Why are so many parents fumbling raising boys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have one of each - boy and girl. By the time they were 2 or 3, they were well aware of stereotypes.

I appreciate the comments on the lack of good role models for boys. Look at our current administration and their values and behavior.

While I believe that there are very minor biological differences between the two, it is exacerbated by how we parent. For instance, boys are born slightly better with spatial skills. They are given more toys like legos that enhance those skills and play with them more and get more practice. Over time, the difference snowballs into a significant gap. While the boys were playing with the legos, the girls were given dolls, so they were practicing their social emotional skills. Again, over time, the minor biological difference turns into something quite significant when they enter kindergarten.

There are very major biological differences between men and women. This is a scientific fact and much of these differences are innate rather than culture or environment.

If it’s biological, why is it not true for some men and why is it not true for some women?

Take a remedial statistics course before you ask stupid questions.

No thanks I’m a mathematician and was a statistician for a while.

Please name a biological fact that affects boys/girls unless it’s something to do with their penis and vagina it’s not biological.

Testosterone
Estrogen

You do know that some women have more testosterone than some men, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have one of each - boy and girl. By the time they were 2 or 3, they were well aware of stereotypes.

I appreciate the comments on the lack of good role models for boys. Look at our current administration and their values and behavior.

While I believe that there are very minor biological differences between the two, it is exacerbated by how we parent. For instance, boys are born slightly better with spatial skills. They are given more toys like legos that enhance those skills and play with them more and get more practice. Over time, the difference snowballs into a significant gap. While the boys were playing with the legos, the girls were given dolls, so they were practicing their social emotional skills. Again, over time, the minor biological difference turns into something quite significant when they enter kindergarten.

There are very major biological differences between men and women. This is a scientific fact and much of these differences are innate rather than culture or environment.

If it’s biological, why is it not true for some men and why is it not true for some women?

Take a remedial statistics course before you ask stupid questions.

No thanks I’m a mathematician and was a statistician for a while.

Please name a biological fact that affects boys/girls unless it’s something to do with their penis and vagina it’s not biological.

Testosterone

What about women that have more testosterone than your husband?

Does that make her a man or does that make your husband a woman?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, suddenly all parents are bad at raising boys. /s

The actual reason is that stereotypical boy traits are being less valued in schools and workplaces, while girls have more opportunities than ever, so boys suddenly feel a disadvantage. Add in social media and “manosphere” stuff and that’s it.

This. They’re told by all their authority figures that they’re the ones who caused the harm to all those who have been victimized throughout society. Then they have to reconcile guilt that they never should’ve had with their own masculinity and instincts. This isn’t wholly a parent problem although I’ll be the first to say that parents who pile on to this nonsense don’t help.

Pray tell what are these stereotypical boy traits that are no longer valued,,?

Tell me you don’t have school age children without telling me.

Are you kidding?

Basically all male centric traits are swept aside now under the new banner of “kindness.”

Still waiting on those examples.

[Anonymous]

Boys need a lot more free time than UMC are getting. They need a lot of outdoor self directed play. Instead they spend all day inside directed at school and then they come home to more directed activity in sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have one of each - boy and girl. By the time they were 2 or 3, they were well aware of stereotypes.
OP
I appreciate the comments on the lack of good role models for boys. Look at our current administration and their values and behavior.

While I believe that there are very minor biological differences between the two, it is exacerbated by how we parent. For instance, boys are born slightly better with spatial skills. They are given more toys like legos that enhance those skills and play with them more and get more practice. Over time, the difference snowballs into a significant gap. While the boys were playing with the legos, the girls were given dolls, so they were practicing their social emotional skills. Again, over time, the minor biological difference turns into something quite significant when they enter kindergarten.

There are very major biological differences between men and women. This is a scientific fact and much of these differences are innate rather than culture or environment.

If it’s biological, why is it not true for some men and why is it not true for some women?

Take a remedial statistics course before you ask stupid questions.

No thanks I’m a mathematician and was a statistician for a while.

Please name a biological fact that affects boys/girls unless it’s something to do with their penis and vagina it’s not biological.

I suggest you start by reading a high school biology test book.

In other words, you can’t tell me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, suddenly all parents are bad at raising boys. /s

The actual reason is that stereotypical boy traits are being less valued in schools and workplaces, while girls have more opportunities than ever, so boys suddenly feel a disadvantage. Add in social media and “manosphere” stuff and that’s it.

This. They’re told by all their authority figures that they’re the ones who caused the harm to all those who have been victimized throughout society. Then they have to reconcile guilt that they never should’ve had with their own masculinity and instincts. This isn’t wholly a parent problem although I’ll be the first to say that parents who pile on to this nonsense don’t help.

