When We Were Ten explores the subtly significant and significantly subtle ways we learn how to grow up male and female in our culture. Starting at age six and moving steadily through to young adulthood, Judy Gelles charts the milestones in her and her son’s lives, providing photogrpahs and short texts shot with candid details in an effort to try and understand what drives us to become what we become.

As Gelles writes in the book’s introduction, “Although the text recounts personal events, it is interesting to observe how many of these are shared by countless others. What began as a personal recording has turned into a social document.”