Teen boys skewing more conservative?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My boys are 15 and 17 and they, and all of their friends, seem to be right of their parents. They claim that “everyone” was excited about the Trump victory.

They’ve been told for years that they need to apologize for their privilege and their unconscious bias. Unlike the boys of my generation that made off-colored jokes, they live in fear of unintentionally offending someone and being cancelled while they watch the black kids call each other the n-word and make white boy jokes. They noted in middle school that their girl friends weren’t allowed to wear nail polish or makeup to school but no one said anything when the trans kinds did so. The LGBTQ+ and diverse kids are celebrated while they’re made to feel like the boogeyman. Every book they read in English class is about the struggles of some maligned group- they never read books in school that they can relate to.

Yes, we need to address the wrongs of our country’s past, but we need to do so in a way that doesn’t repeat those wrongs by making young white, Hispanic and Asian straight males feel like they’re now being treated unfairly. I fear that the Democratic party has lost a generation of male voters by prioritizing DEI and trans rights over crime, national safety and jobs.

-Mom who voted for Obama twice, Hillary, Biden and now, reluctantly, Trump. I know several friends who voted for a Republican for the first time this election.

You are spot on.

+1,000,000%

And as a straight, white woman I feel the same way. I’m labeled a “Karen” and made to feel like a terrible person just for existing

Who is making you feel that way? Specifics please, preferably real live people. Not just a bunch of bots and trolls on the internet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:11:12 and I will say listening to my son, he feels the world and especially school is against him. He really believes that now. Some of your sons may feel the same. He doesn’t want to take away any rights from women. He just wants to make sure he has rights too.

What rights of his are missing or at risk?

It’s his perception. It’s the perception of a teen boy and how many feel. They have gone through years of school and sat through of the lessons now focused on all of the SEL stuff. We cant tell them how to feel.

I get that. I do. But the reason schools have swung so far in that direction is because so many non-white, non-boys have gone through decades of sitting through lessons focused on white men. They have to at least be aware of that. If they’d been born at a different time, they’d be sitting pretty, blissfully unaware of their privilege. But they weren’t, and this is their period in history to live through.

I am a parent of a white teen boy, fwiw, and I don’t want to erase the accomplishments of all those white men that came before, but the hope is that things can settle in a stable medium where everyone feels valued and respected.

But this isn’t true. No child has listened to anything for decades. Because they’re not decades old. You are advocating for, essentially, mistreatment of innocent white children NOW because of the mistreatment of non-white children before they were even born. It’s insane.

Having to read a book written by a woman or a black person is mistreatment?

Stop. You are deliberately misrepresenting my point. Which is actually the sort of mistreatment white boys ARE being subjected to in schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:11:12 and I will say listening to my son, he feels the world and especially school is against him. He really believes that now. Some of your sons may feel the same. He doesn’t want to take away any rights from women. He just wants to make sure he has rights too.

Why does he feel school is against him? Colleges are bending over backwards to get boys to enroll these days. He has a leg up already.

Not PP. My son has had teachers who say out loud they will not call on boys. Admin backs teachers on this. I’m sure my DS is not alone in that experience.

[Anonymous]

Massive disinformation online. It’s deliberate and it’s working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:11:12 and I will say listening to my son, he feels the world and especially school is against him. He really believes that now. Some of your sons may feel the same. He doesn’t want to take away any rights from women. He just wants to make sure he has rights too.

What rights of his are missing or at risk?

It’s his perception. It’s the perception of a teen boy and how many feel. They have gone through years of school and sat through of the lessons now focused on all of the SEL stuff. We cant tell them how to feel.

I get that. I do. But the reason schools have swung so far in that direction is because so many non-white, non-boys have gone through decades of sitting through lessons focused on white men. They have to at least be aware of that. If they’d been born at a different time, they’d be sitting pretty, blissfully unaware of their privilege. But they weren’t, and this is their period in history to live through.

I am a parent of a white teen boy, fwiw, and I don’t want to erase the accomplishments of all those white men that came before, but the hope is that things can settle in a stable medium where everyone feels valued and respected.

But this isn’t true. No child has listened to anything for decades. Because they’re not decades old. You are advocating for, essentially, mistreatment of innocent white children NOW because of the mistreatment of non-white children before they were even born. It’s insane.

Having to read a book written by a woman or a black person is mistreatment?

