We’re Losing Our Boys

 

The latest tragedies, raw and painful, seem to be reflecting a similar thread: young men. Look at the age of the recent shooter at a Walmart in Texas (21 years old,) the killer in Dayton (24), the age of the boy being accused of the murder of the young co-ed at Ole Miss. Look at the ages of the boys on a murderous rampage across Canada, the Florida school shooting, the recent California shooting at the Garlic Festival, the Synagogue in Pittsburgh. They are all young men consumed with hate and vengeance, and armed to do as much damage as possible. They leave “manifestos,” they shout, “I’m angry!”, they cease to think and feel, or see their fellow human beings as part of their world.

The struggle to find blame is next. Social media, politics, violent video games, rampant porn and the new virile push of social engineering are playing a role. Young men begin as young boys, innocent, but are being influenced by all of these things, and their core personalities, their sense of self, is being corrupted, at younger and younger ages. I am not sympathizing with the killers, these acts are beyond despicable, but the patterns are showing these similarities.

The radical group Antifa, whose network now stretches across the continent to Europe, is composed of young men mostly, very angry, courting physical confrontation, and at the very least, intimidation and control.  Young women have become more fearful and maybe rightly so.  I have to think that the removal of boundaries, lack of consequences for actions, monitoring what is being taught in schools, what is accessible on the Internet, the decline of the family and faith, are now all bearing rotten fruit.  The family and the Church have always been the armor before sending young people into the world to live their dream and find their purpose, and to sustain them going forward.

Now social engineering is producing rampant gender confusion, separation of families, labeling any word spoken as questionable, even the words “male and female.”  A baby boy is born with more testosterone, more aggression than baby girls. This is natural and trying to re-direct this physical difference (among others) into some sort of “neutral,” neutered safe expression isn’t working. Neither is labeling people as racist, sexist, homophobic, at every turn.

A mind and soul that is influenced only by a cell phone or computer screen will eventually cease to look up and see the natural world and their place in it, will not feel and relate to actual people or care.  They eventually believe the simulated world is what’s real and has all the answers, and become cut off from meaningful life that brings balance and forms healthy people. They eventually become cut off from themselves, unable to think rationally and are easily manipulated.  We’re losing our youth – our boys to rage and hate more each day because of this separation from real life.

The state can’t solve this, or hardening more “soft targets,” or ignoring laws, screening more social media, and expecting those things to produce more stable and balanced human beings. The human person is both body and soul – there isn’t one without the other.  The fact that some “men’s hearts have grown cold,” indifferent and lifeless, is going to keep happening unless we get back to the basics.  I recently read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men – a classic.  It’s simple, heartfelt, beautiful – a tiny manual in the formation of youth, the recognition that boys are boys and need guidance and love to become solid, stable, strong and hopeful adults.  It’s a sort of God’s blueprint in miniature.  There is no better Architect.

Boys haven’t changed, but society has. I hope we can find a way to save our boys. What can we do now?

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  1. TheRightNurse Member
    TheRightNurse
    @TheRightNurse

    Unsk (View Comment):
    And yes, a single mother can raise good children but it is much more difficult. Some studies suggest that single parent households run by the mother are seven times more likely to live in poverty over a two parent household.

    In that case you have to control for local costs.  In a two parent and two income family, you’re less likely to be poor.  However, in areas like SoCal, you can have two parent families with dual income where no parents are present in the home.  These situations are worse than single parent.  They’re *no parent*, and we have to take a moment and recognize this loss as well.  We are losing parents to the workforce and to rising costs of living.

    If I could stay home with my daughter, you better believe she’d have a much, much different life.

    • #31
  2. TheRightNurse Member
    TheRightNurse
    @TheRightNurse

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):
    The role of parents is being diminished, the teaching of how to parent is being diminished, and the family is everything.

    It is worse than that.

    I had a family member whose husband was abusive (it’s how she ended up married to begin with) and on drugs and just… a bad man.  Of course, he got visitation of his daughter despite nearly killing her mother (but that’s another story).

    And when she went on welfare (when she escaped him), she had to take parenting classes from the state.  The state determines what is good parenting.  Since her kid was now in the system, she had to take orders from the government about how to raise her child.  Spanking was out because it’s abusive.  So when her toddler daughter was biting her, she had to say, “no!  Mommy doesn’t like that!”

    As if a 2 year old cares.

    Parents are being prevented from parenting on threats of abuse.  It’s ridiculous and it’s even worse than you imagine.  Soon, I suspect that gender will be a point of abuse.  How dare you dress your girl in a dress or name her something feminine!  You are stifling her god-given rights of self-expression!

    • #32
  3. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    “If I could stay home with my daughter, you better believe she’d have a much, much different life.”

    Absolutely. 

    Government, particularly in California ,has purposely driven up the cost of living beyond the means of the average family. It is all part of the plan to bring the poor, the working class, and the middle class to their knees to make them dependent on government handouts. The effect on the family situation has been devastating. 