Pray tell what are these stereotypical boy traits that are no longer valued,,?

Tell me you don’t have school age children without telling me.

Are you kidding?

Basically all male centric traits are swept aside now under the new banner of “kindness.”

But they are not biologically boy traits. They are traits some children have and perhaps more boys have those traits, but it’s not just boy traits.

Are you saying that a girl who is a tactile learner and learns by doing and who needs more outside activity shouldn’t receive that because she’s a girl?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have one girl and one boy (teens) and they’re both awesome.

What’s so bad with boys now? My guess would be video game addiction is a big problem, but also we have taken away a lot of opportunities for them to problem solve. There’s not as much free range sand lot games where the entire neighborhood showed up and they handled conflicts and scraped knees. Now it’s travel baseball teams and a ton of parent oversight. Less risk-taking. Fewer opportunities to fail because we are all so scared to let them make their own mistakes because college is so much harder to get into these days.

Fathers of middle schoolers played a lot of video games growing up so that’s no excuse and video games are not the cause of anything.

Travel teams instead of the local kids playing games on their own or at least sticking with their home town is the result of pushy parents. They thought they could pay to make their kid a D1 sports star but reality is very few end up there.

The video games of the 80s and early 90s were VERY DIFFERENT from the video games of today, PP. you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Men working 50-70 hour weeks and traveling for work to “provide” and scaling the ladder has left us with a generation of boys with no fathering even if a father is “in the house”.

You don't need a father to raise a good person. My brother and my son were all raised by single mothers. They've all turned out to be good people with FT jobs. Their mothers prioritized a good education and home responsibilities. My DS is 20 and is off this weekend. He got up early with the dog so I could sleep in. He emptied the dishwasher and is now going through his closet so I can take some clothes to Goodwill. He made dinner last night and cleaned two bathrooms. He reads to my mother because her eyesight is awful. You get the idea. He's a good person because I raised him to be one.

I didn’t say anything about single mothers. I talked about men who live in their house, but essentially ignore their children and have no relationship..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve raised our four boys like you’d raise girls as the social/ emotional skills of girls are more valued in school-aged years. They all play a string instruments and began ballet at 2 (they still all are in dance at 4,6,9,13). They don’t play traditional boy sports so we can avoid the toxic masculine energy. They speak two languages. We require exquisite manners and don’t tolerate rough housing. They also have no access to screens without a parent present.

While kind of extreme, I don’t disagree. If we celebrated “softer” boys things would be better in the classroom and outside it. It’s not fair to girls to be surrounded by toxic masculinity from such an early age.

Boys who are naturally sensitive, caring, and know to treat girls, are their grandmas secretly favorite grandchild, same with teachers, they usually do not become friends with the those stereotype macho boys. And it’s not unusual for those “boys will be boys” types to bully the boys who aren’t like them.

Someone earlier said it’s not the parents, it’s everyone else. No. It’s the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with boys?

My son is 13 and seems fine to me. He is polite and well mannered. I raise him the same as I do my girls: he has chores, has to play in instrument, be in a sport, reads books at home, screen time is limited, doesn’t have a phone yet, doesn’t hang around with the boys doing the wrong things, excels in school. I’m not doing any special “boy” parenting, just trying my best to be an overall good parent.

Why do they have to be in a sport? I understand the schools requirements to learn all sports but not every kid wants to play a sport outside of school. Maybe this is one of the problems. For some reason parents can’t deal with their boys not wanting to play sports. The parents pretend that it’s all about health but it’s not. Nobody needs a sport to be healthy. And girls who play softball can tend to be overweight. Guys on football teams can be obese and they play certain positions.

Stop glorifying sports might help with aggression and meanness in boys. This is the parents fault 100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with boys?

My son is 13 and seems fine to me. He is polite and well mannered. I raise him the same as I do my girls: he has chores, has to play in instrument, be in a sport, reads books at home, screen time is limited, doesn’t have a phone yet, doesn’t hang around with the boys doing the wrong things, excels in school. I’m not doing any special “boy” parenting, just trying my best to be an overall good parent.

Why do they have to be in a sport? I understand the schools requirements to learn all sports but not every kid wants to play a sport outside of school. Maybe this is one of the problems. For some reason parents can’t deal with their boys not wanting to play sports. The parents pretend that it’s all about health but it’s not. Nobody needs a sport to be healthy. And girls who play softball can tend to be overweight. Guys on football teams can be obese and they play certain positions.

Stop glorifying sports might help with aggression and meanness in boys. This is the parents fault 100%.

Just cause your kids suck at sports doesn’t mean parents need to stop putting their kids in sports.

