Laura Bush Says Something Wise: Boys Need Nurturing

Great Debates
1

In an article based on an interview in last Sunday’s Parade magazine, Laura Bush defined what she’ll be attempting to accomplish over the next four years as First Lady. And while some of her positions leave something to be desired from my perspective, there’s one that I think deserves strong support across the political spectrum. Here’s Parade’s press release on the article, which includes the most significant quotes which I would have used.

I’ve seen a great deal of what Mrs. Bush complains about over the years, and I think her drawing attention to the problem and proposing some first cuts at solutions is admirable.

2

Can I vote for her please?

3

Hmm. I guess I could debate something if the message were any more detailed than “boys need good parenting”.

4

Good point; I was so pleased to see Laura Bush, of all people, endorsing something I feel strongly about, that I didn’t structure it into a debatable issue.

Try this: Mrs. Bush’s predecessor as First Lady, the current Senator from New York, proverbially said (and wrote a book about) “It takes a village [to raise a child].”

Laura is advocating a means of giving nurture and guidance to boys as they embark on growing up, rather than leaving it to their putative ability to be self-reliant (which many are very unsure of themselves, though it’s “unmanly” to admit it, even when they need help the most). She wants to start with families, but find other ways – Boys Clubs, BB/BS, school teams – to give that nurture.

What, then, is the appropriate role for the community when parents do not give nurture, or enough nurture? (And who decides what is “enough”?)

As previously (and perhaps in the near future) a stopgap father-figure to some boys who did not have strong, caring father figures in their lives, I’m acutely aware of the need there. But what I did was without official sanction, and almost contrary to municipal policy.

What are the proper roles of individuals outside the nuclear family, and social institutions both governmental and volunteer/charitable, in providing that needed nurture?

How’s that for debatable?

5

Not being a parent myself, I always find these questions rather humbling.

During my last couple years in undergrad, I used to work as a summer recreation counselor at a day-camp way down in Portland, ME. Many of the kids who attended came from the projects (yes, even Portland has projects, Riverton and places on Munjoy Hill being especially rough), often grew up in abusive environments, and were, not surprisingly quite a handful at times. I had an especially sobering experience when a kid took a pool cue in our game room and broke it clean in half over another kid’s head. Simple protocol required I send him home to his parents and recommend he be suspended for a week. I made the call to have his father pick him up, and expressed in no uncertain terms that this was beyond unacceptable; the boy could have seriously injured his victim, and so I felt it was absolutely essential that he be made aware of how dangerous his actions were, and how much worse things might have been. I suggested he be helped to control his anger, and hung up the phone.

The next day, I was chastised by a couple other kids for telling the boy’s father what he’d done, as they heard the boy had been brutally flayed for his transgression. I spent that night sleepless, staring at the ceiling.

When the kid came back, I really wanted to reach out to him in some way, but the head counselor reminded me quite sternly I wasn’t a social worker, and to not treat him any differently than any of the other kids, as long as he was staying in line. Sadly, the boy got in another major fight not three weeks after the pool cue incident, and that was that: He got expelled from the program, and I never saw him again.

I really didn’t know how to deal with this experience, so I took the easy way out: I started donating to the Opportunity Farm, and never stopped. Again, having been reminded that I am not a trained professional in dealing with troubled boys, I figured the best I could do was help enable those who were. I also think donating time to read in schools or do other fairly limited mentoring is probably a great way to lead by example. I’m somewhat leary of getting too involved with the surrogate parenting thing, simply because I feel so unqualified myself, having never raised a child. Others may feel differently, if their confidence level is higher.

6

Yeah, can’t wait to see the meat-eating conservatives tear Laura a new one for playing me-too to Hillary… Sheah, right. :rolleyes:

As for the OP, being an advocate for improving children’s welfare is a politically safe position. I’m afraid I don’t see where the debate is.

7

Not to derail this, but I think it may be helpful (if not necessary) to better frame the discussion.

The statement from Laura is “I think we’ve paid a lot of attention to girls for the last 30 years, and we have this idea in the United States that boys can take care of themselves.” In other words, the context of this debate is that girls have been favored to the possible exclusion of boys. At least partially a compare and contrast debate.

But this raises questions in my mind – I’m not sure exactly what “roles outside the nuclear family” have been put in place that focus on girls. Does this come down to equal support for sports programs? Repeatedly telling girls in school “you can do anything you want”? Affirmative action regarding scholarships? These don’t seem to be what you’re getting at.

