"W\hen there’s a lack of father involvement, boys’ development is inhibited in more than 50 areas, which I document in The Boy Crisis," Warren Farrell told PJ Media. From bad educational outcomes to poor mental health to high unemployment, boys and young men in America are struggling, and more involved fatherhood would help combat this crisis.
"There are so many levels of struggles with men today," he told PJ Media. "In education, they’re falling behind girls on every academic subject, particularly reading and writing, which are the two biggest predictors of success or failure. Boys are much more likely to drop out of high school and among boys who drop out of high school, the unemployment rate in the early 20s is more than 20 percent."
When it comes to mental health, "boys are committing suicide equally to girls at the age of 9 but at the age of 10-14, boys commit suicide twice as often as girls." In the 15-19 age bracket, boys commit suicide four times as often, and in the 20-25 age bracket, boys commit suicide five times as often as girls do.
These various maladies often trace back to the absence of a father or a strong male role model, Farrell claimed. "Our school systems are leaving boys vulnerable in the sense of having very few male teachers in elementary school and kindergarten. Boys often go from mother-only homes to female-dominated child care centers and elementary schools. Then we wonder why boys are vulnerable to gangs and to drug dealers to provide them a sense of belonging and reputation and respect."
"The boys who are involved in the boy crisis — struggling with depression, alienation, disobedience, video game and porn addiction, drugs, high levels of immediate gratification — these are almost all boys who have minimal or no father involvement, brought up by single mothers or whose parents divorce at a relatively early age (before 14 or 15) and the father spends less than equal time with the children," he explained.
The future is not male or female — it is both. American society cannot truly be healthy until the challenges facing both girls and boys are taken seriously.
Learn more in this interview with Dr. Warren Farrell.
Why is it important to be aware of the factors affecting boys?
Because we love both our sons and our daughters. When your son hears “the future is female” it does not inspire him to look forward to his future. If he withdraws, and ends up in an unemployment line living in his parents’ basement, your daughter also loses: she will not be searching unemployment lines and basements for her future husband. We are all in the same family boat. When only one sex wins, both sexes lose.
In The Boy Crisis, I discuss ten factors causing the boy crisis. However, the most important by far is dad-deprivation: minimal or no contact from the biological dad. Especially after divorce. Without a fully-involved, biological dad, boys today are more vulnerable to the five major areas that constitute the boy crisis:
It is a crisis of education. Worldwide, 60% of the students who achieve less than the baseline level of proficiency in any of the three core subjects of the Program for the International Assessment are boys1 Even boys’ IQs are dropping.2
It is a crisis of mental health. Boys’ suicide rate3 goes from only slightly more than girls before age 15 to three times that of girls’ between 15 and 19, to 4 1/2 times that of girls between 20 and 24. Mass shooters4, prisoners5 and Islamic State terrorism recruits6 are at least 90% male.
It is a crisis of physical health. American men’s life expectancy has decreased two-tenths of a year even as American women’s has remained the same7. Boys and men are dying earlier in 14 out of 15 of the leading causes of death8.
It is a crisis of shame — of boys feeling that their masculinity is toxic; that the future is female; that dads are but bumbling fools or deadbeats.
It is a crisis of economic health. The economy is making a transition from muscle to mental — or from muscle to microchip, as with the 1.7 million truck drivers9 predicted to be largely replaced by self-driving trucks. With the United States neglecting vocational education, those with no high school degree have nearly three times the unemployment rate of those with a college degree.
How can people advocate appropriately for equality and make sure they're making appropriate comparisons?
By being aware of the special struggles faced by our daughters and sons—being aware of what leads our daughters to lose self-esteem or be depressed, and knowing how to prevent that; and what leads our sons to be more likely to commit suicide, withdraw into video game addiction, or addiction to drugs, porn, alcohol or life-risking activities.
What can parents do to support their sons' development into strong young men?
- Understand how to create for your son a model of checks-and-balance parenting, in which the nine differences between most dads’ style (e.g., rough-housing; boundary enforcement) and most moms’ style (e.g., nurturing; protecting) are negotiated so your child experiences the best of both worlds.
- Take couples’ communication training that teaches you how to hear criticism without becoming defensive.
- Conduct family dinner nights at least once a week during which you employ the five essentials in Appendix A of The Boy Crisis that allow you to teach every family member to listen so that each member of the family feels best heard.
- Get your son involved in both team sports and pick-up team sports; in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts; in a faith-based community with a group of boys who share what is bothering them; find your son one or two mentors; find your son someone to mentor.
Dr. Warren Farrell is the co-author (with John Gray) of The Boy Crisis, plus the former The New York Times bestseller, Why Men Are the Way they Are. He is the only man ever elected three times to the Board of the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) in NYC. He was chosen by The Financial Times of London as one of the world’s top 100 Thought Leaders.
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