I recently read a book called 'Boys Adrift' by Dr. Leonard Sax which drives out 5 factors that are lending a hand in the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving men. According to the book 1/3 of men between the ages of 22 - 34 are still living at home with their parents which is a 100% increase in the last 20 years.
The 5 Factors that are discussed include
1. Changes in School Curriculum - boys brains aren't as advanced as girls when it comes to language and other learning. Kindergarten is now teaching Grade 2 curriculum and boys aren't mentally able to learn what they are supposed to so it sets them up to fail as girls seem to be getting a head start and it is very difficult for boys to recover from.
2. Video Games - This is a way for boys to escape and they learn to control their environment but they have a huge disconnection with the world and doing physical activities (sports plays a huge factor in helping to balance this out)
3. Medications for ADHD - many boys and young men are put on medication to "settle them down" and it changes who they are
4. Endocrine Disruptor - some of the elements found in plastics can mimic estrogen which can mess with boys brains
5. Lack of Positive Role Models - many role models that boys look up to show them that it isn't percieved as cool to be intelligent and motivated, especially when it comes to school. So boys are buying into this and young women are more likely to go on to post secondary and graduate. Whereas, some boys will start, change school but will not graduate when they go on to college or university.
I am not going to go through all the factors but I will share my thoughts on a few ideas that came up as I was reading. It seems that if we don't figure this out the problems will just continue to happen. I think we do have some huge problems on our hands when we consider that boys are much less resilient and ambitious than they were 20 years ago.
When I was growing up I always felt like I was a little bit of a defective girl. Everything was a competition to me and when it came to sports and games that didn't stop. It was nothing for me to flip the game board that we were playing because it was clear that I wasn't going to win. I didn't think of it as cheating at the time I just thought of it as a way to stop from witnessing the humiliation of me losing at something.
I don't like the idea that teachers, parents and schools are taking away competition and it's dangerous. Humans are animals and in nature there are winners and losers. We see that when an eagle is hungry it finds and plucks a fish out of the water. It doesn't care that it may have hurt the fishes feelings when it interupted it from its daily swim to eat it for lunch. We live in a meritocracy where things are earned and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. We work to earn money, credentials and social standing. If those things are just handed over the value of their possession is often lost and wasted. Kids are much more resilient and capable than we give them credit for much of the time so let them be competive, unsuccessful and learn from it.
People talk about giving self-esteem to kids but there is no way you can give another person self-esteem. As the name suggests its how you feel about yourself. It is the way your form your identity and how valuable you think you are. No one can give that to you! Those are things you have to earn on your own. Parents can help to build self-esteem, coaches can contribute, friends can solidify but it's up to the individual to be able to build it themselves. And just as is the case if you earn something the 'old fashioned' way through dedication and hard work. Getting rid of the idea where everyone gets a participation ribbon at the track meet will help to rectify this. When you fail over and over and over again that is when you learn to succeed. If you learn from people who are the most successful in our society its because they just learned to keep coming back from failure and each time they got stronger from what they learned.
From my perspective I was told over and over again that young girls were are not supposed to be competitive and I was told all the time it wasn't "ladylike". It was good because I stopped caring what certain people thought. I knew who I was at the core of my being and it wasn't up to my Mom or Dad to solidify that on their own. I did it! Sure it was hard sometimes but it made me strong enough to stand in who I was and built my confidence to a point where I wasn't a follower and went after my goals and dreams regardless of what others thought.
In a lot of cases I have seen parents baby their kids so much it's scary. Not letting your child stand on his own two feet is a terrible thing to see. I have heard of parents going in to see university professors or administrators to talk about how Little Jimmy's mark isn't high enough. And then we wonder why the boy has problems? Maybe he should learn to work hard and if he doesn't understand something ask for help. When Little Jimmy gets fired from his first job because he wasn't giving it enough effort is his Mom going to walk into his bosses office to explain why her boy needs a second chance? Maybe she can bring in his Grade 6 participation ribbon to help sway the manager's decision! My point is that this didn't happen over night to these boys! It has been steadily happening with a series of how they were raised mixed in with environmental, biological, physical factors and so on. Whatever is happening it is obvious that we are crippling our young men by not showing them what they are capable of or eliminated some of these factors on their own to help them thrive.
Many of us girls got tough because we were told over and over that we couldn't do something or it wasn't allowed. At some point the decision is just made that it doesn't matter what other people think. Many women wanted to go after what it is they wanted and maybe that has forced our boys to take a step back because of our new found strength. As an independent woman I don't have to rely on a man alone to provide for me. I don't think in the case the situation has an easy answer but I do know that I love and appreciate men and it is necessary for all of us to take a look and figure out what to do to make our young men stronger and more resilient again. I plan to do my part by making them earn things, work hard, toughen up and physically participate in his surroundings. I also want to limit the amount of exposure our young boys have to plastics that mimic estrogen so it doesn't physically mess with their hormones. I will continue to follow this subject and keep you up to date on my findings.
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