Scholars who take on the notion that overpopulation threatens our planet counter that human beings are our most valuable resource. Far from degrading our world, they make it richer and invent all of the products and processes that improve our quality of life.
I wholeheartedly agree with this perspective, but worry that one of the greatest problems confronting the U.S. (and, indeed, Western civilization) is that we increasingly fail to put these resources to good use — particularly our nation’s boys.
Much has been written on how women are gaining power in the new economy, out-performing men in education, and even increasingly out-earning them. Kay Hymowitz’s book provides a detailed look at the dysfunctional culture that dominates much of young men’s lives — at a great cost to them, and to women too.
David Thomas provides a more personal perspective on this phenomenon in the Daily Mail. He describes the successes of his ambitious, 20-something daughters, and his concerns for his teenage son. While he uses statistics and particulars from the U.K., they resonate just as well with the situation in the U.S. Both education systems are run almost exclusively by women and cater to female learning styles, which has profound consequences for boys.
I’ve been reading these types of statistics and arguments for many years, but they have a very different impact when you consider them as a parent. Debates about nature vs. nurture which used to seem like interesting academic questions become a little absurd once you have kids — particularly children of both sexes. The difference are so blindingly obvious, and clearly stem from more than choices of pink and blue, that the whole idea of a gender-neutral world becomes absurd.
It took my two-year-old son, who has grown up in a house dominated by two older sisters, with mostly girl toys and Angelina books, about five minutes in the home of another little boy to identify and become obsessed with guns and swords. He is more hyper, rambunctious, violent, and less easy to communicate with than my girls were when they were his age.
It’s easy to see how these attributes will be a liability in a few years. My four-year-old daughter was recently described by her preschool teacher as an ideal student: she listens, sits still, and follows directions. She is quiet, polite, and excels with fine motor skills, so she is enthralled by the many craft projects that dominate her preschool experience.
That’s nice to hear of course, but made me pause about the teacher’s perception of an “ideal” student. Clearly, in this instance, the ideal student is decidedly female. And as a mom, I sympathize. If I was in charge of 15 preschoolers, I would absolutely want a crowd of well-behaved children, quietly pasting hearts on construction paper, rather than a noisy mob rolling on the ground or wielding sticks. In other words, I’d rather deal with a bunch of little girls than little boys. But that’s not how schools are supposed to see it, and it’s clearly not good for boys to be surrounded by those who see their natural tendencies as a nuisance.
Like Thomas, I’ll be paying extra attention as my kids grow up to the academic climate in which I enroll my son. I’ll seriously consider and look for opportunities for boys schools when possible. I’m confident that my girls will do well in traditional school settings, but am not so sure that that’s the situation that will get the most out of my little boy. I don’t want him to get the message that school is not a place for kids like him.
When I was living in Virginia, a family down the street with three daughters had a bumper sticker on their car that read something like this: Girls Don’t Chase Boys, They Run Right Passed Them.
It’s cute, though needless to say, one would never see anything comparable on the car of a family of sons celebrating boys’ superiority to girls. It’s hard to imagine that such a male-applauding bumper-sticker even exists. Yet my neighbors bumper stickers was absolutely unremarkable. In fact, it’s the new vision of equality. As Thomas summed it up: “[Students] have been taught that men and women are equal — except for all the ways in which women are superior.”
That’s the message pushed in our schools and in society. Is this really what we want our boys growing up to believe?
— Carrie Lukas is the managing director of the Independent Women’s Forum.
Precisely why my wife and I are working our tails off and saving every penny to send our two sons to the local private boys' school. Well-written!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI discovered the "Home Front" blog just a week or two ago and I'm starting to think it is the main justification for NRO's existence. Great column.
I would just submit one item for reflection: For generations, boys did just fine in the traditional sit-and-listen classroom. They did so fine, in fact, that it drove feminists crazy. The biggest change in the education system is not a leaning toward girl's learning styles. (Allthough, with more silly group projects, where always vocal girls dominate, that is somewhat of a factor.) The biggest change has been the rise of a clear and intentional and unapologetic bias, not in favor of girls' learning styles, but in favor of girls, period. The boys who are becoming young men now are the first generation to grow up in an educational regime where they are told from day one of first grade that they are dumb, lazy, and ADHD, and that, even if they overcome these genetic defects, they still just don't matter. And now we are wondering why they aren't going to college. Hmmmm, what could the reason ever be .... ?
But, otherwise, great column!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe reason we are losing our boys is because a vast number of them have no father. Do what you want with the schools, it might make a little bit of a difference.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGREAT column! As a man, and the dasddy of one of each. I see ALL those things daily! I spend a lot of time telling my energetic, loud, mercurial, gun-totin', monster-combattin', middlin'-results-in-school 11-year old son that he's every bit as normal, wonderful, intelligent, and just fine, as his quiet, social, studious, straight-A's older sister. I work HARD at countering teacher after teacher who treats him as a defective girl (Newsweeks' phrase from some time ago).