    Today too many young women are looking for a Sugar Daddy kind of man to marry because they know the average young man cannot hope to support a traditional family in the traditional way.  In turn, many young men are simply giving up for the slacker, stoner life because the chances of landing a decent girl to marry are too remote because they can’t hope to support them. So a vicious cycle has started where there are too few eligible men for eligible women their appropriate age range to marry.  This has led to a lower birth rate and a huge increase in people dropping out of society.  Also this leads to too many single parent households again.

    • #33
  4. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    It used to be contemptible to attack someone weaker than you were. I wonder if/how that stopped being inculcated somewhere along the way. 

    • #34
  5. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Quietpi (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    Is part of the problem considering males in their early 20s boys?

    Not “considering.” Being raised without a healthy adult male role model and guide, too many never become adults at all. They remain children in adult bodies. And that is very dangerous.

    Years ago I heard Paul Harvey, on one of his “Rest of the Story” programs, talk about the differences in how boys and girls, and eventually men and women, fight. He said that as boys grow to men, they (normally, healthily) come to realize that they are big and strong enough to kill a person fairly easily. But they also realize that even if they’re mad enough to fight somebody, they don’t want that outcome. So the manner in which we fight, if we fight at all, changes. This transition doesn’t always happen in the absence of an adult male to model what an adult male is supposed to be.

    @therightnurse, above, and I, hardly disagree, I should mention. It’s true that many or most children raised in a single parent household turn out okay. But widows, for instance, are in a very different category than the other types of absent fathers. There’s little difference between a completely absent father and an abusive one. And to add to that, the question of whether the “father figure” is the biological father, or something else, also becomes significant. Based on my experience, in most cases, an abusive “father figure” in a house with growing children is usually boyfriend #X – a “father figure” in the eyes of the mother only.

    Which brings to mind a movie: “Second Hand Lions.”

    That was a good movie. 

    • #35
  6. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Unsk (View Comment):
    It should not be a surprise that 25% of young black adults are in prison. The “system” was designed to encourage that. 

    Don’t you mean young black men? Also, that number seems a little high. Can you quote from some website give a source?

    • #36
  7. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    TheRightNurse (View Comment):
    These situations are worse than single parent. They’re *no parent*, and we have to take a moment and recognize this loss as well. We are losing parents to the workforce and to rising costs of living.

    But according to Steven Pinker and almost all the information with regard to the creation of wealth. Your money buys a better house, better food, and better healthcare then it did in the (supposedly) good old days when the husbands worked the 9-5 and the wives took care of the children. I understand that rising costs of living are a thing but I can’t believe that things were easier back in the fifties. 

    • #37
  8. Goldgeller Member
    Goldgeller
    @Goldgeller

    Front Seat Cat:

    A mind and soul that is influenced only by a cell phone or computer screen will eventually cease to look up and see the natural world and their place in it, will not feel and relate to actual people or care. They eventually believe the simulated world is what’s real and has all the answers, and become cut off from meaningful life that brings balance and forms healthy people. They eventually become cut off from themselves, unable to think rationally and are easily manipulated. We’re losing our youth – our boys to rage and hate more each day because of this separation from real life.

    Great post. I think the part about fathers is important and that’s been hit on in this thread. For me, this above quote is what stood out. There is something about social media and the way you can choose to essentially live your life on it that is disturbing. It isn’t a real substitute for actual relationships and it might even be (probably is) harmful. A loss of real meaning combined with 24/7 access to the ability to troll and be trolled or get sucked into a toxic network and people can do all of that without ever learning how to discuss their problems like a developed human being. All of that strikes me as worrisome.

    • #38
  9. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Henry – you are right 25% of  young black men.

    • #39
  10. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Unsk (View Comment):

    Henry – you are right 25% of young black men.

    A link please. I want proof of statements. 

    • #40
  11. Sandy Member
    Sandy
    @Sandy

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    TheRightNurse (View Comment):
    These situations are worse than single parent. They’re *no parent*, and we have to take a moment and recognize this loss as well. We are losing parents to the workforce and to rising costs of living.

    But according to Steven Pinker and almost all the information with regard to the creation of wealth. Your money buys a better house, better food, and better healthcare then it did in the (supposedly) good old days when the husbands worked the 9-5 and the wives took care of the children. I understand that rising costs of living are a thing but I can’t believe that things were easier back in the fifties.

    Why not?  I grew up in that era and I can tell you that lots of things were easier then.  Without question it was easier for a mother to stay home with her children. We have a greater diversity of food available now, but I don’t believe it is better,  and at that time we were not living with the government food pyramid and health advice that helped make us the sick, obese nation we are now.   If we had more modest houses,  a modest home with two parents is much better than a big house with no adults at home.  Moreover, depending upon where you live, a modest house can be beyond young families today, partly because two-income families have driven up prices.  I live in a modest, 1922 house with tiny closets, a small kitchen, and a leaky basement, but since it’s in the D.C. area, a young family would have to have two high incomes to afford it today.  That means most young families have to move far from their jobs and endure long commutes, and that really ain’t easy.  To say nothing of rotten schools, but maybe that doesn’t come in to Pinker’s calculations.

    • #41
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