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What really happened to boys?
American Thinker ^ | April 28, 2013 | Bruce Deitrick Price

Posted on 05/07/2013 12:47:29 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice

Four years ago, psychologist Leonard Sax (MD, PhD) wrote a well-received book titled “Boys Adrift.” The doctor tried to answer the question, why have so many young males fallen into passivity and indifference?

Dr. Sax had heard more and more parents complain that their boys stayed indoors most of the time, spent hours on video games, and in general seemed to lack the confidence and esprit de corps that had characterized boys throughout history.

“Something scary is happening to boys today,” Sax concluded. “From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. The gender gap in college attendance and graduation rates has widened dramatically.”

The book’s full title is, “Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men.” Sax lists the five factors right on the cover: “video games, teaching methods, prescription drugs, environmental toxins, devaluation of masculinity.”

It’s worrisome that he seems to like them all. That might be a clue that he has not solved this mystery. Indeed, let’s consider the possibility that none of these theories is the deep answer we want. Let’s start from scratch and consider the things we know for sure.

First of all, critics have often noted that schools seem organized more for girls than for boys. Most boys do not want to be confined to a desk; they would rather be outside playing and competing. Second, not only are boys kept passively inside, they are forced to deal almost the entire day with reading, writing, and arithmetic, probably not their own first choices.

But these factors are historically common. Boys have always been restless at their desks. They have often stared out the window and daydreamed...

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Conspiracy; Education; History
KEYWORDS: chemtrails; childhood; feminists; feminizationofus; flouride; gendergap; k12education; liberalism; males; psychology; tv; vaccines; waronboys
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To: Blue Ink

When courts stop stripping them of their kids?


61 posted on 05/07/2013 1:52:45 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: Norm Lenhart

I came in for a minute to check for replies after working on my CR500. Many of today’s feminized boys probably wouldn’t want to get their fingernails dirty with a combination of lithium grease and exhaust spooge like i just did...sooooo icky.


62 posted on 05/07/2013 1:57:15 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by Nature, not Nurture™)
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To: Mister Tea

Welcome to FR.
I can tell you will fit in nicely.


63 posted on 05/07/2013 1:57:44 PM PDT by toast
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To: steve86

You mean their ‘man’icures?


64 posted on 05/07/2013 1:58:12 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: Hildy
I tell my daughters boys are piglets and men are pigs. Nothing wrong with that if as males we embrace the pig. Boars are Intelligent, adaptive, competitive and aggressive. They go after every sow they see and are fearless. Boars were symbols of the Roman Legion. None of the above is popular with the liberal educators who want boys to be more like girls. Do I want my daughter to marry a pig? As long as he understands I will neuter him if he is abusive towards her.
But I would not worry too much. I work with Marines and Sailors everyday. There are still plenty of high testosterone, boys out there. Problem is liberals like the milk toast guys and try to make there boys like that. Maybe why we are seeing a spike in suicides among personnel,who,never went into combat. Hard to be raised in liberal ideology but then be forced into a world of competitive men at 18.
65 posted on 05/07/2013 1:59:27 PM PDT by OldGoatCPO
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To: liberty or death

One of our sons (my stepson), who has two boys 5 & 9, rarely spends time with his boys. He is busy logging to get lumber for ne of his Too-Many projects, looking for deals on foreclosed homes, trying to fix broken down heavy equipment that he has purchased, in addition to working full time. His wife is from an “unusual” family who are very self-centered and care only about themselves.

When they ask for my advice, if they don’t like it, they get mad at me.

I basically gave this son a career (his bio dad is in the same business a I, would not offer him a job) and he is making very good money....without even a thanks from time to time.

So pre-occupied....so little time....


66 posted on 05/07/2013 2:01:41 PM PDT by illiac (If we don't change directions soon, we'll get where we're going)
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To: Blue Ink

“When do fathers who used to be married or never bothered to marry step up and take responsibility for abandoning their sons to be raised exclusively by women?”

Maybe when the mothers rescind the restraining orders they have against them.


67 posted on 05/07/2013 2:02:29 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

I spent many hours as a young boy in the basement by myself, setting up HO scale trains, towns, etc. then blowing them away with a canister vacuum cleaner in “Sandy” mode. BWAHAHAHAHAH! Mom kept telling me to play outside, but the basement was cooler. Decades later I’d could easily piss on a Boston bomber’s grave while standing upright.


68 posted on 05/07/2013 2:02:35 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
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To: B212

When I was growing up (about the time they invented dirt), my favorite toys were a stick or some small die cast trucks....


69 posted on 05/07/2013 2:03:16 PM PDT by illiac (If we don't change directions soon, we'll get where we're going)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

Doctorates in Social Justice, Victims’ Studies, Womyns’ Studies.


