Boys into men

I recalled how things have changed since the 1960s or even the 1980s and the detrimental changes that have caused so much turmoil for so many boys in our culture. In those days, the media was relatively innocuous. Grisly and raunchy video and computer games had not invaded every home. Schools were better funded. More mothers were able to be at home with their children. We didn’t worry about child abduction and violence and random murders. Gang activities and street shootings weren’t reported regularly. Crudeness and disrespect were definitely discouraged. And, of course, we had never heard the term “shelter in place.”

Add the “male mystique” that so many boys in our culture have for so long emulated, and it’s easy to see how they become troubled. Males are expected to be physically invulnerable, independent, aggressive and stoic. Despite some gains in the awareness of this problem, this cultural expectation, in most cases, continues to prevail, and in one way or another influences our boys every day as their penchant for aggression and competition is regularly exploited by the media. Just by watching TV, boys will see men as bumbling idiots, crude Neanderthals, lecherous predators, mindless automatons obsessed with power and violence, narcissistic and arrogant athletes, entertainers and politicians or maybe just mindless airheads who have no clue. For too many boys, this is what they have to look to for role models. 

As James Barbarino, author of “Lost Boys” wrote: “Boys fall victim to an unfortunate synchronicity between the demons inhabiting their internal world and the corrupting influence of modern American culture. They lost their way in the pervasive experience of vicarious violence, crude sexuality, shallow materialism, mean-spirited competitiveness and spiritual emptiness.”

It seems that more than ever many boys need thoughtful nurturing and support, but a great many are lacking in that regard. Unfortunately, too many are born to parents who have no intention or ability to adequately care for them, who don’t have their own lives together enough to provide for them physically, much less emotionally. As a result, a deep-seated rage often develops. Such boys will be considered successful if its ramifications are generally considered socially acceptable — such as participation in violent sports, exploiting others for the compulsive accumulation of wealth and power, defiantly blocking the progress of legislation in Congress or producing gory and sadistic movies. But when the dysfunction breaks through in murderous rampages, we are horrified.

In writing of males, Andrew B. Smookler, author of “Out of Weakness” offers: “Our rage is the hidden wound from the war our culture wages against our nature and that remains implanted to rage within us. And rage in turn is the passion of war.” Add violence and homicide.

Too many boys lack the presence of at least one consistent, well-adjusted male adult who appreciates him, supports him, shows him by example to express his feelings appropriately, spends unhurried time with him, overtly values education, dispenses loving discipline and helps him direct his propensity for action, competition and assertion in a productive way. Too many boys are left to accept the values of their peers, exploitative corporate interests and whatever unsavory aspects of our culture that they happen to encounter.

The health and well-being of its children is the barometer of any culture’s viability. How long are we going to look the other way when repeated significant indicators point to the despair, loneliness and alienation of so many of our boys? As Michael Gurian wrote in “The Purpose of Boys”: “Whether isolated or becoming physically dangerous, even the most hardened young man began his adolescence as a young boy who yearned, because of his own internal nature, for his family, community, and society to provide him with safe risks, important challenges and deeply felt rites of passage to purposeful manhood.”

Happy May birthdays, fellows — and kudos to you and other heroes as described by Miriam Meizdian.

Since 1984, Dorothy Dimitre has written more than 1,000 columns for various local newspapers. Her email address is gramsd@aceweb.com.