Raising Boys
The talk on ‘Raising Boys in the 21st Century’ was interesting. It made me feel like a feminist, man hater, bra burning fanatic. The talk was based on a book that I haven’t read; this is a critique of the talk not the book.
To start with we take 4 examples of ‘failing boys’
The first is five years old and is very active- always climbing, fighting and jumping. He plays roughly and the only time he is quiet or still is in front of the TV.
The second is 8 and a half, going on 30. He can talk about a serious topic intellectually and enjoys exploring something that captures his interest. However he struggles to socialise with other children and when a subject doesn’t capture his interest he misbehaves in class.
The third is 14, he hates school and gets into trouble drinking and smoking etc.
The fourth is 16 and disappears into a black bedroom, he lacks communication and spends lots of time plying computer games.
The UK has the unhappiest children in Europe and boys are the biggest problem, they struggle educationally (75% of children with reading difficulties are boys, 80% of those with developmental and mental health issues, 90% of crime is committed by boys etc)
So we’ve conjured up a picture of doom and gloom, with lots of stereo types we can all recognise. This gets us into a nice nostalgic mood….remember the golden years, lets go back there..
So why has this happened?
Well of course there was the feminist movement that drove woman out to work and away from the home so that traditional female nurturing skills were not passed on. My god some women don’t even cook….
There is an imbalance between the traditional male/female skills. From the stone age men have been more aggressive, competitive and risk driven . They needed to be to catch mammoth…Woman have been better at social skills, community based skills.
The media…boys like TV more it captures their attention in a different way to girls.
So what should we do?
Love
Language
Discipline/boundaries
Play
Literacy
I’ve nothing particularly against the idea that we should love our children, or talk to them or even that they should have lots of outside time. However I d object to the original analysis.
Firstly I object to the idea that men didn’t used to fail. That they used to be successful developed people. Men used to be violent, they used to hit their wives and children and this was considered acceptable. Woman weren’t allowed to succeed –they weren’t allowed to go to university, in the 1960s the number of girls passing the 11+ was limited. Men succeeded when there was no competition. And finally there wasn’t a golden age where all children (or even all male children learnt to read). It was a class based thing- huge numbers of working class children got no opportunity for education.
Secondly I object to the woman in the home argument. For centuries working class woman have had to work, to feed themselves and their children. Woman had to work as servants, take in washing, work in mills…in short do hard backbreaking work for long hours and little pay. They weren’t at home nurturing…Even in the 1950s many women worked. Also studies (wish I could remember which damn study) have shown that working woman spend a very small amount less quality time with their children than stay at home mums; but the husbands of working woman spend significantly more time with their children than the husbands of stay at home mums. The children have a net gain on parental attention.
Plus where are the fathers in this? Children learn partly my emulating the adults around them. My sons image of what it means to be a man will be formed by looking at his father. His father is a caring man who spends time with him and tries to explain the world around him.
