State of the Union, Boys, and "shifting our gaze"

We didn't watch the State of the Union address last night in youth group.  Instead, we talked with the kids about love.  We almost always do that at our meeting right before Valentine's Day, but did it a week early as next week we'll all be observing Ash Wednesday.

Thus I had to read the State of the Union in the paper this morning.   Not surprisingly, this caught my eye: Laura Bush to Shepherd Program for Troubled Boys.  For obvious reasons, that's more interesting to me than Social Security reform.

First Lady Laura Bush, a popular figure and a potent campaigner for her husband's reelection, is taking her first official policy role of the administration: She will oversee a new program to assist troubled boys and curb gang violence.

The program, announced Wednesday by President Bush during his State of the Union address, is to funnel $150 million over three years to churches and other community groups that mentor at-risk children, particularly boys ages 8 to 17 in cities prone to gangs.

"Our government will continue to support faith-based and community groups that bring hope to harsh places," the president said. "Now we need to focus on giving young people, especially young men in our cities, better options than apathy or gangs or jail."

"Taking on gang life will be one part of a broader outreach to at-risk youth, which involves parents and pastors, coaches and community leaders, in programs ranging from literacy to sports," he said.

Gosh, I bet even the Men's Rights Advocates I've been sparring with will join me in saying "hallelujah!"  $150 million over three years is a pitifully small investment in the lives of boys and young men, but it is $150 million more than had previously been allocated, so I'll celebrate.   I can think of dozens of ways to spend money on inner-city teen boys.  Maybe I ought to write a grant proposal for All Saints!  (I hope some of the money also ends up at Rudy Carrasco's wonderful Harambee Christian Center here in Pasadena.) 

Beyond the obvious "drop-in centers", we need to bring in strong and loving adult men of all races and economic backgrounds to minister to the emotional, spiritual, and physical needs of inner-city teen boys. In the end, getting adult men to spend their time with these lads is more important than getting federal money.  But when it comes to the basic business of youth work like renting 15-passenger vans (I am such the pro at driving them), reserving campgrounds, buying basketballs and books, and above all, supplying massive quantities of pizza -- money helps!

But in the same article, I found something that troubled me in something the First Lady said:

"I also want to work with children, and particularly adolescent children and adolescent boys, because I feel like over the last several decades maybe we've neglected boys a little bit," she told ABC's Barbara Walters last month.

"They're the ones who are most often in trouble," Laura Bush said. "There are a larger number of boys [who] drop out of school…. And I just think it's time for Americans to sort of shift our gaze to boys and see what we can do to nurture boys."

Bold emphasis is mine.

I don't like the phrase "shift our gaze."  I hope it was just an unfortunate choice of words on Laura Bush's part, but to me it implies that we're going to pay less attention to adolescent girls in order to give new (and much needed) attention to their brothers.  The phrase I would have used is "broaden our gaze to include the needs of boys as well as girls".  The last thing we need to do is to neglect the unique needs of teen girls.  We've made considerable progress in recent decades in empowering young women to make intelligent decisions about their minds, bodies, and ambitions.  But it would be absurd to conclude that in a culture rife with sexual exploitation, eating disorders, and a persistent glass ceiling, that young women have an easier road to adulthood than young men.

Caring for our youth must never, ever, ever be a zero-sum game.  My passion is for working with young men, perhaps because I am an adult man who longed for older male mentors in his teens.  There are certain things that a same-sex mentor can give to the young that an other-sex adult, no matter how loving and well-meaning, cannot.   But because I believe we need to do more for boys does not mean that I think we have done too much for girls.  We have more to do for all of our precious young people.  And so, while I am delighted with what I've heard so far about this new White House initiative, the First Lady's suggestion that we will be "shifting our gaze" troubles me a bit.

Comments

[NYMOM]

"Meanwhile women who have lost MUCH more rights through the courts over the last decade or so, especially regarding their legal rights to their children are mad about nothing..."

Please specify which rights you're talking about. What rights have they lost regarding their children?"

1. Well for instance, single never-married mothers no longer have the right to decide to give a child up for adoption...They must locate the father (or recreational sperm donor) to get permission. Actually Florida has required women to advertise in the papers looking for one-night stands in order to get their permission...

This was the basis for some of the most high profile adoptions being overturned recently. The last one a three year old boy in Florida forced to go back to a mother he didn't know because the father (who was in prison at the time he was born for beating up the mother) didn't give his permission...even though they were never married...

