Boy Trouble

There have been a couple of articles in Time during the last month about boys. I used to be one of those, perhaps I even still am, so I found them interesting.

The first article included a study of teenage boys, their behavior, and how things have changed for boys in the last couple of generations. As the article pointed out, this filled a gap in the literature. For there have been study after study of teenage girls, and nothing like the same attention to boys.

Interest in girls has followed the revolution of feminism since the 1960’s. It is clear that this gave young women many opportunities, at least in the part of the world where the revolution has not been held back. These opportunities, coupled with developments in technology such as social media, drove many changes in behavioural norms and a number of challenges.

I saw this clearly with my daughter, now twenty-four, and was able to celebrate teenage years with her that had fewer constraints than those of her mother or grandmother. Her generation, at least in Europe, had the benefit of not being limited in their educational or career choices, and of many more social freedoms.

The young women of today can choose their attitude and their style. They can choose when to be active and when passive, and it is now more acceptable for women to take the lead with boys. There are alternative role models available to Barbie. Millennial young women can thank earlier feminist icons for suffering through the hard yards to make this possible.

In my experience, the results are overwhelmingly positive. Characters bloom. Diversity flourishes. Confidence emerges. My daughter had few hang ups about her own sexuality and how to handle herself with men. Feminism helped, and so did the rise of social media. As a thirteen-year-old, she escaped to her room as often as possible to connect on MSN, to flirt and experiment harmlessly with boys, and, equally importantly, to compare notes and feelings with other girls.

As a parent, I was always at least one step behind. Each time I found the courage to try to throw in some worldly wisdom, I was too late, as the wisdom had already been learned from peers.

The new world of opportunity for young women still has its challenges. Social media can be indescribably bitchy, perpetuate clans and create winners and losers. At one stage, more than half of the girls in my daughter’s class were seeing the doctor or taking some medication for psychological issues. Mild depression was common.

All of this has been well documented. Crucially, girls, with their more open way of observing and sharing feelings with each other, have been able to find their way. And adults have also found a way to respond. The embarrassing grandma, with inappropriate remarks about virginity and marriage, has largely vanished, and even Walt Disney films start to portray more balanced female figures.

This is all great. But what about boys? The article suggests that boys have been subjected to just as much of a revolution, but that attitudes and responses have not followed suit, leaving generations of suffering kids. I tend to agree.

Start with the embarrassing granddad. He still exists and has not changed. A young teenage boy is still expected to sow wild oats, while not doing anything granddad wouldn’t do and staying out of trouble. In other words, the boy is expected to be the same unthinking, sex-obsessed, feral creature that I was expected to be.

This stereotype was damaging even in my day. I may have been sex-obsessed, but I had no idea what to do with that obsession, and had all sorts of false notions about my role, about girls and about consequences. The result was paralysis, acne, and awful hang-ups that persist to this day. I was not alone in this pain, but, true to my gender, I suffered it in silence, running away from any advice and any analysis of my own feelings.

But, tough as it was in my day, now it is worse, since all sorts of expectations have become jumbled up. Boys can still just as easily fall in love, and be just as easily hurt, but the road now is packed with new obstacles. Girls are allowed to behave differently. Social media speeds everything up. A humiliation can be much more public.

So the journey is tougher, but the map remains rudimentary. Advice from seniors still resembles the unhelpful embarrassing granddad. Peers are available, but boys find it much harder to share their feelings. Rather than ask each other questions, they tend to bombast and bullying to hide their true feelings. As a result, an exaggerated hierarchy develops among the boys, and winners and losers become more extreme. Inept at playing the new game with girls, they resort too easily to the weapons they do have, intimidation or running away. Fewer boys see the doctor, but more boys become seriously depressed and even take their own lives.

So the scene I witness in my own house daily becomes the norm. The girl is on facebook and her mobile phone, flirting, sharing and learning, as well as occasionally suffering. But the boy is hiding behind a computer game, locking away anything more real or more threatening.

Sadly, the article is at its weakest when advising us parents what to do about the issue. I can work out myself that perpetual questions will be greeted as warmly as my mother’s public questioning about my spots. I can guess that finding a quiet time and inviting confidence is the goal, but I didn’t pick up many hints about how to attain it. Perhaps there are no easy answers, and we just have to wait to see him find his own solutions.

I can conclude that more studies might help, and I thank Time for sharing one study. As with many issues, awareness is half the battle and it also helps to know that others have the same experiences. Even though on balance opportunity in life is still greater for boys compared with girls, even in developed countries, I think the balance of emotional challenge has begun to shift against the boys.

True equality of opportunity was the subject of the second article, and the global experiment is Sweden. There any gender difference is challenged, especially in early childhood. I remember this well. I lived in Stockholm and I observed the effects.

I support this movement unreservedly. Yet it gives me qualms. When I lived in Stockholm, it was noticeable that women were more confident than men. Even physically, women walked tall while men cowered.

It is possible to hypothesise an ugly future for this experiment. Is it possible that within a couple of generations of this cowering, Swedish men would become infertile? It certainly felt that way to me. At the time, this made me fear for the experiment and a part of me wished it would be rolled back in time.

But reading the two articles together enabled a second response. The experiment is just and correct and we should all advocate for it to continue, to accelerate and to spread around the world. Start in practical places like childcare provision, maternity leave and working hours.

Then add a missing ingredient. Help the men. Start by helping the boys as they mature to understand how to succeed in the new environment. The feminist revolution – wonderful yet incomplete though it is – has created a new need – for men. Solve the trouble with boys, and the revolution can proceed with confidence.

I wish a happy Christmas and blessed 2014 to everyone. I have just now succeeded in one resolution I made last New Years Eve, to write three blog posts per month. That was not so hard. Yet it was a typically male resolution, as did not challenge my feelings or require any vulnerability. Still, successes should be celebrated. I hope you have had your own successes in 2013 to celebrate.