Kate Stone Lombardi
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Kate Stone Lombardi.

Kate has been a journalist for more than 25 years. Her work has appeared in the National, Metro, Style, Education and Regional sections of the New York Times. She also wrote the popular “County Lines” column about the suburbs and was a frequent contributor to the “Generations” column, about family life.

Kate’s work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, Time.com, AARP Magazine, AARP’s “The Ethel,” Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping.

She is also the author of THE MAMA’S BOY MYTH: How Keeping Our Sons Close Makes Them Stronger (Avery/Penguin). The book was featured in multiple national publications and blogs, and Kate was a guest on ABC, MSNBC, Fox and Friends, WNYC’s “Brian Lehrer Show” and other programs to discuss gender issues.

Latest Work

The Mama's Boy Myth

Why Keeping Our Sons Close Makes Them Stronger

Mothers get the message early and often – push your sons away. Don’t “baby” them with too much cuddling and comforting. Don’t keep them emotionally bound to you. Back off, because boys need to learn to stand on their own. It is as if there were an existing playbook—based on gender preconceptions dating back to Freud, Oedipus, and beyond—that prescribes the way mothers and their sons should interact.

More about The Mama’s Boy Myth

Some of my work

Featured Story

Is Online Therapy As Effective as In-Person?

It turns out that my therapist is a cat person. Before the pandemic, I’d never have known. Her office was nondescript, with few cues to her private life. But now that we conduct sessions online from our respective homes, I’ve seen her two kitties. She’s also seen my two cats, Van Gogh and Lily, and recognizes which one is jumping on my lap during our virtual appointments.

Virtual therapy — or mental telehealth, e-therapy, online therapy, among other labels — skyrocketed during COVID, and continued to grow in popularity even as pandemic worries waned. Like me, some clients who switched from in-person to online decided to keep it that way.

There’s also been significant growth in apps that offer alternatives to traditional in-person therapy, such as Talkspace, BetterHelp and Brightside.

Just as it’s impossible to paint in-person therapy with a broad brush, so too is it impractical to throw all online options into one bucket.

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Some of my work

On Shelves Now

The Mama's Boy Myth

Why Keeping Our Sons Close Makes Them Stronger

Mothers get the message early and often – push your sons away. Don’t “baby” them with too much cuddling and comforting. Don’t keep them emotionally bound to you. Back off, because boys need to learn to stand on their own. It is as if there were an existing playbook—based on gender preconceptions dating back to Freud, Oedipus, and beyond—that prescribes the way mothers and their sons should interact.

The reviews are in:

Synthesizing years of research with hundreds of her own interviews with mothers, sons, fathers and experts, she presents a solid argument to those naysayers in her book, The Mama’s Boy Myth. '

New York Press

“A provocative debut…an insightful, timely study”

Kirkus Reviews

“Kate Stone Lombardi is an exemplary journalist and in her book, The Mama’s Boy Myth..."

William Pollack, author of Real Boys

Kate’s work has been featured nationally in notable publications