Hey everyone! I’m Charity from over at
PitterPatHeart. I’m a mom to a hilarious little 18-month old boy named Isaac (you’ll meet him later), I’m also an editor, a crafter, and trying it out as a blogger and etsy-shop-owner.
Stephie-jean started out as my husband’s friend from way back, but now I claim her as my own. We’ve been following each other’s blog lives for years, to the point where I really feel like we’re the ones who grew up together. I’ve been lucky enough to meet her, and her awesome family, in person a few times, and I just wish they never moved away from the Beehive State. Ah well, at least we have the internet, right?
Anyway, recently I posted on my blog about some books I’ve been reading about gender, mostly about boys and how they learn and develop. Stephie-jean asked me to share some of my thoughts here and I’m so happy to blab about stuff I find interesting, so I said yes. Grin.
A little disclaimer, though: I’m no expert. I’m not even that well-read on the topic (having only read two, very good and interesting but still just two, books about this), so these are just my thoughts and opinions. And I think it’s good to say that I’m sharing them for the purpose of discussion and mutual learning and thinking. One of my favorite ways to learn is just to develop my thoughts by speaking them out loud (or writing them) and getting feedback from the thoughts and ideas of others. So, these are just some thoughts I’ve been having – I hope we can all have some fun thinking and talking about them.
Ok, so, one of the books I read recently was called
Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Leonard Sax
. To give you a little background on the book, the five factors Dr. Sax identified were changes at school, video games, prescription drugs (mostly for ADHD), chemicals called endocrine disruptors that are affecting boys’ sexual development, and what he called the “revenge of the forgotten gods”—basically, not passing the idea of manhood and what it means to be a man from generation to generation.
In this book, Dr. Sax was arguing that a growing number of boys and young men are becoming, in a word, lazy. They are content to drift through life with no real goals or drive—no sense of duty to family, country, or community. In one of the chapters, Dr. Sax gives examples of emails he’s gotten from women who are dating, engaged to, married to, or mothering one of these young men. They all described similar feelings of frustration and being overwhelmed by the responsibility they’ve had to shoulder.
In the same chapter, Sax also shares some emails he’s gotten from young men who identify themselves as this type of person. They all seemed to be asking the same question – what’s wrong with the way I live? Why should I do anything differently? I’m happy and content with my lot in life and I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything. So why should I change? Dr. Sax said to these guys something along the lines of, “Well, if you think you’re happy I can’t convince you otherwise, but someday you may realize all the things you’re missing out on.”
Well, when I read that question and Dr. Sax’s response, I was livid – I was like, boy I will tell you what’s wrong with the way you live. My mind was going crazy with all the things I wanted to say to those boys, and that is what I want to talk about today. Right now. (How’s that for a long-winded introduction?)
So here’s what’s wrong with that attitude: it sucks for women. You can’t live a life of perpetual childhood on your own. Someone has to take care of you, and basically that’s your girlfriend, your wife, or your mom. You have their kindness and long-suffering to thank for your lifestyle, and that is lame, to put it eloquently. And it’s not sustainable. Your seemingly blissful life of non-responsibility will eventually become a nagged existence and possibly even abandonment by women who just can’t take it anymore. Even if it doesn’t, though, even if there are plenty of women who will take up the slack from these slacker guys and support them in their slacker ways, there’s still a problem with this lifestyle: You’re robbing yourself blind.
And there are women who are doing this, too. Even though the book was about boys and men, I think a similar attitude can be seen in some girls and women, who in one way or another refuse to fully participate in life by relying completely on others. That refusal to shoulder responsibility—by either sex—robs us of something so beautiful and so fulfilling: an equal partnership.
For whatever reason you want to believe, divine design, societal traditions, whatever (I believe divine design, as explained
here), men and women have been partnered together in marriage for millennia. We could be using that pairing to accomplish incredible things, to live incredible lives. But if one side of the pair refuses responsibility and the other is forced to take it, the relationship is crippled. Neither one can do much: one because he (or she) refuses to, and the other because she (or he) is weighed down by the financial support and physical care she has to provide for her mate. Her lazy, lame-face mate.
Name-calling aside, because really that doesn’t help anyone, it’s really just sad that someone, anyone, would accept a life of voluntary dependency on others because it is comfortable and easy, rather than make a few sacrifices, stretch a little, and actually live a life.
If there is an epidemic of slackerism attacking our men and boys, I do think that there is (at least) one thing we do as women that contributes to its spread, and that is male-bashing. Here’s where I get on my soapbox, so watch out.
It seems that in an effort to “get our own,” and maybe make up for centuries of being undervalued and abused, we as women have formed this habit of putting down men. We complain about our husbands or just mock the men around us. We even attack young boys by making general, really horrible sweeping statements about the opposite gender—sometimes in the name of humor. A little boy walking through the mall might see a t-shirt that says “Boys Suck” or “I Hate Boys.” Somehow it’s ok for a young girl to wear a shirt like this, even though it devalues and makes an enemy of an entire half of the world’s population.
Now, I’m not saying that women are to blame for men’s problems. We all have to take responsibility for our own issues (that’s sort of the whole point). But, I do think that if a young boy grows up feeling that nothing he does is ever good enough because, due to his gender, he simply “sucks”—well, then what motivation does he have to try? Doesn’t he just learn early on to take the cop-out and live the easy life? And again, that’s just sad, because the easy life has little to no true rewards.
So, mostly what I’m trying to get at here is that we can all benefit—men and women—from supporting one another, rather than focusing on and emphasizing each other’s failings. Part of this, I think, is acknowledging our differences (and yes, we are different, from our brains on down) and realizing that these differences don’t make one gender better or worse than the other. If we can look at each other and see each other’s strengths, and extend a measure of patience and forgiveness for each other’s weaknesses, we might all feel a little more inclined to try harder, knowing that our efforts are actually valued and appreciated.
Anyway, I think this post has gotten quite long enough. What do you all think about this topic? What do you think is the cause of undermotivation in boys? Have you seen it? Do you even think it’s a problem? Let’s discuss.