These rulings will cause even MORE abortions as young girls now, not confident of being able to give a child up for adoptions, will simply abort...

2. Denying mothers' ability to terminate parental rights of fathers unless another man is available to adopt...which means that even men who are in prison or have simply disappeared out of a child's life can STILL turn up at ANY time to disrupt a child's life...Many DO turn up if mother dies, for instance, to claim insurance monies or other benefits using custody of the child as a conduit for these monies...

Standing of men to turn up at ANY time, ANY time, even years after the fact, as these so-called prodigal fathers and to be given EXACT same rights as mothers...it's simply outrageous that this should be allowed...

Women who give up children have in many states 30 DAYS to change their minds...YET the US allows men to disappear for YEARS and make no contact; but then change their minds long after the fact and get the EXACT same rights as mothers...

3. Third party rights to visitation and/or custody even...Many state now routinely allow third parties, such as grandparents, step-persons, friendly neighbors, just about anybody in the village actually to have standing in cases for visitation and or custody of children...MOST of these cases are instigated AGAINST single mothers as both of the plaintiffs in Washington State Troxel case were...

One case was a set of grandparents whose son had killed himself and they wanted to claim his visitation to use for themselves...He had two children, never-married, but he did have visitation... mother had subsequently married someone else, had other children at that time; YET court allowed these grandparents to get visitation until Supreme Court struck down the law...which is being rewritten by the way, so this continues...

Second plaintiff was boyfriend living with mother, who after breakup wanted to continue visiting children, although he had never bothered marrying mother or adopting children when they were together...never even mentioned it...

So these are the sorts of rights I'm talking about which women have lost but I see no women upset about...

I mean we don't even have the right to decide if we wish to have our child adopted into another family, if we can't care for them ourselves...that has always been the perogative of the mother and her family in every society, everywhere...yet now, here, mothers don't have that right anymore...

Yet men are here complaining about sending a postcard from the post office and t-shirts...because of the principle of it?

I don't want to hear about abstract concepts that men are upset about...when women are having REAL rights dissolved out from under us...

Okay...

[NYMOM]

"He was, as far as we know since he refuses to publish the transcript, saying that innate differences between boys and girls lead to fewer women in academic positions."

It's interesting how men can immediately leap on these innate difference when it leads to you all having an advantage somewhere, ie., high paying jobs in academia; YET would argue if a woman made the exact same case in court to keep her own children...then you'd be all over her...and any Judge who agreed with her...

So it's like I said earlier, if it benefits YOU, then its a possibility which women are drowning out the investigation of; but when it benefits women, it's just bias...

[NYMOM]

"My statement stands."

AND I'll just continue telling you then, it's much ado about nothing...

[ray]

"Yes, you can find garments making any and all statements, and by themselves, they indicate little other than about the wearer. That's why I included the factor of wide distribution. These items were on the racks of many if not most major department stores, and were by far the largest selling line of the manufacturer. They were worn to school by girls with no action taken to stop it. My statement stands.

Posted by: stanton"

the gender double-standard is absolutely pervasive in america, and both the left and the right are in (convenient) denial about it

if boys wore tee-shirts to school saying "Girls are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them," the boys would be INSTATLY expelled and punished, and we'd never hear the end of it from the media, government, and academia about how oppressed females are in america

but when girls parade around at school with shirts denigrating males as a class . . . well, hey, suddenly it's all JUST A JOKE, don't you see? as in, "Gee, what's wrong, don't you have a sense of humor?"

the larger meaning is not in the raw selling of the shirt, but in the breadth of its popularity, distribution, and LEGITIMACY as indirect cultural commentary (in this case, hate speech directed at a gender class, men)

IOW:

Double

Standard

... and that's just the iceberg's tip . . . the sickness of gender supremacy is a cancer on the Western Soul

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

Denying mothers' ability to terminate parental rights of fathers unless another man is available to adopt

Which state? What law are you talking about? Are these married-and-then-divorced fathers, or never-married ones? I would have thought that fathers' rights could only be terminated either if they agreed to have them terminated, or if they had proved sufficiently abusive or neglectful, and that in either case it would have nothing to do with whether another man is available to adopt. After all, I know lesbian couples who have adopted.

[bmmg39]

"Yet men are here complaining about sending a postcard from the post office and t-shirts...because of the principle of it?"

Apparently, you think having your head removed from your neck by enemy fire qualifies as a mere inconvenience men need not complain about.

