Why Are We Afraid of Our Sons?
Raising boys in America can be scary. Though young male violence in the U.S. has diminished somewhat from the epidemic levels of the late 1980's and early 1990's, the United States remains the most violent country in the industrialized world and ninety-five percent of violent crimes are committed by men, most of it by young men who were themselves boys - even little boys - just a few years earlier.
The fact that a small but significant minority of young men turn violent weighs heavily on all concerned parents. Recently, the mother of a boy said to me, "Whenever I watch the news and I see a young man led away in handcuffs, I think, 'That boy has a mother, and that mother screwed up somehow. That boy didn't get what he needed.' " She continued, "I always wonder what it was that his parents should have done." Like many mothers, she wants to be sure that she is doing the right things for her son.
Well-intentioned but fearful concern about doing the right thing for boys, or containing boys, has led to some fundamentally misguided preventive measures by many parents and teachers. I have seen mothers, especially, vigilantly engaged in what they consider "violence prevention." "Oh, my six-year-old wants toy guns, but we don't allow them," a mother assures me proudly, and then she admits: "But he chewed his toast into the shape of a pistol and shot his brother at the break-fast table." I try not to smile, remembering how many times my older brother "shot" me and I "shot" him back. Interfering with boys' normal fantasy play is just silly. Play violence is not violence, it is play. When you are afraid of your five-year-old son's play, it confuses him; he doesn't know how to reassure you.
Fathers ought to remember how they played when they were boys, and many do, but some forget and are unnerved by their sons' high activity levels. This can lead to control battles or harsh discipline. A state trooper once told me, "My four-year-old son was jumping from couch to couch in the den, knocking things over. I told him a couple of times to cut it out, but he didn't stop. Sometimes, aren't boys just asking to be hit?" I told him that his son's lack of control suggests that the boy might sometimes need to be restrained, but that no boy is ever asking to be hit by his father. If he is "asking" for anything, it may be for his father's attention. A boy who is sad or angry - or even happy - and agitated by emotions he can't handle, needs his father's help. What this father couldn't admit was that he felt a need to hit his son because he was unnerved by his son's impulsivity and by his own feelings of helplessness.
Teachers also have marched into the violence protection arena, prohibiting boys from writing "violent" stories in school, overreacting to comic books, super-hero play and stories that boys love. (I'm glad no one told Shakespeare he couldn't write violent stories.) Once, when I had been extolling the virtues of the "Captain Underpants" books for boys who dislike reading, a teacher came up and said, "Oh yes, I had a third-grade boy who struggled with a language disability, but he loved "Captain Underpants." "Did he read the whole series?" I asked. "No," she said, "I thought that one of those was enough. I steered him back to more appropriate reading." What? Why fire Captain Underpants just as this reading-disabled third-grade boy was learning to read and enjoy a book?
Parents and teachers who overreact to ordinary, playful things in boys often tell me it's because they are concerned about what boys might do when they're older. We become afraid inside. When we do that, we lose credibility with boys. Why? Because we are showing them that we don't trust them to differentiate reality from fantasy, or that we don't like what they like. If we continuously ridicule the things that boys love, eventually they experience us as not liking them. They are confused by our fear and disheartened by our dissatisfaction. No one who is afraid of boys can be of any use to them.
Boys in the United States face serious problems. Forty percent of them are growing up in a household without a biological father; they are falling farther and farther behind girls in school performance and are less involved in extra-curricular activities other than athletics. Many of them experience undiagnosed depressions in their adolescent years which adults rationalize as a "rebellious phase." But regardless of age and developmental phases, all boys yearn for strong role models; they yearn to be useful.
If we are going to be of help to boys we need to acknowledge their psychological struggles and work to understand them. We need to provide them with intact families if we can, and if not, with emotionally avail-able and supportive male role models. We need to provide them with safe schools and teachers who genuinely like and understand boys.
If we want to defuse boy violence in our society, we need to make special efforts to reach boys who have experienced violence at home, humiliation at school or intimidation in their neighborhoods. Criminologists and social workers know very well that it is brutalization, fear and humiliation that make boys violent, not video games or toy guns.
Boys won't make it easy for us. They aren't likely to "share their feelings" or talk about what's scaring or hurting them. Most of them just don't know how. They will often start out by showing us only their frustrated, angry sides. When they do, boys need us to acknowledge their struggle, refuse to be frightened by their pain or negativity, and muster some courage in dealing with them. If we can let go of our fear and engage boys with the confidence that they can and will turn out to be wonderful men, that's what they'll do.
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excuse me but the 15 yr old who killed the little girl a few yrs ago was a female????? and females are using more and more violence so i dont think it is fair to only say boys..
boys are genetically/evolutionarily like this - more violent, if you give a small boy a doll he's going to play with it, except unlike a girl, after 2minutes of getting bored he's going to throw it, stamp on it, and treat it like an airplane . What society can do is first understand they are like this, and then what they need to do is TEACH CLEARLY to a boy what is socially acceptable, what is not. Biological behaviors should be kept, and we should not be afraid, but certain aggressive behaviors needs to be elminated.
"the United States remains the most violent country in the industrialized world" -- well, yes, but most of the violence is committed by Americans who _aren't_ industrialized. I mean, if England suddenly annexed Kenya, Kenya's violence wouldn't suddenly decrease.
