Why are so many parents fumbling raising boys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It’s 2025 now, not 2018. People see toxic masculinity as the misandry it always was.

[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.

I'm lucky in that my 2 boys have role models in my husband, my own dad, and my father in-law. All 3 of them model what it's like to be a good man...which is actually not much different from what it's like to be a good woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

Both men and WOMEN do horrible things to each other. Why do women get a free pass? Many men deal with adversities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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”.

The boy hate is horrible especially when some of these people are raising boys. Boys are being left behind. There are tons of programs for girsl that exclude boys and nothing smiilar for boys.

[Anonymous]

I appreciate the responses on here from parents who have older boy. It is interesting to hear about sports and role models. I have young boys who do not seem into sports but maybe I need to think about pushing this more.

I do sometimes worry about raising my boys. I think both genders have their own issues and worries but at my kids age, early elementary, it sure seems the boys are the ones struggling. The girl parents are mostly on auto pilot and their daughters do just fine, whereas the boy parents are getting calls about not reading well enough, handwriting not being neat enough, just more likely to be behind the curve. (And this is a class where the boys are quite well behaved, so no behavioral problems).

I also worry that with AI, the first rounds of jobs being affected will be STEM jobs, which boys have traditionally gravitated towards. I have one son who is clearly STEM minded, and while this would have been great news a few years ago, now I worry what that future will look like. Boys and men are already struggling and if the stem jobs go, whereas the creative/nurturing jobs stay (which traditionally attract women), then we are really in deep trouble. Expect a LOT more lost young men.

[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.

I'm lucky in that my 2 boys have role models in my husband, my own dad, and my father in-law. All 3 of them model what it's like to be a good man...which is actually not much different from what it's like to be a good woman.

This is the key for me. There really isn't much difference between what it means to be a man vs woman. I have both a boy and girl. Social dynamics are sometimes different, but the way to handle them for both are exactly the same. Listening carefully with an open mind, no judging, communicating with kindness, respecting oneself and others. Otherwise, when it comes to life skills, I train them both the same way -- how to cook, clean, take care of money, etc. It's the way my brother and I were also raised.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

Both men and WOMEN do horrible things to each other. Why do women get a free pass? Many men deal with adversities.

No, they do not. Women are not raping/murdering/ assaulting men en masse the way men are to women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

Both men and WOMEN do horrible things to each other. Why do women get a free pass? Many men deal with adversities.

No, they do not. Women are not raping/murdering/ assaulting men en masse the way men are to women.

I often wonder how underreported this really is. I bet it's a lot.

[Anonymous]

My boys are sweet, polite and considerate. All the adults they’ve interacted with have gone out of their way to say nice things about them so I don’t think I’m just biased. From day one I have raised them the same way I raised my daughter. I avoided stereotyped expectations. I helped them to label their feelings and encouraged them to express emotions. I also provided lots of hugs. Even at 21 and 17 they openly say I love you and give big hugs. They have a lot of friends who are girls/women and treat those they date with respect.

DH was raised in the 70s and 80s and exhibits some toxic masculine traits which is why it was so important to me to raise boys who didn’t stuff emotions down and feel like they needed to be macho.

[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.

+1

[Anonymous]

I know more boys who are struggling than I used to and I am surprised by how much struggle the boys are experiencing in my very privileged school/neighborhood bubble. DH has a pretty wild group of friends but even he has been startled by some of what our kid has bumped up against in school.

The only thing the struggling boys all have in common is:

-hands-off parents/it-takes-a-village types. Their sons are being raised by a few hours of grandparent time here, aftercare there, a random parent for the baseball carpool here, and a random dad coach there. No one is ultimately responsible for their behavior.

-neurodivergence that is ignored or intentionally undiagnosed and is buffered by having a wealthy family that can kind of close rank when things are a little off. The families have lots of connections at our private so can ignore suggestions for intervention/testing and are never counseled out

-phone, internet and video game access with minimal limits

-constant jockeying (with parental support and praise!) to be baby alpha males

What does this look like in real life? My DD was sexually harassed as a 9 year old at school with gestures, words and phrases I didn’t know until college. Other boys are getting punched at school with no consequences for the aggressor. Every single activity at school- even walking down the hall- becomes an opportunity for competition, name-calling, trash talking, and physical conflict. Teachers don’t intervene because it takes constant effort to notice it and punish consistently.

[Anonymous]

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?

People need to "let boys be boys" and also teach them to be more masculine and act like men as they mature.

Too many man-childs these days with men under 40, still playing video games and acting like wimps.

[Anonymous]

Increasingly I just think the best think all parents and schools can do, for kids of any gender, is take the screens away. Especially for elementary and middle school kids. Not saying no screens ever, they are a part of life. But serious limits. I think we should ditch 99% of the screens in elementary education -- the EdTech schools are using is leading to a shallow grasp on fundamentals anyway, because there's too little direct engagement with the material and they need to be talking it through and frankly struggling more. Especially in math.

But I think boys need it more than girls right now because the retreat to screens in middle school appears to be worse for them and they seem to be engaging in ultimately more dangerous content. Yes, we should be paying more attention to the pressure on girls to look a certain way and how girls use social media in relational aggression, but I think boys are dealing with something much more dangerous. Isolation, bullying via video games, and predatory influencers on YouTube and Reddit using video content to warp and radicalize. It's scary.

And parents are NOT getting the message on screens. I mean, here I am on a screen and here you are too, so that's a big part of it -- we're all on screens too much. But so many of the parents I know don't think screens are a big deal or even believe that depriving their kids of screens or certain kinds of content will set their kids behind socially or even academically. It's wild. We need a much stronger campaign to restrict screens for kid between 0-13. And not just personal devices -- all access. Kids find ways to get around restrictions on school-owned devices, they will sneak parent devices. We need to be treating screens like drugs or alcohol for kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

Both men and WOMEN do horrible things to each other. Why do women get a free pass? Many men deal with adversities.

No, they do not. Women are not raping/murdering/ assaulting men en masse the way men are to women.

I often wonder how underreported this really is. I bet it's a lot.

ffs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My boys are sweet, polite and considerate. All the adults they’ve interacted with have gone out of their way to say nice things about them so I don’t think I’m just biased. From day one I have raised them the same way I raised my daughter. I avoided stereotyped expectations. I helped them to label their feelings and encouraged them to express emotions. I also provided lots of hugs. Even at 21 and 17 they openly say I love you and give big hugs. They have a lot of friends who are girls/women and treat those they date with respect.

DH was raised in the 70s and 80s and exhibits some toxic masculine traits which is why it was so important to me to raise boys who didn’t stuff emotions down and feel like they needed to be macho.

You sound like an absolutely wonderful mom (unlike a number on this thread). Well done!