Nathan Harter
I raised two boys. Along the way, in large part to understand the world my sons are facing, I noticed trends among boys in our culture. If there is a trend that is harmful, perhaps I could help them through it. I did notice a couple of puzzling trends that might converge. See what you think.
Boys enjoy sports – not all boys, certainly, and obviously girls are playing sports more and more, so I am not restricting this to the boys. In order to make my point, I’ll have to speak in generalities.
In sports, there are consequences for what you do. If you practice, if you learn, if you try, the outcome will vary. Often, you will lose. That does not mean you quit competing. You go back and try again, over and over, measuring yourself against the challenge. It is the logic of sports.
Boys also enjoy electronic games, such as X-Box – again, not every boy, and of course plenty of girls play them as well. These games easily consume hours of leisure time. Because they seem addictive, these games also encroach on time for homework and chores. Games strike me as extremely self-indulgent pastimes – useless and mind-warping as you hunch in front of a screen twiddling your thumbs on a control in your lap.
These electronic games do resemble sports in that you test yourself repeatedly against a challenge, and because of the logic of a game, you frequently lose. There are consequences for the way you play. And boys especially seem to like that, the simple up-or-down, yes-or-no verdict of a game.
Tell me: are there other activities where you get to test yourself immediately? You might think to include warfare, fistfights, and even business in a capitalist system, I suppose, not to mention going out to pick up chicks. I’d wager that’s why teenage drivers take so many risks: guys seem drawn to the competition, the arena. “Let me see if I can do it.”
As a little boy, my second son climbed a tree until he was even with the second story windows. It never dawned on him he would ever have to climb down.
Now, consider the tendency in public schools to avoid making a contest of education. Instead, we worry about a kid’s self-esteem and nurturing the young mind to follow its bliss. School rewards can seem frightfully hollow. What exactly does it prove to become valedictorian? I admire those exemplary students, but it seems the other kids don’t see it as a worthy competition. To a smart boy, the high school diploma resembles a participation prize, indistinguishable from the little trophy for being the worst player on the worst soccer team. Everybody plays. Everybody wins.
Interesting, then, that boys are withdrawing themselves in record numbers from post-secondary education. They would just as soon skip it. Why? In order to live at home and play video games? I don’t know, exactly, yet I suspect higher education fails to gratify some basic male desire to undergo the ordeal, measuring himself against high standards. Book learning is perceived increasingly as irrelevant and rigged for lifestyles of sedentary study. A really smart kid might crave more action.
Maybe we should reinstitute a system of apprenticeship, where you have to earn your credentials, and in the meantime you can see the consequences of your effort. Boys want to see themselves making a difference in the environment around them, and if the world cloaks their reality in Styrofoam and bubble-wrap compassion, they’ll turn to virtual hazards or worse.
Much as it unnerves me as a father, I admire that about boys, even if it is a shame they have to play Halo in our culture to approximate becoming men.
