says.

While she concedes that some of the experiences she’s had with her boys are universal and unisex parenting issues, she’s particularly adamant about one thing: “Girls are not born the same as boys.”

In the book, she recalls how at the age of 14 months, Sensible Son Toby picked up a branch and “beat seven bells” out of a bush, to her horror.

However, she soon realised that rather than her eldest son being a ‘thug’, it was simply a case of a boy being a boy.

“However much you encourage equality or adopt a unisex approach, however hard you try to foster the feminine or even push the pink, deep down inside their mini-male minds, a boy will be forever true boy,” she declares, going on to describe the family garden as a “battlefield of balls”, the lawn as the “Western Front”, and her sons as a boy brigade that “attacks anything that moves”.

But Evans, like most MOBs, weathers the violent boy storms, and concludes she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She points out that one of the many reasons why being a MOB is great is that boys’ needs are simple: “Exercise, discipline, lunacy and love.

“Oh, and a never-ending supply of Scooby snacks.”

Like many mums with children of the same sex, Evans has deftly fielded questions from others about wanting a girl, and stresses: “I feel extremely lucky to have what I’ve got.

“We’ve got three extremely healthy, happy and funny boys. I do sometimes wonder if my life would have been very different if we’d had three girls, but obviously I’ll never know.

“Now, I wouldn’t change having three of a kind for anything.

“I’m a proud and happy - if somewhat frazzled and frequently perplexed - mother of three small boys.”

:: MOB Rule: Lessons Learned By A Mother Of Boys by Hannah Evans is published by Bloomsbury, priced £12.99. Available now