They will find friends in theater.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My boy is pretty awesome so not much. But he had all sisters so maybe that helped? Definitely had to run him around more when he was little and prod more to do work in high school.

Would you make this statement in reverse? As in, my daughter is pretty awesome but she had all brothers so maybe that helped?

Not the PP but I like that both of my kids have an opposite sex sibling. When I was dating, my experience was that guys with a sister or sisters made better boyfriends. I have talked to many women who agree. But I have also had several men say they preferred to date women with brothers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Outside physical activity, limiting screens, high expectations for school and learning, keeping busy with work and extracurriculars, lots of talking and listening, encouraging irl friend get togethers, encouraging independence — all the things we also did with our daughter.

You get one chance to be a parent - you can always get another job. Prioritise family as much as possible (while keeping a roof over your head).

Do you have grown children? Did this work for you? This is exactly how we are raising our children and it is very time-intensive so I am hoping you will tell me there is a reward

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, suddenly all parents are bad at raising boys. /s

The actual reason is that stereotypical boy traits are being less valued in schools and workplaces, while girls have more opportunities than ever, so boys suddenly feel a disadvantage. Add in social media and “manosphere” stuff and that’s it.

This. They’re told by all their authority figures that they’re the ones who caused the harm to all those who have been victimized throughout society. Then they have to reconcile guilt that they never should’ve had with their own masculinity and instincts. This isn’t wholly a parent problem although I’ll be the first to say that parents who pile on to this nonsense don’t help.

Pray tell what are these stereotypical boy traits that are no longer valued,,?

Tell me you don’t have school age children without telling me.

Are you kidding?

Basically all male centric traits are swept aside now under the new banner of “kindness.”

But they are not biologically boy traits. They are traits some children have and perhaps more boys have those traits, but it’s not just boy traits.

Are you saying that a girl who is a tactile learner and learns by doing and who needs more outside activity shouldn’t receive that because she’s a girl?

DP, but this response is an excellent example of the confident stupidity and ignorance that now dominates almost all of our societal discourse. People seem to be less and less capable of perceiving nuance as time goes on; everyone is engaging in black and white thinking and just trying to “win” rather than even attempt to *think* about what another person is saying before responding with their own (most likely) incorrect and/or irrelevant counterpoint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think parents are screwing up boys as a group, but I think we've socially handicapped boys and that leaves few avenues for raising boys.

If boys are not very good at sports, they get limited on one side by pressure to find other masculine activities, and penned in on the other side by people telling them not to be too loud or aggressive. In the middle is a lot of video games, YouTube, and isolation.

The show Adolescence explores this via a very dramatic situation (a boy who is violent) but I know many non violent, great boys who get stuck here as well.

We need a middle ground where boys can express masculinity without having to be radicalized by the right wing misogynists. You can be masculine without being violent or angry. You don't have to be emotional if that's not who you are or how you express yourself (you need to learn to be emotionally self aware but that's not the same as being emotive and talking about feelings all the time, which not everyone wants to do). You don't have to be athletic to be physically active or "manly."

Signed,
Mom of girls

I have all boys who are now older teens and successful young adults. I realized very early on that my non-sporty boys had to do sports. Why? Because sports is literally the only venue out there for boys that has good male role models, celebrates masculinity without being weird, teaches boys how to control their aggression, allows rough-housing, gives them negative and positive feedback and teaches them to be coachable, and takes them off their screens for hours.

I wish it wasn’t this way. One of my boys was a dancer, but it got too lonely and weird for him, and he switched to a different sport with a lot more boys. Theater was a nightmare, I think some of those adults should never be around children. None of my boys were artistic but I’ve heard that it’s not that different than theater. Chess is toxic, too online, and does not help the physical outlets.

So, my boys were required to do sports. And they were on third- and fourth-teams, not starters, not good. Eventually one of them found a love for the sport and went from being a fourth-level team member at age 10 to a recruited college athlete which was very unexpected. The others just get the physical and emotional benefits.

I tried for years to find boy-positive activities that aren’t sports. In the end I landed on exactly one: robotics team. But that’s not really available to young kids, and at older ages it becomes stratified very quickly between the kids whose parents essentially create at-home robotics labs and those that don’t. I’ve heard that music can have a very good combination of male role models and is the most like sports as far as the benefits I listed above, but I felt I could require daily physical activity or daily music practice but not both on top of school and chores. Also, music doesn’t have the physical benefits.

Personally I think the landscape is very depressing for positive options for boys. I have nieces and they have so many more outlets for positive experiences outside of school. It should not be only sports for boys, but that is where we are.

This is a delusional take. Many of the adults who coach sports are unbelievably toxic. And male team cultures are also often toxic. But sports is the only answer? I think the obsession with sports for boys is part of the problem.