If there really aren’t any such “institutions”, the mention of girls is a red herring that just provides a warm fuzzy feeling and no substance. Which is fine, actually, if the intention is simply to bring attention to the (perceived) problem. However, then I’m not sure how this rolls into providing said institutions; as LoopyDude points out, it amounts to saying “We need better parenting for boys”.

It seems to me that too often “nurturing boys” amounts to “expecting them to act like girls”. Not that that’s what you’re claiming or advocating (nor is Mrs. Bush necessarily), but I’m just trying to understand the context of the proposed debate. Can you refine it some?

8

Christina Hoff Sommers reported the problems with boys in some detail a few years ago, in an article in the Atlantic that was since expanded into a book.

Article here.

From the introduction:

I hope this helps frame the debate. Incidentally, I think both Christina Hoff Sommers and Laura Bush are spot on with their concerns.

9

Well, at least the article says we’re better at something.

10

Again, that’s an interesting blurb, and of course, if those statistics are accurate, it’s cause for concern, but…well, who’s going to debate that? Laura’s spot on. That’s swell, but what matters is how she uses the cachet of the office of First Lady to address the limited concerns. HRC, love her or hate her, wrote a whole book on the subject. Thus far, Laura has encouraged us to volunteer, and said Boys Clubs are Good Things[sup]TM[/sup]. That’s swell, and all, but the content is so safe and inoccuous, there just isn’t much to comment on. Beyond that, it’s everyone’s WAG about how best to address the alleged problem of “boys”.

11

Well, just talking about it is a step in the right direction, considering that the problems with boys Hoff Sommers mentions aren’t known to most people.

The role of the First Lady traditionally has been that of a bully pulpit. I’m reminded of Lady Bird Johnson’s conservation efforts and Betty Ford’s crusade to encourage women to get mammograms. Laura Bush opines on educational concerns in a similar vein.

12

I wish she’d tell me if I should say no to drugs or not.

13

I’m not an Atlantic subscriber, so I can’t read the article. Is there another link you can use?

Effectively, from what you posted from the introduction, much of this comes down to the way boys are treated in school. Outside of adjusting teachers’ training, I’m still not clear on what role the governement plays here, outside of advocating a change in societal norms.

Again, I’ll ask - what has been done for girls (and not for boys) that fits this debate?

14

Hee, that tickles me. :slight_smile:

I doubt that anyone is going to disagree with this rather vague, innnocous, well intentioned statement on LB’s part. I agree with her sentiments, as a mother of 2 sons.

But I don’t agree that the FOCUS should change from girls to boys–rather, I think that we need to expand our approaches to boys and find ways to nurture them.
There was a study more than a few years ago (sorry, no cite) that looked at how teachers interacted with kids. Girls were more quickly corrected in class, given less time to answer and directed more often. Boys were more often called on, encouraged to think out loud and answer and prompted more often–stuff like that.

Now, I don’t have that cite, and I am sure that there are studies that show that boys are also disciplined more often and more harshly etc. I am not saying that either gender has an optimal experience in school. I guess what I’m saying is that there is a whole lot more to this just her statement.

IMO, it comes down to gender expectations and bias. We need to correct that–in school, espcecially, but also in society. It should never be an either/or situation, it should be an inclusive one.

As for LB–it’s nice that she has nice sentiments–she’s nice. I would be more impressed if she had stated that she wanted to start a campaign/encourage legislation/go on the speech circuit to drive up interest that addressed these issues. Jeebus, even Nancy Reagan got her feet wet.

15

I’ll throw out two theories of why girls might be doing better scholastically these days. That might provide some debate fodder and suggest solutions.

  1. It’s a biological thing. Girls that I’ve known in school tended to be much more focused, less easially destracted and more “eager to please” families and teachers. I don’t know how much of this is sociatal and how much is biological, but I would imagine that at least part of it is due to natural differences between the sexes. It’s possible that now that women are expected to persue careers post-marriage, they are much more likely to try and achieve in school, where their “natural?” advantages are pushing them ahead.

  2. My second theory is that despite progress over the last 50 years, girls are still at a disadvantage in professional life. From my limited personal experience with such things, I’d say that men are more likely to have access to an “old-boy” network and beable to use it to advance thier careers. I posit that, for whatever reason, the equivalent “old-girl” is not as strong as it is among males. This would also explain the paucity of females in high management positions. Women also have to deal with the unavoidable fact that they will have to loose at least some time at work if they want to have children, which puts them at a further disadvantage. My theory is that women, seeing these disadvantages, put more effort into their college and graduate educations because they can use these to level the playing field.