My daughter will spend a lifetime doing great things well, rarely failing at anything, while Alex, in his lifetime, will walk on Mars and cure cancer, and utterly fail at a thousand things his sister does really well. She's a REAL girl, and he's a REAL boy! As different and similar as night and day. BOTH those general types are equally extremely valuable and important...and normal. We DESPERATELY, as a society, need to value them both.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGreat article. As the mother of a young boy, I am terrified that his future teacher's will try to deter his competitive spirit and energetic nature.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen our son was in lower school 20 years ago, we were very aware of the preference teachers had for children who liked to get along with them, please them and make the day go smoothly. That was mostly girls. The boys were far less interested in pleasing teachers than in doing stuff - usually lively, physical stuff. We were lucky enough to see it early, so that we could encourage the things we saw as our son's strengths (curiosity, independence, imagination, energy to beat the band) rather than accept the frustration of cramming him into a mold. His schools talked a lot about wanting a "diverse" environment - what they really wanted was students who behaved and achieved the same, but look different.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVery sadly - this is a real environment and one I believe contributes significantly to the decline in young men attending college and successfully completing useful degrees. It is even worse when they get to college. There is so little in the curriculum to even appeal to men and so much that denigrates and belittles them.
Our advice - love your sons unequivocally and be their advocate in their education. Believe in them. They are probably not making it up when they say "My teacher doesn't like me."
Excellent column. Well written and well reasoned. I agree with the poster who recalls that prior to the mid-60's, boys did much better in school than girls. The difference is related to the bias, of course. But the difference is also that learning became more intuitive and touchy-feely and "what do YOU think is the right answer." Boys are not as good at these things. They are strong at logical and realistic ideas. They hate writing and reading, but they love math and science. Of course, I'm speaking in generalities here. But the type of education we are giving kids, in addition to the female bias, is killing our social order. We need people to be able to think logically, patly, and strongly about causes. And go out and defend the causes with courage and conviction. That's where men can be strongest! YES! Get those boys into a boys' school. Wish I had.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI couldn't agree more with this article. This is a big benefit we have found to homeschooling. We have 2 girls and 3 boys and one more due in just two weeks. When our oldest son was in preschool, there was little tolerance for normal boy behavior. Playing with the kitchen playthings and crafts were constantly offered, but trucks not as frequently, as they made the boys "too loud".
Sitting for a long time just isn't easy for most 5 year-old boys. My 13 year-old does great know and is self-motivated to finish his schoolwork each day before sports practices start in the afternoon. I know had he been in school the whole time, he probably would have been in constant trouble for his squirming and inability to stay seated.
Frankly, I celebrate the boyish-ness of my boys, roughhousing, Lego creations, constant battles, swords, nerf guns, Airsoft, competitiveness, etc. I feel it is important to encourage normal boy behavior if we want them to grow up to be responsible productive men.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI had two girls and the experience was much different than my daughter's Adventures in Mothering. She doesn't have three boys so much as she has three Nac Mac Feegles.
Well-behaved and polite Nac Mac Feegles, as small boys go, but you have to get control of that sort very early on. Otherwise they'll grow up wanting nothing but drinkin' and fightin' and stealin' coobeasties. Just a sighting of the Wavin' o' tha Wee Free Switch has proved invaluable in focusing their attention. That and bribes...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseModifier: my above comment (below) isn't a criticism of boys, by the way; just an observation. Boys are born already a hair's breadth from nuclear fission by design and intent.
Properly disciplined and nourished, there will be plenty of primal male left, but under the control of a gentleman; the trick is in squashing the early expression of Feeglism (see link below) while not breaking the spirit.
My daughter is doing a wonderful job. (Full disclosure: of necessity, this requires homeschooling. Also, she has a kindly, but large and impressive husband to back her up.)
"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." That's fingernails on a chalkboard to the feminist perspective. Stoop to conquer? Never!
This is not to diminish the hard-won accomplishments, whether suffragette or feminist (accomplishments that opened doors for my daughters), but human nature is never really satisfied with equality: it wants revenge. Thus Carrie Nation roars again, only this time she wants Wine, Deconstructionism, and "I am Woman, Destroyer of Men's Souls."
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAye, an' her switch has probably flared bright blue around the schools. It only glows blue in the presence of lawyers ...
Here's an overlooked way to handlle several educrat whines at once: UNSTRUCTURED RECESS.
Let the girls stand in circles and gigle - fine. Let the boys play tag, run, bounce or throw balls. Give them a chance to vent energy in their own way, not in some overstructured non-fun event. They'll settle down for classes, and they'll get more exercise.
Another way to help, that will produce screams: remove one class from the day, to leave time for recess and for longer instruction blocks. Now, re-introduce adventure and romance (in the classical sense) literature. Re-introduce math in terms that boys will pick up on, for practical machines or blasting zombies.