Stop. You are deliberately misrepresenting my point. Which is actually the sort of mistreatment white boys ARE being subjected to in schools.

What sort of mistreatment? My white teens, who go to a school where they are minorities, have never mentioned anything like that me, so please tell me what’s happening out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Massive disinformation online. It’s deliberate and it’s working.

I don’t know. I think the disinformation goes in many directions. My Harris-voting teen sons were pretty angry when, after seeing what the MSM said about Trump wanting to execute Liz Cheney, they watched the actual clip. The MSM completely misrepresented what Trump said and as boys who are worried about the draft, one of them nearly changed his vote to Trump over that. Misinformation is not a problem only on the right, and young Gen Z men are very capable of finding original sources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:11:12 and I will say listening to my son, he feels the world and especially school is against him. He really believes that now. Some of your sons may feel the same. He doesn’t want to take away any rights from women. He just wants to make sure he has rights too.

What rights of his are missing or at risk?

It’s his perception. It’s the perception of a teen boy and how many feel. They have gone through years of school and sat through of the lessons now focused on all of the SEL stuff. We cant tell them how to feel.

I get that. I do. But the reason schools have swung so far in that direction is because so many non-white, non-boys have gone through decades of sitting through lessons focused on white men. They have to at least be aware of that. If they’d been born at a different time, they’d be sitting pretty, blissfully unaware of their privilege. But they weren’t, and this is their period in history to live through.

I am a parent of a white teen boy, fwiw, and I don’t want to erase the accomplishments of all those white men that came before, but the hope is that things can settle in a stable medium where everyone feels valued and respected.

But this isn’t true. No child has listened to anything for decades. Because they’re not decades old. You are advocating for, essentially, mistreatment of innocent white children NOW because of the mistreatment of non-white children before they were even born. It’s insane.

Having to read a book written by a woman or a black person is mistreatment?

Stop. You are deliberately misrepresenting my point. Which is actually the sort of mistreatment white boys ARE being subjected to in schools.

What sort of mistreatment? My white teens, who go to a school where they are minorities, have never mentioned anything like that me, so please tell me what’s happening out there.

I suspect your white boys know they can’t talk to you about their lives. You’re going to be one of these shocked MIL’s one day complaining about your son’s wives not having careers.

There have been several examples provided in this thread. You are trying to bully/gaslight people into thinking their experiences aren’t real or aren’t valid. Good luck with that strategy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would a teen boy have an understanding one way or the other about pregnancy, immigration, and foreign wars?

Any understanding would be fake.

Focus on teaching media literacy, logic and math, propaganda techniques, and moral values, away from current events, and then give them room to think about how that applies.

Yes, and. The online influences are VERY powerful right now. For young men, they have become a very shiny object.

I hope parents are aware of what their teen boys are watching on TikTok and YouTube. The Andrew Tate messages of old are now mainstream - pushed up a bit to be more palatable on the surface, but mostly the same underneath. So many male influencers out there offering/promising a quick path to getting rich - and to acquiring power and dominance. It’s crypto culture, it’s Elon Musk, it’s of course, Trump, but it’s also so many smaller influencers inspired by them who our boys know but we do not.

All that middle school lingo about being alpha or beta? That’s some of it going mainstream. Yes, this has always been a part of young male adulthood - looking to their peer groups and jockeying for position. It’s developmentally appropriate and not unique to now.

However, something big has shifted in these past 10 years. Trump has brought a subculture (the assumption of male dominance) into the mainstream. And it’s incredibly appealing to young men and teen boys. Even those who were raised by progressive parents and steeped in progressive values, including overt teaching about empathy and inclusion in their schools and communities.

So yes, teaching critical thinking is hugely important. But I fear that in many progressive communities (and families) those efforts quickly devolve into attempts to counter-indoctrinate our children. To try to replace the “bad” messages and values “out there” with the “good” ones - as we define them.

I’m starting to recognize how that is a losing strategy - both because it doesn’t work (think of parents and teens/20-somethings during the time of the Vietnam war) and because it is genuinely hypocritical and our boys know that. (Forcefeeding our values in the name of “critical thinking” wears thin quickly.)

I think progressive parents have a lot more to learn and understand here, myself included. We may well be in the early days of a big cultural change.

As much as it worries me (and it does), we need to ASK our boys what they think and why. And then truly LISTEN and HEAR what they’re saying.

