<story><title>The Drugging of the American Boy (2014)</title><url>http://www.esquire.com/features/drugging-of-the-american-boy-0414</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spodek</author><text>The comments here don&amp;#x27;t seem to capture the importance of the &amp;quot;Boy&amp;quot; part. Imagine we were mostly drugging girls. The headlines and reactions would be greater.&lt;p&gt;The story recalls how when Michelle Obama publicized #BringBackOurGirls, laudably promoting saving many innocent girls from kidnapping and worse, Boko Haram had been burning alive and hacking to death many innocent boys for years to little western outcry.&lt;p&gt;We keep changing our culture from the world our emotional systems evolved to handle. Then we declare groups sick who can&amp;#x27;t handle the change, which happen to be boys mostly, and drug them.&lt;p&gt;When we create problems for girls, we ask &amp;quot;what have we done?&amp;quot;, recognize we&amp;#x27;re hurting them, and try to change the culture we created stop hurting them. We may take time, but we don&amp;#x27;t want to hurt them.&lt;p&gt;When we create problems for boys, we say &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;ll fix you,&amp;quot; as if they were broken. If boys&amp;#x27; behavior was adapted to a different world than sitting in rows for most of the day, why don&amp;#x27;t we change the culture we created to stop hurting them?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chunky1994</author><text>This is a fantastic comment. To provide some anecdotal evidence (which I realize isn&amp;#x27;t much) I can compare where I grew up (Urban India) vs where I went to University (Urban North America) and can see some Stark differences.&lt;p&gt;There is a much more safety and risk averse culture here for kids growing up and there is an epidemic of over policing of children. Back home, I could run around and play in the streets without much parental oversight as early as the age of six. All I had to do was get back before dark and my parents made it very clear if I didn&amp;#x27;t there would be significant consequences (I was never beaten so you can make children understand it without the threat of corporeal punishment). However here, CPS can be called if you leave your child unattended in your backyard.&lt;p&gt;My theory is that since boys hitting puberty are driven towards riskier behaviour thanks to testosterone (they just have more physical energy than girls that needs to be expended and mundane activities rarely suffice), this policing culture that no longer fits that style of exploration takes it upon themselves to neuter young boys. It&amp;#x27;s a sorry state of affairs, but unfortunately I don&amp;#x27;t see a way to fix it without getting mired down in identity politics</text></comment>
<story><title>The Drugging of the American Boy (2014)</title><url>http://www.esquire.com/features/drugging-of-the-american-boy-0414</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spodek</author><text>The comments here don&amp;#x27;t seem to capture the importance of the &amp;quot;Boy&amp;quot; part. Imagine we were mostly drugging girls. The headlines and reactions would be greater.&lt;p&gt;The story recalls how when Michelle Obama publicized #BringBackOurGirls, laudably promoting saving many innocent girls from kidnapping and worse, Boko Haram had been burning alive and hacking to death many innocent boys for years to little western outcry.&lt;p&gt;We keep changing our culture from the world our emotional systems evolved to handle. Then we declare groups sick who can&amp;#x27;t handle the change, which happen to be boys mostly, and drug them.&lt;p&gt;When we create problems for girls, we ask &amp;quot;what have we done?&amp;quot;, recognize we&amp;#x27;re hurting them, and try to change the culture we created stop hurting them. We may take time, but we don&amp;#x27;t want to hurt them.&lt;p&gt;When we create problems for boys, we say &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;ll fix you,&amp;quot; as if they were broken. If boys&amp;#x27; behavior was adapted to a different world than sitting in rows for most of the day, why don&amp;#x27;t we change the culture we created to stop hurting them?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Spooky23</author><text>We have a schizoid relationship with gender tropes. On the one hand, &amp;quot;girl power&amp;quot;. On the other, &amp;quot;save the women and children&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Schools are a whole other pit of insanity. Most public schools can&amp;#x27;t enforce behavior norms, which are 90% a result of clueless parents. Their recourse is medicalizing the problem and addressing bad behavior with drugs. With my children we ended up opting to private school because you simply don&amp;#x27;t have that problem -- they address behavior issues and if it turns out to be a problem that isn&amp;#x27;t being fixed, the kid doesn&amp;#x27;t come back.</text></comment>