60% of girls say they want college, only 46% of boys
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Anonymous
You either do not have a son, or you are one of a small minority who has some kind of fall in line, do only as moms and teachers say type. I paid immense amounts of attention to my son. To the OP's point, it was actually to the detriment of my daughter two years younger than him. He required so much attention--and as a college senior limping to the finish line, still does. Our schools went so far in accommodating the learning styles of girls that boys have been left far far behind. My son is objectively (I know, we had to have him tested three times) extremely intelligent. Far more so than my daughter. But he failed at so many things in school that his self-esteem was in the basement. Now that he has matured, he recognizes clearly what happened. He doesn't blame women, fortunately, but he has so much regret that he wasn't able to better advocate for himself, rather than spending his first 18 years of life constantly berated and demeaned by teachers. My husband and I were just noticing last night that of the 6 or so boys who all grew together in our neighborhood, every single one of them has struggled to finish college. Two of them look like they won't make it. They were just so ground down going through school they have nothing left to keep going. |
Anonymous
Yes to trades. They can do both. Plumbers shortage. Electricians. But also need Nurses and teachers, which until now need a college degree. Male students need role models in school. |
Anonymous
| Male students thrived for decades with female teachers. |
Anonymous
Not. No one is blaming girls. Far from it. |
Anonymous
No, the school system is no longer geared toward the way biology enables them to learn and develop. Instead of active learning, athletics, camaraderie, they are forced to sit for 8 straight hours being yelled at and humiliated by purple-haired women who feel like they finally have control over men. It's pathetic. |
Anonymous
+1. It’s a lot easier to blame others and the system for your parenting failure. There are no shortages of opportunities for white boys. They fail because their parents enabled them. |
Anonymous
It is not an easy life. |
Anonymous
Girl Power movement. We spent decades telling girls to kick butt in school, go to college, and go for that successful career so not to be dependent on a man. Unfortunately, we forgot about the boys. I have 2 teen girls that are amazing and honestly out of all in their friend group and even within our extended family, the boys are the ones who seem to be struggling. I don't know if part of this was the impacts from the covid shutdown but it is concerning. |
Anonymous
| DCUM parents crying about their kids unable to get into any schools. It appears the guys are helping you out. |
Anonymous
Where is the evidence that parents of girls parent better? |
Anonymous
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Girls disproportionately become teachers and nurses, jobs that require college degrees.
Boys disproportionately become soldiers, firemen, and tradesmen, jobs that do not require college degrees. Boys who want jobs that require college degrees go to college. Just look at who enrolls in business and engineering programs. None of this is a crisis. |
Anonymous
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I’m a woman with a doctoral degree and I have 3 sons (no daughters). Agree absolutely with PP. Many parts of primary and secondary education are not set up for boys to succeed. So many teacher complaints about my sons not sitting still, not paying attention (when they were 5-6 years old). Why can they not just add a second recess? Our HS sends like 95% of kids to four-year college, much higher than my high school did, but my high school had tons of classes in shop, multiple cooking classes, and bused some upperclassmen (boys and girls) to the closest vocational institute to learn a trade.
My middle son was assessed for ADHD, twice, after teacher concerns (he was my calmest, most self-sufficient child at home). Both times, he was determined not to have ADHD (eventually it came out he had very slow processing speed). Teachers assumed his boredom was a pathological level of inattentiveness, I guess. Last year when my oldest was applying for local scholarships, I was kind of surprised to see there were still scholarships only open to girls. (There were none only open to boys). Why is this still the case when girls already go to college and grad school at higher rates? Now I’m helping my junior get his college list together, I decided to keep track of the gender ratio. Did this for my oldest who was looking at STEM schools (which of course leaned male) but I guess I was surprised, looking now a wider variety of schools, HOW many schools are so disparate. UCLA is 61% female. Texas 58%. Florida St. 57%. UVM 63%. I expected SLACs to be that way, but not large state schools. It’s hard and my boys do seem to internalize that they’re not “doing well enough” by whatever standards are set by the school, and which the girls are meeting at much higher rates. |
Anonymous
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Having a boy really opened my eyes to this issue. My well behaved, introvert, academically inclined DS is completing college a semester early with nearly perfect gpa, and even he ran into the bias against boys in the educational system. He had some wonderful teachers through the years, but he had some that clearly just didn’t like boys. I had friends with boys who were naturally rowdier who really struggled with it.
It has nothing to do with how they do on their academic assignments, but teachers who expect boys to act like girls and penalize them when they don’t and then wonder why they don’t like school. My son has had a great academic career, but I regret not sending him to an all boys school through at least middle school. |
Anonymous
That isn't what is happening here. Boys more frequently say "no college" because they have an advantage in good paying jobs (ie. the trades) that don't require college. Those jobs aren't as open to women, so more girls opt for college in order to get into a good paying job. The decrease in college numbes for boys is occurring in part because the trades and other opportunites are biased against girls. |
Anonymous
DP. I have a boy and a girl and I don’t really understand what you want out of the schools. When boys were unequivocally on top, when America was supposedly great, teachers were able to physically assault boys like yours to keep them in line. Would that be preferable? |