Posted on 05/29/2006 6:17:29 PM PDT by rhema
I n the romantic comedy "Failure to Launch," Matthew McConaughey plays a young man who is affable, intelligent, good-looking -- and completely unmotivated. He still lives at home and seems to have no ambitions beyond playing video games, hanging out with buddies and having sex. In desperation, his parents hire a professional motivation consultant, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, who pretends to fall in love with McConaughey's character to motivate him to grow up and get a life.
I was struck by how this theme matches what I see in my office with greater and greater frequency; a son goes off to college for a year or two, wastes thousands of dollars of his parents' money, then gets bored and comes back to live in his old room. Now he's working part time at Kinko's or part time at Starbucks.
It is a phenomenon that is getting a lot of media attention as part of the so-called "boy crisis" and one that cuts across all demographics -- rich, poor, black, white, urban and rural. According to the Census Bureau, one-third of young men ages 22 to 34 are still living at home with their parents -- a roughly 100 percent increase in the past 20 years. That is not true of young women. Why?
Before growing into unmotivated young adults, boys are more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD, be in remedial classes and become dropouts. Boys are now significantly less likely than girls to go to college.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Here is my solution---let boys be boys.
Studies have shown that there are various different learning styles. Boys are much more likely to be kinesthetic learners - in other words, it is harder for them to learn if they are forced to sit still for extended periods.
In today's feminized classroom ignorant teachers will get junior medicated in order to make their jobs easier.
More than a few years ago teachers understood this issue. "Boys will be boys" meant a lot more than today's trendy interpretation; i.e. you are stupid, slow, out of touch with your emotions and generally not nearly enough like the higher evolved form known as woman. Not to worry. Just give Billy a pill and he will more easily learn to be led through life rather than lead. Not Baaaaaad, eh?
Anyone else remember reading that near the end there was to be an explosion of pharmakia?
Ditto that. I had a very enjoyable drive from Texas to Maine listening to this audiobook.
There's the Boy Scouts, of course :-). Unfortunately, too many boys who would really benefit from Scouting don't even get to try it.
It's frustrating to me to watch many of the "schooled" boys, because I know that educating a boy is not that hard. My oldest son is hyperactive, second son is "autism spectrum." Both are at grade level or above in their education, with at most two or three hours a day of serious work on it. For the rest, lots of exercise, a low-sugar diet, yard work, home maintenance, all the reading they want, and as many campouts as they can get.
Boys will want to read if you give them books with heroes and conflict, whether it's Greek myths, Shakespeare, or World War II. Of course they don't want to read books about victimized minority women and homosexuals -- neither do I!
It's encouraging that the "mainstream" is noticing that boys often aren't doing well, but it's unfortunate that men aren't stepping up to fix it. Often the point of the articles seems to be "See! We're victims too! Nyah nyah nyah!" I'm sorry, but that doesn't help!
Yet title IX CONTINUES to allow colleges to offer FULL scholarships for girls to join college rowing teams with zero experience.
(and boys athletic scholarships are for all intents gone. The road to accademics has been taken from boys and given not to women, but to feminists.)
"It's encouraging that the "mainstream" is noticing that boys often aren't doing well, but it's unfortunate that men aren't stepping up to fix it. Often the point of the articles seems to be "See! We're victims too! Nyah nyah nyah!" I'm sorry, but that doesn't help!"
I've had those "men" whine to me about the same thing.
My response is always the same.
"Buck up and change it. You're a Man, now act like it."
Only one has ever decided to change his attitude and his mind. He spends alot of time with his boy now and got him off of the ritalin that his wife and the local school psychodoc put him on. The boy is doing very well and is happier than I have seen him in a very long time.
The rest just wimp out. They make me want to puke.
Is the feminizing of the culture a "dumbing down of the culture?"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well, uh, not to put too fine a point on it, uh, these things need to be approached very carefully, uh, YES!!!