"We willna' be fooled again!"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAh, but haven't you heard? Recess is under attack too. My kids have attended three elementary schools, and at two of them neither running nor balls were allowed on the playground, and at the third they were allowed to *earn* recess (and there was certainly no active play there either) on Fridays by sitting down and shutting up the rest of the week.
Disgraceful.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis was supposed to be in response to nameless at 10:40. Why does the Home Front commenting system stink so bad?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseActually, I would say that teachers in progressive schools are not asking boys or girls to sit still and listen, and for a specific reason.
I'm surprised at the preschool teacher who thinks the 4-year-old girl is a model student because she sits still, listens, and follows directions. My own boys have been criticized over the years for being too quiet in class. Being quiet is seen as a problem. Last month, I went to parent-teacher conferences for my oldest son, who is in high school. Every teacher led off our chat with "He's very quiet... does he talk at home?" The answer is yes, he talks at home all the time, but I guess we are a family that can also be quiet.
Anyhow, I have been in classrooms a lot over the years. I've seen my boys in action, and a lot of boys and girls and how they behave in the classroom, and the teacher's expectations.
Long gone are the days of children sitting still in desks in rows, listening (and daydreaming). Whether sitting still suits boys naturally or not, I can't say, but I do believe boys used to get used to it, since it involved clear instructions for behavior with clear consequences for misbehavior. Perhaps it also fits a natural human need to follow a leader, in this case the teacher.
Those days are long gone. I venture that a main goal of progressive education is to raise a generation of students who will not or cannot follow leaders. Progressive educators want to educate students to question all authority, all the time. Students who would find it impossible to join the army and carry a gun and take orders from anybody.
I was in a classroom today volunteering, teaching an art lesson. What can I say? Children have been trained to believe that every next thing they think and want to say is important to say out loud in the classroom. There are no real consequences for disrespect.
Is the local public elementary school unfriendly to boys because female teachers want them to sit down and shut up? I think not. Teachers will proudly tell you at back-to-school nights that when you visit their classrooms, you should expect to see kids getting up out of their seats, working in small groups, sharing brilliant insights with each other as they collaborate and cooperate on their way to collective success. They will tell you to expect that the noise level will be high. I've been in those classrooms over and over again, and they were not kidding. Lots and lots of partner and small-group work, and usually very noisy. The learning may be painfully slow and disjointed, but the classroom environment is always very exciting, for boys and girls alike.
I think the local public elementary school is unfriendly to boys precisely because female teachers do NOT want to teach children to be obedient. Respectful, maybe. Obedient, no.
But maybe boys need to obey someone.
I'm very cheered by the popularity of the new book Teach Like a Champion, by Doug Lemov. I've read the whole thing, and it is a very well done effort to bring discipline back into the classroom, and save the teachers from themselves.
Becky
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI teach US history in a public junior high (7th and 8th graders). The boys that get to my classroom are hungry for stories of war and heroism. In elementary school they have several years of history, but are taught almost no military history. Students arrive in my classroom having heard of the Civil War, but having learned little about the war itself. They know about slavery and the differences between North and South, but nothing about how the war was fought. They are much more likely to be able to tell me about Frederick Douglas or Harriet Tubman that Robert E Lee or Ulysses S Grant.
This trend is all encompassing in education. I have been criticized by administrators for having posters that include images of guns in my classroom, for allowing students to draw firearms as part of projects on various wars, for a short research project on Medal of Honor winners (the stories were all too violent), etc. etc. I have attended several Veteran's Day assemblies at my school that didn't include any veterans or any real presentation of what veterans actually did to earn our thanks. I have heard form parents who are disturbed that I mention that I am a hunter. I could go on and on.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGreat Moments in Parenting:
My daughter, mother of four boys, comes screeching into our driveway in her Chevy Suburban. Instead of sitting behind the wheel, talking on her cell phone, as is the norm, she jumps out screaming, "Get me a belt! Get me a belt! I'm not going to take it anymore! Get me a belt! I don't care if I go to jail! Get me a belt! Get the babies inside; I don't want them to see this! Get me a belt!"
My wife and I ushered the younger two into the house; by this time the older two were dissolved into mounds of blubbering tears. Good times, good times.
You've got to treat them like boys, not like defective girls (nice phrasing).
Gotta boy -- it's grandson #3s 9th birthday, and I have a 200 shot Red Ryder carbine-action BB gun to wrap (truth to tell: to watch his grandmother wrap)/
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse“[Students] have been taught that men and women are equal — except for all the ways in which women are superior.”
Yep, that's the message, not only of our educational system, but of the whole lousy culture. Some of us men have figured that out. And we're very, very angry about it.
A culture that does not honor its men not only does not deserve to survive, but is incapable of surviving. Have fun paying off that $15T debt, ladies.
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