Society's War On Boys Has Gone Too Far

Stock photo by S Braswell
www.freeimages.com

Welcome to Penny Pinching Prose where we talk about finances, marriage, rap music... and occasionally devolve into infantile ranting about pet peeves and social awkwardness.

Such is today.

An issue that is near and dear to my heart is how boys—and even men in general—are treated in this culture. Now, Dani and I don't have kids... yet... but that doesn't mean we know nothing about raising children. We have parents. We have close friends who are parents. So we at least have an idea of what's involved. And when I see today's boys being told they can't play cowboys and indians because they may offend several different social groups, my heart hurts for them.

Moreover, I fear for the boys I'm (hopefully) going to have some day and the social repercussions they're going to face because, I'll be honest with ya, we're going to play cowboys and indians TO DEATH! And we're going to use toy guns and wrestle in the living room and set off rockets and learn about bows and knives and practical, every-day guy stuff, and, you know what?—damn a society that tries to tell me not to treat my boys like boys.

I take major issue with the rampant "anti-bullying" message currently plaguing our public school system. Don't get me wrong, there is a line that shouldn't be crossed when kids are being mean to each other and that line should be enforced by adults, bullies should be punished, and kids should be taught to stand up for themselves, but, NEWS FLASH: kids are kids! They're going to call each other "Poopyhead" and "Four eyes" and "Ugly fuggly dirt eater." Such is the realm of Kiddom. You can't coddle every child whose feathers get ruffled because another kid played harder than he did during recess.

The reason I take such issue with this strict anti-bullying stuff is because the great majority of it is aimed at boys who are, a lot of time, doing nothing but being boys. Boys run. They push. They shove. They fight. They like guns. They like adventure and being aggressive, but sometimes they just don't know how to express that stuff and so feelings get hurt. In the last 10-to-20 years America has seen a virtual war on masculinity that aims at making men better girlfriends to their wives while taking away their God-given nature to fight and protect and be strong and courageous and adventuresome.

American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Hoff Sommers has recently released a new book called The War Against Boys, in which she talks about this very issue. She says it's past time to make elementary schools more friendly to boys, and she has four ways to do that: turn boys into readers; inspire their imagination; get rid of zero-tolerance policies; and bring recess back. “Being a normal boy is a serious liability in today’s classroom,” Sommers said in a short video lesson for Prager University, a conservative video series. ”Increasingly, our schools have little patience for what only a few decades ago would have been described as boyishness.” To no one's great surprise, Sommers is being met with tons of politically correct resistance.

I was recently hired to videotape an elementary school play when a couple of 7-to-10 year old boys noticed the pocket knife in my camera bag, which I keep with me because it has some handy tools I use with my camera gear. The boys were so unaccustomed to seeing a knife on their school campus that they took a lot of interest in it, but as soon as the principal noticed what they were so gaga about she confiscated it.

"You're not allowed to bring that onto school property," she told me.

She locked the pocket knife in the school cafeteria as though it had done something wrong, until the play was over and I had to leave, at which point she kindly returned it to me.

Our schools have become too sanitary, too feelings-centered, and so competition-free that the instinctual needs of boys are not being met. It drives me nuts, and it's one of the main reasons why my boys won't be going to public school. They'll be homeschooled where they'll learn tons of useful stuff, where they'll be taught respect and kindness, but not browbeaten when their youthful energy results in "boyishness."

And when the zombie apocalypse finally comes it will be my boys who lead the resistance for the simple reason that they'll be the only ones who know how.

Developing An Attitude Of Gratitude In Your Kids

"Why is it that a two-year-old is often happier playing in the box a toy came in rather than playing with the actual toy? Why is it that children living in poverty in third-world countries seem happier and more content than kids in wealthy nations? Because neither is caught in the trap of comparisons. They don’t know what they are missing out on. They are simply grateful."

That's the idea behind Smart Money, Smart Kids, a brand-new book out by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze. Literally, it just came out today. I think.

I remember one Christmas when I was a kid, probably eight years old, I was tearing open presents like a madman... er, boy. My stack of presents was pretty big, and was piling up so fast that I couldn't unwrap them fast enough. I was oblivious to everyone else in our small crowded living room—my cousins Nick and Danny, my aunts and uncles, my sister Tess, my parents. I couldn't think of anything else but me. Me and all those glorious presents that just kept on coming!

I don't remember being aware of Philip until my dad tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to come into the bedroom. He closed the door behind me and told me that Philip was a foster kid, just a little older than me, who had been sent to live with my aunt and uncle the day before Christmas. No one knew he was coming, so no one had gotten him any presents. I remember feeling a little embarrassed at that point by all the presents I had so greedily been diving into.

Dad made me put on my coat and boots and we drove into town looking for a store, any store, that was actually open on Christmas. When we found a little hardware/convenient store, dad took me inside and asked me to pick out a couple presents I thought Philip might like. I found a radio-controlled car and an action figure. We took the toys back to our apartment, wrapped them, and gave them to Philip.

I don't know if Philip expected to get anything for Christmas or not, but being a boy of around 10 or 11, I'm sure he was hoping for something. The look on his face when I handed him the presents was one of surprise and happiness. He had that radio-controlled car racing around the kitchen in just a few minutes.

I tell this story because I think, more often than not, we see kids on Christmas throwing temper tantrums because they didn't get what they wanted, or they didn't get enough. I tell ya, it was an eye-opening thing for me to witness a kid like Philip endure a Christmas fast while I was enjoying a Christmas feast.

In their book, Smart Money, Smart Kids, Dave and Rachel talk about raising children who are sincerely grateful for what they have. How do you teach a child to develop an attitude of gratitude? How do you show them what it is to appreciate what they've got?

I think for my kids it's going to involve taking them to a soup kitchen or homeless shelter on Christmas Eve where they can help serve the less fortunate at a time when they're getting plenty. I want to give them a visual picture to keep in mind whenever they think they don't have enough, or complain because of what they have. Because I'll tell you this, after I gave those presents to Philip and went back to my stack of gifts—which had grown considerably in the time it took my dad and I to go on our brief shopping trip—I didn't have the same greedy, gimmie-gimmie attitude. I was sort of blown away by what my dad had done, and embarrassed that I didn't see the need that he saw in Philip.

"We all have things to count as blessings, but we also have a tendency to lose our sense of awe and our sense of gratitude. Make sure your heart is full of gratitude for the blessings in your own life. Let your children witness this in you, and they will want to respond with gratitude for the blessings in their own lives." —Smart Money, Smart Kids.

What has it been like for you teaching your kids to be grateful?

Keep pinchin' :-)