Books I've Read: Boys Adrift:

Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men
by Leonard Sax

Ideas from this though provoking book have come up in conversation several times already since I read this book. I'm sure many of us have heard stories or anecdotes of how hard it is to find someone who can put in a honest days work, or how simplified some college courses have become due to the lack of basic education that many come into them with.  I know I've heard the stories of laziness from many who work in the trades or construction, and I have seen it myself in offices and factories as well. There was a professor that I knew that had his college math class complaining that his tests were too hard, so he had my highschool aged cousin do the test, which she easily passed. These types of stories seem commonplace and in this book Leonard Sax looks into some of the possible reasons for this.  He focuses in the book on problems that are specific to boys, although I'm sure a book could also be written on what out culture is doing wrong when it comes to girls as well.

The 5 factors that he looks at are:
1) Education system flaws
2) Excessive use of ADD/ADHD medications
3) Video Games
4) Endocrine Distruptors
5) Devaluation of Masculinity

I was a little skeptical on some of these, but even then he gave me a lot to think about.  My favorite point was that of the devaluation of masculinity.  We live in a culture were its just not cool to tell a boy that he needs to be a man, and even if we where to tell him that, how many boys would actually know what 'being a man' look like? Boys need to grow up into men, and they need role models that show them what true masculinity looks like. As men, we need to model masculinity. We need to show those boys in our lives that being a man means using our strength to help other.

I really enjoyed this book and gained a lot from reading it.  Easy to read and well reasoned, it was a thought provoking book.

Random Quote:
After one of the boys from Prep has spent five weeks working dawn to dusk to build an infirmary or a road or an aqueduct, and the job is done and he returns home, he can watch NFL football on a Sunday afternoon and see a beer commercial that claims that real men drink Miller beer - and that boy can laugh. He knows that being a real man has nothing to do with drinking any particular brand of beer. it has to do with using your strength in the service of others. (Page 182)