By the end of her book, Rebecca Eckler, left, will have saved you $4,400 and approximately 17 hours in therapist time and money.

That’s because in her new book, How to Raise a Boyfriend (Random House), Eckler, a journalist and author, includes advice and insights from her psychologist “Freud” on why men are the way they are.

How to Raise a Boyfriend suggests treating the man in your life much like you would a child, in order to teach them respect, communication and manners, and grading them on their success.

Indeed, the inspiration for the book came from her seven-year-old daughter, a boy her daughter went to school with and Eckler’s boyfriend at the time.

“I was dating a guy who was in his 40s and also I was raising a child by myself. I was exhausted all the time, and I kept looking at my daughter and looking at my boyfriend – she was so much more polite and courteous and she was so generous and thoughtful and sensitive – everything I wanted him to be.”

Eckler’s encounter with the boy from her daughter’s school, who was six at the time, came when they were in an elevator together and he insisted she get off the elevator first. She wondered why a six-year-old child had such good manners, but her 40-something boyfriend did not.

The book, coming in at 184 pages, is an easy read. The chapters are short, well written and quite funny. In addition to Freud, it features appearances from Eckler’s esthetician, Helena, some of her ex-boyfriends and the grade-A husband, who Eckler says is actually three men.

The appearances from her ex-boyfriends are one of Eckler’s favourite parts of the book.

“They just wanted to rant, because they think us women are crazy. They had so much fun getting it off their chests,” she said

Many of my friends (myself included) have at one time or another expressed the desire to change or tweak something about their partner and so the concept of the book rang true. The tips at the end of each chapter are generally good, offering ideas for how to fix a particular offending behaviour without being annoying about it.

A lot of the stories the women Eckler interviewed told about their men make the men look really bad (like the husband who was planning to travel with his wife on her business trip, saw the line at the airport, changed his mind and went home). However, many of the complaints the women in the book have make them look petty and needy.

For instance, one woman complains that her husband never puts his dishes in the dishwasher. Maybe I’m just incredibly easygoing (not really), but to me that is not a big deal in the slightest.

Eckler agrees with me on that count.

“Every woman has their different things. I personally don’t care if you leave your dish out. To me that’s not a big deal,” she said.

“I learned so much about myself and how I needed to change. I say [the book] is for clueless men, but it’s also for clueless women,” she continued, adding that she’s “less of a naggy bitch” after writing the book.

The one place the book loses me is with Eckler’s list of stereotypical and old-fashioned “pink” and “blue” jobs. The “pink” jobs, supposedly the ones women do, include doing laundry, cleaning the fridge and making sure the house is stocked. The “blue” jobs, for men, include carrying the groceries inside, cleaning snow off cars and taking out the garbage.

Now, my mother has been with her boyfriend for 10 years, and they started living together a little more than a year ago. In that household, she does both the blue and the pink jobs – sometimes with me there helping her out. Maybe in some relationships the pink and blue jobs are actually pink and blue jobs, but it isn’t always so cut and dry.

Overall, How to Raise a Boyfriend is a book that I think a lot of women will find easy to relate to and funny. And for the men out there, it’s an interesting way to get a glimpse into the female psyche – one they’ll probably never get from their girlfriends or wives.