70 posted on 05/07/2013 2:03:20 PM PDT by pabianice
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

It’s everything on here AND ... In my case..

I raised my 3 kids in So Cal and they DID go outside a lot. They went out after dark and played in the yards..

Brad came along and it was no longer SAFE for he & his buds to play outside in the same neighborhood. For this reason I DO blame the open border crowd.


71 posted on 05/07/2013 2:04:44 PM PDT by Brad’s Gramma (Psalm 83)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

The education establishment has pushed the males to the sidelines in order to beat them, drug them, and cajole them into submission. Feminization of the country first, and now we enter the age of homosexualization of same.


72 posted on 05/07/2013 2:06:01 PM PDT by Neoliberalnot (Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed.)
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To: Brad's Gramma
Lawyers...i remember jumping on a trampoline..a diving board...riding a bike without a helmet...building jumps to run over...breaking my arm and collar bone..playing kick the can...touch football...hickybobbing...grabbing a bumper of a car in the snow and riding on your shoes till you fell off..sledding....many of these things are Illegal now...and are no longer avvailable to “expand ones envelope”..how can you learn when you can´t try to jump high and fall...or go fast and crash....growing up is about learning your limitations....what you are good at or not...now these kids can´t even try....
73 posted on 05/07/2013 2:15:00 PM PDT by Youngman542012
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To: Parmy

soy is like estrogen. I wonder if the new school lunches are packed with it?


74 posted on 05/07/2013 2:15:22 PM PDT by huldah1776
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To: Neoliberalnot

We were under the neighbor’s porch playing in the cool sand with our Tonka trucks. Or playing baseball/hockey/races. In winter we saw who went the longest on their sled. I had a flexible flyer ooh yeah.


75 posted on 05/07/2013 2:17:04 PM PDT by bicyclerepair (0bama is a POS, with all due respect to excrement.)
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To: huldah1776

Has been for years. in the 80s we had soyburgers.


76 posted on 05/07/2013 2:22:06 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: Blue Ink
When do fathers who used to be married or never bothered to marry step up and take responsibility for abandoning their sons to be raised exclusively by women?

Oh, probably around the same time that women stop acting like whores and having sex with men they're not married to, or divorcing the ones that they are married to for cash and prizes.
77 posted on 05/07/2013 2:37:23 PM PDT by fr_freak
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To: MeganC
Sounds like they have a good Male Role Model ;)

But behind every good man is a Strong Woman! (psst, that is you Megan:))

78 posted on 05/07/2013 2:38:24 PM PDT by KC_Lion (Build the America you want to live in at your address, and keep looking up.-Sarah Palin)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

among the factors cited - “teaching methods, prescription drugs, environmental toxins, devaluation of masculinity.” -

I put my bet, my priority, on two - teaching methods and devaluation of masculinity, though one not mentioned I would rank just as high - the feminization of popular culture.

I would suggest that boys increasing retreat into video games is aided by the zealous almost anti-male teaching agenda in schools and the increasing feminization of many other cultural factors outside of school.

When you diminish what it means to be a boy in school and in popular culture the developing immature boy sees less clearly where he ought to be headed, as a boy, and he becomes adrift.

Studies show he boys are cognitively no worse off than their female peers on average - female SAT scores are not a lot higher, but boys K9-12 GPA is lower - they’ve been less unengaged and more distracted in the classroom. That might be one of the causes behind the fact that more girls than boys now decide to and get into college than boys.

“The male-female ratio in higher education has been steadily moved in favor of the females ever since the 1970s. Total enrollment figures show that females outnumbered their male counterparts for the first time in the late 1970s, and they have steadily increased their numerical advantage ever since. The superiority first came in public universities, but soon private universities saw female enrollment surpass male enrollment.”

from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccap/2012/02/16/the-male-female-ratio-in-college/

If you don’t think “culture” is to blame, note this stat from the same report:

“For example, Utah is the only state with more males than females in its public colleges, and it is very close to a 50-50 split in its private colleges.” And Utah ranks among the top five in the male-to-female in-college ratios for private schools as well. Gee, I wonder who most the people in Utah are??

The video game issue is to me a symptom not a cause; it is a “virtual substitute” for the masculine world view the boy does not find enough respite for in the real world.

One of my first solutions - gender segregate the K-12 schools at about the age 12. Get feminine issues out of boys competing with boys, in and out of the classroom.


79 posted on 05/07/2013 3:02:56 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Resolute Conservative

Another Adam Sandler.

Let’s do a list.


80 posted on 05/07/2013 3:09:01 PM PDT by cradle of freedom (Long live the Republic !)
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