16

I’m all in favor of better nurturing to improve boys’ academic performance and social adjustment, and I commend Laura Bush for advocating it. (I agree with other posters that it’s not a particularly daring political stance to take, but that’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with speaking up for motherhood and apple pie either, even if nobody’s likely to disagree with you.)

What I can’t quite figure out, though, is this: How do opponents of affirmative action justify support for such measures aimed at improving the performance of boys? I mean, here we are in a society where males still have boatloads of historical, cultural, financial, and political advantage when it comes to competing with females in most areas. Yet males nowadays are, as Mr. Moto’s link indicates, disproportionately performing worse in school and college, abandoning college educations and academic leadership roles and cultural and intellectual opportunities, and turning to misbehavior and crime.

In other words, it appears that now that females have approached closer to equal opportunity, they are routinely outperforming males on their merits in many aspects of school and college life. Now I, as an affirmative action supporter, think that the obvious response is to continue encouraging girls but also to work harder at encouraging boys to make fuller use of their potential. But how do self-proclaimed supporters of “meritocracy” justify giving this special attention to males, attention of the sort that they’ve often described as “coddling” or “focusing on equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity” (which they generally consider bad things when applied to women and minorities)?

How can self-described “meritocrats” advocate special treatment to improve the performance of boys, without invalidating their own complaints about focusing on equality of outcomes? (Actually, I don’t even know whether we have any “meritocrats” or affirmative-action opponents in this thread, so maybe there’s nobody here who can answer that question.)

17

It doesn’t have to be quite that complex. The way I look at it is to ask if the school system is adequate, and there is increasing proof that it isn’t. And boys seem to be disproportionately hurt by this.

We need to look at why this is, mindful that girls might be suffering from the same policies but not as much as boys. For instance, many new schools are designed without outdoor playgrounds, since there is no outdoor recess. The frenzy to fill up the school day with instruction, especially test-driven instruction, robs boys and girls alike of a needed period to burn off energy.

While boys and girls alike suffer from recess elimination, it seems like boys might suffer more. This can increase behavioral problems in class like acting out or fidgeting. It probably isn’t coincidental that in the years since these policies were implemented, ADHD diagnoses have skyrocketed. It certainly mightn’t be causal, but it could be contributory.

I think society has an interest in the socialization and education of all children, and if some aren’t served well by current policies, these policies should be changed.

18

Um. ITA with Mr. Moto

<looks around for earthquake, hell freezing>

:slight_smile:

19

For one thing, we’ve opened up the culturally “male” professions and social roles to women, without a corresponding push to open culturally “female” roles to males. If a girl wants to be a doctor, we think that’s great, but if a boy wants to be a nurse he’s called a sissy. We’ve made it acceptable and even positive for girls to participate in sports (even “male” ones like boxing and football), but if a boy wants to dance or write poetry–sorry, but that’s not okay. I think it’s great that women have been given more choices in today’s society, but I think we also have to open up all roles to men, without branding men who choose “female” jobs or hobbies or roles as gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s a deterrent to a straight boy if his dreams are labeled as being something only gays do) or weak. We need to make it okay for any child to do anything they want, without someone telling him or her that it’s wrong or weird.

Dunno how Mrs. Bush is going to undo hundreds of years of cultural brainwashing, but I hope she does.

20

c_e: For one thing, we’ve opened up the culturally “male” professions and social roles to women, without a corresponding push to open culturally “female” roles to males. If a girl wants to be a doctor, we think that’s great, but if a boy wants to be a nurse he’s called a sissy. We’ve made it acceptable and even positive for girls to participate in sports (even “male” ones like boxing and football), but if a boy wants to dance or write poetry–sorry, but that’s not okay.

Really? It seems to me that that’s always been one of the crucial “talking points” of feminism, that it’s liberating for both genders—that it encourages men to get in touch with their “feminine side” and accept their emotional and nurturing selves as much as it encourages women to aspire and achieve in traditionally masculine roles.

And certainly, schools are very eager to find male kindergarten and elementary teachers, and dance companies seek out male dancers, and some nursing schools are vigorously recruiting men. In poetry as in most other literary fields, men still predominate in prestige and published works.

You may well be right in suggesting that popular attitudes are slower to change, but there is certainly a very welcoming attitude towards males within the fields that you mention.