It seems that the days of the progressive echo chamber are now very much behind us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

All that middle school lingo about being alpha or beta? That’s some of it going mainstream. Yes, this has always been a part of young male adulthood - looking to their peer groups and jockeying for position. It’s developmentally appropriate and not unique to now.

This isn't new. Look how wildly popular romance books have been in the last decade. It's all about alpha men. The girls are reading this too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:11:12 and I will say listening to my son, he feels the world and especially school is against him. He really believes that now. Some of your sons may feel the same. He doesn’t want to take away any rights from women. He just wants to make sure he has rights too.

What rights of his are missing or at risk?

It’s his perception. It’s the perception of a teen boy and how many feel. They have gone through years of school and sat through of the lessons now focused on all of the SEL stuff. We cant tell them how to feel.

I get that. I do. But the reason schools have swung so far in that direction is because so many non-white, non-boys have gone through decades of sitting through lessons focused on white men. They have to at least be aware of that. If they’d been born at a different time, they’d be sitting pretty, blissfully unaware of their privilege. But they weren’t, and this is their period in history to live through.

I am a parent of a white teen boy, fwiw, and I don’t want to erase the accomplishments of all those white men that came before, but the hope is that things can settle in a stable medium where everyone feels valued and respected.

You assume we are white. He’s not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:11:12 and I will say listening to my son, he feels the world and especially school is against him. He really believes that now. Some of your sons may feel the same. He doesn’t want to take away any rights from women. He just wants to make sure he has rights too.

What rights of his are missing or at risk?

It’s his perception. It’s the perception of a teen boy and how many feel. They have gone through years of school and sat through of the lessons now focused on all of the SEL stuff. We cant tell them how to feel.

I get that. I do. But the reason schools have swung so far in that direction is because so many non-white, non-boys have gone through decades of sitting through lessons focused on white men. They have to at least be aware of that. If they’d been born at a different time, they’d be sitting pretty, blissfully unaware of their privilege. But they weren’t, and this is their period in history to live through.

I am a parent of a white teen boy, fwiw, and I don’t want to erase the accomplishments of all those white men that came before, but the hope is that things can settle in a stable medium where everyone feels valued and respected.

You assume we are white. He’s not.

I should have added more. I have the two kids. One liberal and one conservative. I purposely didn’t mention that we are not white since i didn’t want this to get sidetracked. My parents, their grandparents, are legal immigrants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

All that middle school lingo about being alpha or beta? That’s some of it going mainstream. Yes, this has always been a part of young male adulthood - looking to their peer groups and jockeying for position. It’s developmentally appropriate and not unique to now.

This isn't new. Look how wildly popular romance books have been in the last decade. It's all about alpha men. The girls are reading this too.

I guess my question is what does a good alpha male do - defend others or enlarge himself at their expense?

There are good men out there who are good AS men, not just genderless humans. But i don't know if those examples are visible to young boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Massive disinformation online. It’s deliberate and it’s working.

I don’t know. I think the disinformation goes in many directions. My Harris-voting teen sons were pretty angry when, after seeing what the MSM said about Trump wanting to execute Liz Cheney, they watched the actual clip. The MSM completely misrepresented what Trump said and as boys who are worried about the draft, one of them nearly changed his vote to Trump over that. Misinformation is not a problem only on the right, and young Gen Z men are very capable of finding original sources.

That example was pretty galling and really opened my eyes to the lengths the msm would go to actually lie to the American public. It was actually incredibly depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:11:12 and I will say listening to my son, he feels the world and especially school is against him. He really believes that now. Some of your sons may feel the same. He doesn’t want to take away any rights from women. He just wants to make sure he has rights too.

Why does he feel school is against him? Colleges are bending over backwards to get boys to enroll these days. He has a leg up already.

You think colleges are bending over backwards to admit white males? Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

All that middle school lingo about being alpha or beta? That’s some of it going mainstream. Yes, this has always been a part of young male adulthood - looking to their peer groups and jockeying for position. It’s developmentally appropriate and not unique to now.

This isn't new. Look how wildly popular romance books have been in the last decade. It's all about alpha men. The girls are reading this too.

Most romance novels since their inception (Jane Austen) have always favored alpha males. The beta hero is in the minority, got a little more popular about 10 years ago, which really brought back the rise of the paranormal romance novel where it was okay again for the male to be alpha.