who is " their " in this situation ? so confusing Our sons will tell us more than their fathers told THEIR mothers becuz I misunderstood this word i misunderstood the whole paragraph , in this case it means the mothers of the sons' fathers. But How do you know that it's not the mothers of the sons themselves ???the context : Friends told me that they, too, were getting the same volume of confidences. Celia Pyper says this is normal behavior for today’s boys: ‘Our sons will tell us more than their fathers told their mothers, becausewe have brought them up to do so. Our norm has been to empathize with our children when they tell us about their actions or feelings, whereas the previous generation tended to be shocked.’