I don't think you need to start anything other than finding the nearest troop of Boy Scouts and getting involved in making sure they have regular outings that do exactly what you describe -- let them be boys. Of course, if there isn't a troop that meets your needs, then you might have to look into starting one.
I'm with you. Just like you reach an age when it's not good to sleep with your mother anymore, there's something repulsive about living at home that long.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think there is more to it than where the young folks live. In days past it was not unusual for young people to live with their parents as adults, it was not even unusual for young marrieds to live with the parents of one or the other. The difference was that in those days young people were a help and a benefit to the parents, they took over the heavy work in exchange for a place to live and the parents felt a lot more secure by having young able bodied people living with them. Today the young people are more often burdens to their parents because they have never been taught responsibility. I meet very few young people who are even capable of comprehending what hard work is.
Oh, exactly! I sympathize with the position they're in (I can't help it, I'm a girl :-), but once you've said, "Yes, I understand it's tough," the next line is, "So you'd better just be tougher!"
I think men often don't have the energy, day to day, to take control back from their wives or teachers or "the system." They may think it's not that big an issue ... but bringing up sons to be men is the biggest thing a man's going to do in his life.
Or maybe they think it's not as rewarding as something else they might do with their time. How silly! What could be more fun than going out in the woods and playing paintball all day (as a poster above mentioned), or running an off-road half-marathon with your son, as my husband did last weekend with our 12-year-old. (Shameless brag -- Bill was the youngest runner there, and didn't finish last by any means. "Feminist" snicker -- husband was passed by a 15-year-old girl :-)
The problem is the public schools now live by the "you will be a wimp or we will drug you to be a wimp."
There are too many teachers who hate manhood.
I hear what you're saying, but that doesn't solve the problem. The problem isn't going to be your sons and mine. It's going to all these fatherless boys.
One reason I sent my sons to public school is so they would experience a wide mix of people and have to deal with that. I did put them in the best public school in the region, so I didn't move to the inner city.
There were many kids who needed positive male role models in their lives, and they needed to play ball after school with dads that coached their sons, and they needed to experience positive family environs.
We can't leave those kids behind and expect things to turn out OK. We have to win the battle of public education.
That about sums it up..
"Oh, exactly! I sympathize with the position they're in (I can't help it, I'm a girl :-), but once you've said, "Yes, I understand it's tough," the next line is, "So you'd better just be tougher!"
lol actually I had an old John Wayne line pop into my head when you said that.
"Life is tough. It's tougher when you're stupid!"
I think that fits in alot of cases too. :)
"The problem is the public schools now live by the "you will be a wimp or we will drug you to be a wimp." "
That's not a problem that's merely a challenge.
Remove the boys from public screwl, find a private school, or start one. Home School them, get them out of that death trap of Public Education.
It's probably too late to change the public schools, so make them irrelevant. Leave them to wallow in the pig poop they regurgitate and get your son(s) into something that will help them grow into Honorable Manhood.
One thing I noticed in Literature classes is that textbooks contained the most boring possible short stories. The only story I actually liked, through the years of Lit class was "The Most Dangerous Game." The morons that wrote these textbooks actually managed to find a dull, un-funny James Thurber story.
Want to motivate young male readers? Assign Dracula. Or Beau Geste. Or Blind Corner. Or the Scarlett Pimpernel. Or Kim. Or Prester John. Or any Sherlock Holmes story.
It will never happen. God forbid the boy should actually ENJOY what he reads.
The first time I listened to it (I read it as a kid) on audiobook I was actually on one of the routes he was describing. It was interesting to compare how much the area had changed.
So true. I've found that the best way to get my son to get interested in the Bible is to have him read the OT books with lots of battles, fighting and the like. 1 and 2 Samuel read like an action movie, my boy loves them.
That was the part I liked when I was a kid, too.
Nowadays, I like the parts about forgiveness better, though...
My kids and I read through 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings every couple of years. Wonderful stories, and amazing personalities.
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.