Why are so many parents fumbling raising boys?

[Anonymous]

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.

+ 1

- parent of 19 yr old boy who left for a 12 week internship oos today, and 16 yr old girl

[Anonymous]

I mean, women were left behind for millennia. Women are still victims of mass rape, assault, murder at the hands of men. When a woman gets raped, it's very common to excuse the actions of the man by worrying about HIS future.

No one cares at all when women struggle or go through pain, but the second men lag behind or have a "loneliness epidemic" it's a crisis and everyone needs to fix it. How about men deal with these adversities the same way women have had to for millennia? Oh well!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Not sure if your boys are too old, but all-boys sleepaway camp has been amazing for my son. Lots of very strong and postive male influences from counselors and older boys. Sports are a big part of camp- but not in the competitive way like a travel team would be. They all play together and have fun and celebrate each other; many different skills levels on the playing fields. Plus lots of other skills too they get to develop beyond sports.

We are leaning hard into scouts for our two non sporty boys. We shopped around for a troop where the older boys were good role models.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!”

There is a whole lot of “all boys” posts. We are coming on to declare it is not “all boys”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boys are not ok on a societal level and I think it’s too widespread to blame them. It has to be a parental issue.

What are areas of improvement you could’ve done in your own parenting of boys upon reflection?

What we are doing/ did is fine. What is failing them is schools and “society” in general.

Oh please. Our schools and “society” are failing everyone, not just boys.

[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.

Aww, they are still babies. I miss those years.

[Anonymous]

You can go back to No Child Left Behind during the Bush years when schools pretty much got rid off recess in favor of endless standardized tests. That was a disaster for young boys. They need those free form times to play, to do sports, to burn energy, and most importantly learn how to socialize and create order amongst themselves.

We took that away from boys and now wonder why they’re often not great in group dynamics and are always restless. Many boys have missed a really important part of the socialization process because of how miserable we made school. Then throw in phones, which is also a problem for girls, but tends to really isolate boys and make them fearful of taking risks. I feel like parents have to work hard to counter all these negative things for boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The problem is telling boys at a young age that just by being born masculine they are toxic.

Yes. It is an extraordinarily cruel thing to do to a young boy. To tell them they are toxic and inferior by their immutable physical characteristics is horrendous.

No one does this. Critical thinking about patriarchal history and systems, however, is essential. Boys can make an active choice not to perpetuate those, and be lauded for doing so. Any rational person with concern for women's rights and opportunities should be on board with this.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

This is true but I think kids gravitate towards certain toys as well.

[Anonymous]

How many stuffed dolls look like boys are available on the market? Maybe boys would like dolls more if the dolls looked like them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's start with you.

This. What is with all the boy hate?

[Anonymous]

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.

Sounds like a parenting fail. I let my boy play with what he wanted but he had no interest in dolls. He is one of the kindest, caring people I know. Some of it is parenting, some of it is personality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can go back to No Child Left Behind during the Bush years when schools pretty much got rid off recess in favor of endless standardized tests. That was a disaster for young boys. They need those free form times to play, to do sports, to burn energy, and most importantly learn how to socialize and create order amongst themselves.

We took that away from boys and now wonder why they’re often not great in group dynamics and are always restless. Many boys have missed a really important part of the socialization process because of how miserable we made school. Then throw in phones, which is also a problem for girls, but tends to really isolate boys and make them fearful of taking risks. I feel like parents have to work hard to counter all these negative things for boys.

No, they can do that before, after school and weekends. They go to school to learn. Phones re not the problem. Monitor your kid if you are having issues with it.

[Anonymous]

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.

Sounds like a parenting fail. I let my boy play with what he wanted but he had no interest in dolls. He is one of the kindest, caring people I know. Some of it is parenting, some of it is personality.

+1. I myself never played with dolls. But I helped younger kids, and so did my brother. It's easier to practice social emotional skills with real live kids that you meet at the playground and on your street. You don't need dolls to do this.