Why are so many parents fumbling raising boys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't seen this where we live. Kids are at middle school ages now and if anything, I've noticed boys aren't as bad as they were when I was growing up.

+1 Lots of mature, high-achieving boys in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Girls have a higher rate of internalization. Studies show that girls have much higher rates of anxiety, depression and attempted suicide. Girls have challenges too, but those challenges are hidden on the inside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Girls have a higher rate of internalization. Studies show that girls have much higher rates of anxiety, depression and attempted suicide. Girls have challenges too, but those challenges are hidden on the inside.

But boys have far higher rates of successfully completed suicide.

[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?

Actually I would!

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are boys all being raised badly or are girls simply more resilient and adaptable? Why do we make so many excuses for males?

Girls mature faster and earlier. That is a biological fact. School, college, the work force etc is geared to a system that rewards early maturity and penalizes those that need more support and time to mature. In a nutshell that’s it, on the macro level. Individual exceptions of course.

"Girls mature faster and earlier" is dangerous rhetoric. That's probably a big part of the problem for why men are lagging behind- how many families that you know expect the female family members to all get up and help mom with the dishes at the holidays? Whereas the men are allowed to play outside or chill on the couch? How many girls are strictly punished for breaking curfew or staying out late whereas with boys it's "oh well, boys will be boys!" We dont hold men accountable or ask much of them, and that's exactly why their stats around school and work are so dismal. There is no woman around to coddle and prop them up during a standardized test, so they flounder and fail.

This is a stupid take.

NP. I think the PP is spot on. Girls and boys are both equally capable, but the internalized expectations of girls are far, far greater.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are boys all being raised badly or are girls simply more resilient and adaptable? Why do we make so many excuses for males?

Girls mature faster and earlier. That is a biological fact. School, college, the work force etc is geared to a system that rewards early maturity and penalizes those that need more support and time to mature. In a nutshell that’s it, on the macro level. Individual exceptions of course.

If men are just biologically incapable of measuring up, maybe we need to accept them. Confine them to work in coal mines or boot camps- hard physical labor. Given girls/women the positions of strategy and leadership. Maybe this is a positive change and we will step into the patriarchy we all deserve. This is the future.

PP who made that statement. It’s not an issue of not measuring up. Boys develop and mature differently than girls do. Absolutely, in kindergarten and through school, girls are probably better able to handle positions of strategy and leadership, sooner than are most boys. They have better executive functioning skills, as one example.

This does not hold true throughout life. Fortunately boys do catch up and go in to thrive often despite the messages they have been given along the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are boys all being raised badly or are girls simply more resilient and adaptable? Why do we make so many excuses for males?

Girls mature faster and earlier. That is a biological fact. School, college, the work force etc is geared to a system that rewards early maturity and penalizes those that need more support and time to mature. In a nutshell that’s it, on the macro level. Individual exceptions of course.

"Girls mature faster and earlier" is dangerous rhetoric. That's probably a big part of the problem for why men are lagging behind- how many families that you know expect the female family members to all get up and help mom with the dishes at the holidays? Whereas the men are allowed to play outside or chill on the couch? How many girls are strictly punished for breaking curfew or staying out late whereas with boys it's "oh well, boys will be boys!" We dont hold men accountable or ask much of them, and that's exactly why their stats around school and work are so dismal. There is no woman around to coddle and prop them up during a standardized test, so they flounder and fail.

How is this “dangerous” rhetoric? Hyperbole much? It’s completely true.

[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.

I certainly hope you don’t have sons.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't seen this where we live. Kids are at middle school ages now and if anything, I've noticed boys aren't as bad as they were when I was growing up.

+1 Lots of mature, high-achieving boys in the DMV.

+2. Lots of boys are better now than when I was growing up.

[Anonymous]

I love how, whenever this topic comes up here, DCUM is like “well MY boy [who comes from an intact home in a wealthy zip code with the best schools and tons of resources] is doing just fine, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

[Anonymous]

Jonathan haidt has been out there talking about this - for boys and girls - but recently cited dopamine addiction in various forms regarding boys.

They are bored with life. Not all.

[Anonymous]

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.