"Whenever I watch the news and I see a young man led away in handcuffs, I think, 'That boy has a mother , and that mother screwed up somehow. That boy didn't get what he needed.' " She continued, "I always wonder what it was that his parents should have done." -- In most cases, what his parents should have done was to marry and form a family partnership before having children , and to live in a neighborhood where most parents do the same.
Rosseau's "Noble Savage" idea was bunk. Anthropoligists now know that among both bands of chimps and bands of hunter-gatherer societies, 30% of men die of violence -- mostly in inter-band ambushes. It requires a deliberate process of enculturation, via the Establishment institutions we protested against in the 1960s, to civilize people.
Little to parents, teachers, and the rest of society know that the treatment Males receive form a very young age is preparing Males to fail in the information and also to become more angry at society in an attempt to obtain feelings of self-worth.
The Male Crisis is more complex than many think. The Male Crisis is increasing in many countries. Our society is now entering into a much greater need for information age skills that require a much different manner of upbringing for boys.
This is the reversal - In the nineteenth century, we lived in a very physical world and one that required much strength and courage for boys and later men. This created a form of treatment from a young age to create this strength.
1. Boy children even less than a year old were (and are) given more aggressive treatment to make them tough to compete in the big physical world.
2. Boys were (and are) not given kind, stabilizing, nurturing, mental, emotional, social, verbal, interaction and other kind, caring treatment for fear of coddling the Male child, again to make them tough.
3. Boys were (and are) by design not given love, honor, respect unless they display some form of achievement, status, image, etc. All of this was designed to make boys tough.
Girls were (and are) given more protection from that big physical world, because it was very physical and bad back then. Since girls did not have to be tough, girls could be(and are) given much kind, stabilizing, mental, emotional, social, verbal, interaction from a young age without regard to need for strength. Also since girls did not need to be strong, they were (and are) given love honor, and respect simply for being girls. This protective treatment extended (and extends today) through adulthood.
Now we are living in the information age where the need and means to make a living have been "completely reversed". The toughness, aggressive, neglectful treatment given boys is still in place even from infancy. This is creating higher average stress that impedes thinking, learning, and motivation to learn (mental reward received for mental work expended). It also creates higher activity in working class Males, less stability there – activity is used as a natural stress relief. In addition, boys fall behind in writing due to higher muscle tension created by the high average stress that greatly affects handwriting ability and motivation to write. This is “not some natural, genetic weakness”. Note, nice Middle/Upper class boys do not have this problem of need for higher activity nor do they have the higher muscle tension that inhibits handwriting skills and motivation to write. The lack of kind, caring mental, emotional, social, verbal interaction create a tremendous lag in mental, emotional, social, and verbal skills. In addition, this creates more wariness of social contact due to lack of accumulated skills and more aggression given to boys from a young age. This defensiveness also creates the Male Ego or defensive front boys, later men put on to help protect them from aggression they have received. This further impedes positive social interaction with significant others (teachers).
Girls on the "other hand" are now reaping a windfall of many fine information age skills. The much protection and care girls receive from infancy onward create lower average stress, ease of nature (less need for activity for stress relief), and lower muscle tension that makes handwriting easier, more neat, and more rewarding. The much kind, positive, stabilizing, verbal and other social interaction increase their mental, emotional, social, verbal, and academic skills along with a feeling of love and support as they use that instilled social knowledge in a school setting with teachers. Since girls were (and are) given love, honor, respect, (no need to be tough) simply for being girls, they have an almost assurance of good treatment in society through adulthood. This protection also allows for much more freedom of expression to both vent, gain further support, and more care. This is why girls mature faster than boys. These differences have been socially created.
The complete theory will go to all. Unless we begin treating Males with equal: kind, supportive love, honor, respect, positve-verbal/social/ease of nature we will continue to create boys unfit for the information age. They will be forced to look outside societal norms for feelings of self-worth. Just treating boys badly and then prohibiting destructive thinking will not stop the violence.
The problem is in the home it is with welfare and laws making it almost impossible to punish a child done wrong.I got a belt to my hindend when needed and I gave one to my son when needed, oh you can't do that might leave a bruise, well guess what sometimes you are going leave a little bruiseing and guess what esle, me nor my son or my father or any of my 9 uncle's ever shot up one school. sometimes a harsh punishment is still the best.
The belt does wonders.
I agree that parents have lost their authority while at the same time are still being expected to be responsible for their kids ' actions. It isn't fair to tell a parent they can't spank their child, then jail the parent when the kid robs a bank down the line!
Perhaps if women stopped trying to psychologically emasculate boys by raising them to be pacifists, we wouldn't have this problem. Boys will always resort to scraps and rows to work out their problems, whereas girls are more likely to "talk it out".
What's wrong with letting boys just beat each other up, like they did back in the 40s and 50s? They drop the gloves, beat each other up, make up and are friends after ward. Why complicate that by dragging them into counseling or putting them on Paxil?
You know let them be boys.From a father of 5 boys.Boys will be boys.
I see fighting and making up all the time.One of my sons last month dislocated his shoulder fighting with his frend.My two youngest boys are at it all the time.But they are so close they wont do any thing without the other.
I half way agree with you but havever I did think fight is always the best way and you can't let boys grow up thinking that it is ok or you have men with anger issue beating on women I still think an belt whoopin and teaching them there wrong from right will win in the long run everwhere you go oh you whoop them i got it my son got it my 9 uncle's and countless cousin and what we never shot up a school or never been arrested as for as I know.