In Defense of Boys

"We think boys are rude, unsensitive animals but it is not so in all cases. Each boy has one or two sensitive spots, and if you can find out where they are located you have only to touch them and you can scorch him as with fire."  - Mark Twain's Autobiography

I think it is time to rise to the defense of a boy's right to be a boy.  It seems to me that the world today is not a boy's world anymore.  As a boy growing up in Tennessee, I remember free and unfettered summers.  I remember roaming the woods, climbing trees to my heart's content, and doing boy things.

Today the world is much more restricted.  Boys have to be kept in sight at all times.  Boys must be supervised.  School, soccer practice, and swimming lessons are all closely supervised.  Pick-up games seem to be a relic of the past.  Where is the free time?  Where are the lazy days when a boy could just follow his nose?

I mourn the passing of the boy's world.  So much of life today including school is not geared to boys.  School is much more attuned to a girl than to a boy.  Girls perform better in school.  The whole pace of school is more feminine than masculine.  Educators are becoming concerned.  Psychologists are trying desperately to find a cure for what ailes our boys, and our boys are in trouble.  Just look at college and university enrollments.  Just look at graduate schools.  Overall our young women are doing better educationally than our young men.  This does not bode well for the future.

We seem to have lost our ability to understand boys.  Yesterday, this was illustrated on the Today Show.  Co-anchor Savannah Guthrie on Monday interviewed a Boy Scout named Jared from Salt Lake City.  Jared survived being lost in the wilderness by building a lean-to and covering himself with dirt at night.  Jared's quick thinking and physicality are amazing.  He is an example of all that makes a boy great.

As an interviewer, she should have known better.  Savannah Guthrie is intelligent.  She is a former White House reporter.  She has a law degree, but this woman knows absolutely nothing about a boy.  She knows nothing about the fragile heart of a boy.  At the end of the interview about his ordeal Savannah asked, "Did you cry Jared?"

The Boy Scout said, "Yes."  He admitted on national television that he cried.  What a horrible question for a twelve-year-old boy!  This is the most embarrassing thing you can ask a boy.  He will not understand the question.  Savannah, your question shamed him.  On the other hand, this is a question very suitable for a girl.  Girls are all about feelings.  A Girl Scout would have understood and responded without trauma.  Jared was reminded that he lives in a world not his own.  In this restricted world of parents and teachers and coaches, Jared has little room to be a boy.