Ron Hart: America is failing young men
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” – Frederick Douglass
America is full of contradictions. On the day after Thanksgiving, when we resolve to be thankful for what we already have, on Black Friday we stampede each other at stores to buy more stuff.
It sounds counterintuitive to the national narrative that we should be concerned about young males. If you listen to the media, the “patriarchal society” victimizes women. Daily. Men oppress, women are oppressed. But the warning signs are everywhere that boys, not girls, are in trouble. Our boys are not growing up to become strong men, and this has negative implications for our country. I have called it the “Wussification of America.”
It will be difficult to make this one funny, but here are the data out there for anyone willing to pay attention.
The Military: A high-ranking Marine officer spoke to a group of us recently. He lamented that recruits are failing both the physical and mental parts of becoming a Marine. Test scores are down 19%, and he blames our government’s overreaction to COVID, kids missing school and our education system failing us. And he says only half of men can now pass the physical exam, down from 75% just 20 years ago. 70% of males are now overweight, compared to 50% of women.
I guess that is OK, as long as we do not have to go to war with any country that has hills our boys have to climb. I can see it now: the tough drill sergeant disciplines his men now by barking, “drop and give me one.” In short, young men are failing in body and mind.
You could tell he was put out with the “woke” administration and politically appointed Pentagon overlords. They push the leftist agenda on the one U.S. government function that need not be softened.
Suicide and Drugs: 77% of suicides are committed by men, mostly white men. 73% of overdose deaths are men. Both have risen 42% since the mid- 90’s. Almost all mass shooters are young males. 90% of inmates are men. Maybe we can trace this to the “9th place trophies” given to kids who are coddled and have had their expectations unrealistically built up by parents and schools, but the kids are not ready for the reality of the real world out there. Tellingly, Obamacare let them stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26. My parents paid for nothing after I turned 18. In short, while sending me out the door, they were nice enough to remind me to write when I got work. I knew that was coming, and was ready for it.
The coddling of bubble wrapped kids is not good for the harsh realities of life. The most important thing a parent (and it is increasingly just one parent) can teach children is how to get on in the world on their own.
Parents: One in five young men still live with their parent(s). They are not marrying. Young adult men are more likely to live with their parents than with a spouse. Sperm counts and testosterones levels are way down. Putin called U.S. men “genderless and infertile.” President Xi Jinping openly worries about Chinese boys becoming soft and issued a “Proposal to Prevent the Feminization of Male Adolescents.”
I do not know the answer, but the facts are in front of us. Since the welfare state’s “War on Poverty,” the U.S. has the highest rate of kids raised in a single parent home, 24%. I would argue China’s one child policy has done less damage to its young boys than America’s one parent policy.
A libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, Ron does commentary on radio and TV. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.