So, it all started with a joke by Bill Burr about raising a boy “right.”

I’d often heard this phrase but thought little of it growing up. Now, after I heard it again, I thought to myself, “wtf does that even mean? like really?” I know it meant (vaguely) “raise him to be a man” in the traditional sense, but I wanted something more substantive.

So I came across this video, and it actually gave pretty solid advice I think most fathers (and many to most mothers) would agree with.

My question is about the first point they make:

the boy comes under the supervision of kindergarten teachers, and then he goes to school, where women constitute 90% of teachers.

he’s always in the company of women, and he often lacks male education.

When I heard this, it reminded me of that scene in Fight Club

We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.

Then I thought about my sister, whom my father was absent for most her developing years, and how that influenced her expectations and interactions with men. She was wildly unprepared and found men to be quite scary and unpredictable for many years. Her husband today is a great guy, but he’s also a bit of a doormat to her. I think that’s most likely the only kind of guy she is compatible with.

I wondered how our perceptions and lives might have been different had we had more exposure to adult male interaction growing up...

There’s many areas in society where people say we should have more equal representation. How do women feel about this wrt the gender imbalance at teaching institutions?

Most people do not regularly attend church where they can see adult men and women interacting.

Most people do not join coed sports teams to see adult men and women interacting.

Most western families are individualistic and do not place as great an emphasis on frequent family bonding/family gathering.

For most kids, the majority of their time is at school and home - maybe an extra-curricular sport. If they desire social interaction, kids now prefer to have a screen between them rather than force themselves to physically go out and interact with people face to face.

So I’m not sure where kids, boys in particular, are going to make up this deficit in social interaction...

Do you view a 90% gender difference as a problem for the development of young children’s social psyche?