The Demise of Guys

I have an invested interest in this topic. I just gave birth to a hefty and beautiful baby boy a few months ago. I have a daughter as well who is 4 yrs old. I see her strong personality and I admire her range of interests. I brag to myself 'Wow, I've done an awesome job raising her to be a strong girl, and someday woman'. Now, what about raising our boy? Well, I was hoping my husband would give me guidance on that, but being honest, he states he never knew his father so he will be "winging" it also.

I realized our generation (or younger) and majority of boys have not had a male role model available to them. The single mom phenomena or movement, whatever you want to call it, was becoming increasingly popular in my days. Today women are choosing not to have a man around for conceiving and raising children. The likelihood of a boy growing up without a father now is considerable. Another sad aspect is boys are less likely to admit to needing help or reaching out so possible male role models may be around, for example a teacher, but boys are probably not going to reach out.

How can we not expect this to effect boys and men? No significant changes in society go unnoticed, undiagnosed, or in some way effecting society as a whole. For instance we will see in 20+ years or sooner, how the tech phenomena will effect the younger generations growing up glued to a tech gadget. Indeed we are seeing the changes already while many are being fore-casted.

The trouble is when something in particular effects a whole gender. The fact that we're dealing with a recession and slow economy, which tends to employ less labor jobs (typical for young males) and many of those jobs are now being shipped overseas too, is cause to worry for our boys. The other issues is technology being what it is, not only do boys play a ton of video games, but now they don't even have to talk to anyone in person with texting etc and they learn about women through a vast array of online porn sites.

The negative effects on males is that of social, psychological, and academically as well as employment opportunities. I personally believe social skills are invaluable for boys, whereas girls tend to be born with a bit of the social bug already in them. Females are also relationship oriented by nature- of course this isn't a hard and fast rule but it's fairly predictable and standard as compared to boys. Boys need exactly what is gradually slipping away.

I'm using the proverbial "they" and referring to the media, teachers, psychologists, and other information coming from sources who witness the changing society's effects on boys.

What they're saying:

• "It's becoming a woman's world"
• "more women are going to college and employment opportunities are now centered around knowledge-based carers, giving those (women) with an education the advantage"
• "boys are learning about sex and women through online porn"
• "video games and tech gadgets are impariing their social skills"
• "Our boys are growing up now in conditions they did not create"
• "Fatherless boys are most likely to rape, have anger problems, learning difficulties, developmental delays, run away, drop out of school, and go to prison"

It's not really so much about the war of the sexes anymore as much as it is about war and sex. Another concern we face is a whole generation of young men who went off to war and have seen images now imprinted on their brain that shouldn't be brought home. They come home to their wives and families, only to discover they don't feel like they belong in that world. It's effecting them as fathers and husbands. Women are kicking their husbands out of the house for playing too many video games (many featuring war themes) and online porn is ruining marriages as well.

Many who come home from being deployed have PTSD (Port Traumatic Stress Disorder). This disorder has serious implications including suicide, abusiveness, nightmares, lack of social function, depression and other mental disorders. War, porn, and video games are desensitizing our young men to a point that they have no clue how to live in reality, how to build genuine relationships, thrive in an academic setting, and actively seek or retain employment.

An extremely reputable psychologist has written an e -book on this topic, 'The Demise of Guys; Why Boys are Struggling and What we can do About it'. The book is based on alarming trends and statistics; in record num­bers, guys seem to be flam­ing out aca­d­e­m­i­cally, wip­ing out socially with girls, and as they mature, fail­ing sex­u­ally with women".

Also, "other fac­tors emerged such as the role of being father­less for boys who are liv­ing their lives isolated, play­ing video games and watch­ing inter­net porn. But the soci­etal issues involved are really mon­u­men­tal and must be more widely rec­og­nized and dis­cussed. We also wanted to get the ball rolling on pro­vid­ing some ini­tial solutions," sated by the author.

So what does this book have that others claiming "alarming" issues and something we should all be aware of, doesn't? I'm not crying wolf here nor am I ranting about global warming. As I stated before, the author Phillip Zimbardo is one of the best in the field, a pioneer in psychology (look up Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment), and the man does his research. He is a gifted genius in his field and doesn't write or state anything unless he is well informed.

His suggestions on what to do about it, well first is mass recognition- as a society, we need to not only be aware but realize the consequences. Also, reversing the trends is part of the solution- not as much access to computers and gaming systems. The sad thing is, parents are overly busy and substitute their time for that of a tech gadget. Hey, I've seen it even at a pre-school level- the 4 yr old with a gaming toy or portable dvd player.

Some of the research in this book include:

• Boys account for 70% of D's and F's in school
• Boys are more likely to have ADD (attention deficit disorder).
• The average teen boy spends 2 hours a week watching online porn and 13 hours a week playing video games
• Most boys are not sure of their role in society because of mixed messages by the media

Here's another one of my concerns: Having a 13 yr old step-daughter, I have noticed that when both girls and boys are not doing well or striking out with the opposite sex, they are quicker to consider they may be gay...or "other" (metrosexual or trans, etc) of some sort.

What to do about it? First is mass recognition- as a society, we need to not only be aware but realize the consequences now before the effects are too great to reverse. Also, reversing the trends is part of the solution- not as much access to computers and gaming systems. The sad thing is, parents are overly busy and simultaneously lazy. They substitute their time for that of a tech gadget. Hey, I've seen it even at a pre-school level- the 4 yr old with a gaming toy or portable dvd player.

Why I'm going to beg you to read this and if you care about a boy, do your part!

Hello!!! 93% of prison inmates are male! The school systems suck today so don't expect your child to get attention there or learn everything there. Boys think reading is girly! Even if you are raising a girl, what kind of guys do you want available for her? The rise of women will be at the cost of men.