Three Biggest Fears for Raising Boys Today.

2012-06-25T14:26:01+00:00

Ensnared by these four powerful forces—failing schools, an unwelcoming economy, thug culture, and a harshly punitive justice system—more boys and young men than ever are on the sidelines, cut out of a middle-class life, scratching their heads as to how that happened.

Good points. But no mention of the pervasive misandry and anti-male bias that saps young men's self worth, ambition and opportunities.

imbignate · 2012-06-25T15:32:07+00:00

You know what would help our young men apply themselves in school? A mandated adjustment from authority figures. That'll go well. /s

I also thought it was telling that the author felt that women would be excellent at teaching manhood to boys.

DoctorStorm · 2012-06-26T00:52:53+00:00

Hm, her heart's in the right place, but the delivery is awful. I genuinely disagree with the message and direction here for a variety of reasons.

To begin, they identify three reasons boys are essentially failing at life. They are:

1: They have too much confidence re: "swagger"

The term "swagger" only started trending in 2008, and to suggest that it's become a popular lyric for this generation's boys and thus is indicative of their poor performance is a bit much.

Overconfidence is an issue, but they're attempting to say it's an issue for boys and not girls. I would argue we're making girls overconfident, not boys. Since classes are taught primarily by females, I'd further argue that female(teacher)-female(student) overconfidence is rewarded while female(teacher)-male(student) overconfidence is not. Again, though, I'm not sold that our boys are overconfident.

They then claim that this spike in overconfidence is because kids have fewer adults in their lives today. They make no mention as to why this is, nor do they mention that single moms consistently raise worse kids.

2: They think reading is for girls

This has popped up several times before, usually discussed by women such as these two through shows, blogs, etc. - I've yet to see any hard evidence that boys, generally speaking, do in fact believe that reading is girly. What boys? How is girly defined? At what grades/ages? Again - no hard evidence, not much work done here. Someone correct me if I'm merely being ignorant please.

3: The job market

They depict boys as live-at-home lazy pieces of shit, so I genuinely don't believe they're helping. Boys aren't just "sitting at their parents house on the couch". It's not like men aren't trying, it's that the world is rigged to be against us right now.

tl;dr they're suggesting we give boys an attitude adjustment and tell them to not be so confident, tell them that reading isn't girly and to get over themselves, and to go out their and get that degree so that can get that job! They don't address any of the real issues, and their observations on these topics is basic, superficial at best. On top of that, it's contradictory to suggest we tell boys to not be so confident (point 1) then turn around and tell them to be confident and get a degree to get a job (point 3).

radamanthine · 2012-06-25T17:23:18+00:00

"Throw money at schools" isn't the solution here.

We already spend more on education than we do on almost anything else.

AmuseDeath · 2012-06-25T22:09:52+00:00

I think something has to turn around. There has to be a counter culture that says, hey you know what? You can do whatever you want! Want to wear pink? Want to wear an afro? Go ahead.

There has to be this level of acceptance and more importantly, progressiveness in the male community. It's only when we can encourage one another to do anything that we gain power and a lust for knowledge. It's almost like there's this aura of being lazy and unmotivated that's considered cool.

Anyway, I try to look at the positives. I look at statistics like this:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/a_singles_map_of_the_united_states_of_america/?page=2

For me, since I'm in Los Angeles, there are more men. As such, we can find more of us and foster brotherhood and form groups to improve our lives. It's actually sad though that this isn't happening sooner. Looking at meetups, there are tons of women's groups forming: Single Ladies, Women Friendships, etc.

I guess I want to form more male communities in LA because there are more of us here.

And I want to perpetuate good habits: education, self-confidence, tolerance, etc. I feel a lot of what culture promotes is trash.

Title	Three Biggest Fears for Raising Boys Today.
Author	TerriChris
Upvotes	18
Comments	9
Date	June 25, 2012 12:50 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/vkicw/three_biggest_fears_for_raising_boys_today/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/three-biggest-fears-for-raising-boys-today.1019129 https://theredarchive.com/post/1019129

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