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 ...
When courts stop stripping them of their kids?
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.
Welcome to FR.
I can tell you will fit in nicely.
You mean their ‘man’icures?
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....
“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.
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.
When I was growing up (about the time they invented dirt), my favorite toys were a stick or some small die cast trucks....
Doctorates in Social Justice, Victims’ Studies, Womyns’ Studies.
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.
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.
soy is like estrogen. I wonder if the new school lunches are packed with it?
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.
Has been for years. in the 80s we had soyburgers.
But behind every good man is a Strong Woman! (psst, that is you Megan:))
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.
Another Adam Sandler.
Let’s do a list.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.