[NYMOM]

"Which state? What law are you talking about? Are these married-and-then-divorced fathers, or never-married ones? I would have thought that fathers' rights could only be terminated either if they agreed to have them terminated, or if they had proved sufficiently abusive or neglectful, and that in either case it would have nothing to do with whether another man is available to adopt. After all, I know lesbian couples who have adopted."

Public policies I'm talking about in ALL states. ALL, most conservative to most liberal.

So no, MEN cannot voluntarily agree to have rights terminated nor can mother use abandonment as a reason for termination...it's like child support against public policy to waive. Same in ALL states.

A public agency like child-welfare or something, they have the right to terminate a father's rights for abandonment but not child's mother, she doesn't have that right unless she has another parent to fill the void...

So a man can disappear (or a woman but it's generally men) for years and unless you have another parent to agree to adopt, Judges will NOT allow termination of parental rights...

Although this policy is touted as gender neutral it's really a policy which impacts disportionately more women then men for obvious reasons...and this policy applies to never-married men as well as married ones, as today once a father gets his name on the birth certificate EVEN if he disappears and never does a thing for child ever, HE still has exact same rights as married father, waiting for whenever he wishes to exercise them.

OR even if he doesn't have his name on birth certificate...rights are there germinating for when he choses to exercise them...that's the whole prodigal father baloney, that everybody's always referring to...

Anyway maybe this was the 'loophole' they used for two lesbians to adopt saying parent instead of father, although some state don't allow that either and now about 17 states are drafting laws to take effect this year to do background checks on parents wishing to adopt now to ensure they are not gay...

Again, touted as gender neutral but I believe will impact many more women then men...just like laws that don't allow anonymous sperm donations any more touted as impacting everyone, but really aimed at stopping single woman (both gay and straight) from using donor services any longer or making it more difficult if they do as there will be a 'donor' lurking in the background who at anytime can step forward and claim rights...

Actually, if you really examine the public policies and rulings over the last 10 years or so you can see that MOST of them bit by bit are nibbling away at the rights of mothers vis-a-vis their children...although they are often painted as gender neutral...

So I don't know what these MRAs are talking about t-shirt or postcard from the post office...please...these are minor issues, minor...

[stanton]

NYMOM: If you can read all of the postings here and still think that the T-shirts are the issue, then your filters are too opaque for a meaningful discussion. The T-shirts are a reflection of a larger reality, and THAT is the problem. And a response to the aceptance of the T-shirts is part of the fight to correct the inequities of the larger reality.

I must say that I have great respect for your consistency, which I often find lacking in discussions on gender issues (as in Hugo embracing the MRA issue of the needs of boys, but being unable to empathize with other men dealing with issues just as real). Is this why you do not identify with feminism?

Anyway, while I disagree with you in many ways, I respect that you see life as choices each individual makes, including the choice of women to elect men to positions of power. I also realize that you consider some of women's problems to be the fault of those oppressive males, and that males have nothing at all to complain about - so you and I will always have plenty to discuss.

[NYMOM]

"... and that's just the iceberg's tip . . . the sickness of gender supremacy is a cancer on the Western Soul..."

Well you men get over yourselves already with these outlandish statements...

It's really ridiculous the claims you are making...it would be laughable but the problem is that because COLLECTIVELY many of you are STILL in positions of power, you're acting on these beliefs and convincing OTHERS to act on them, particularly misguided professional women, (who I might add, at least to me, are the biggest disappointment in this whole situation as we appear to have put into power a class of females who are bigger a@@holes then the patriarchs they replaced) anyway they are helping men like you cause untold damage to women and children through believing this nonsense...

AND it is nonsense, it really is...

[NYMOM]

"NYMOM: If you can read all of the postings here and still think that the T-shirts are the issue, then your filters are too opaque for a meaningful discussion. The T-shirts are a reflection of a larger reality, and THAT is the problem. And a response to the aceptance of the T-shirts is part of the fight to correct the inequities of the larger reality."

That's really the most frightening part about this to me...that there are a large group of men out there believing those t-shirts are reflective of a larger reality...and acting upon it in ways that are going to do a LOT more damage before this is all over...

A lot more...

"Is this why you do not identify with feminism?"

I don't identify with feminism because of the damage they ALLOWED to happen over the last decade or so...because they said nothing while thousands of women lost custody of their children, many of them infants...lost because politicans wanted to cut public benefits for single mothers and children and the fathers of these children were too stingy to pay child support...

I received newsletter after newsletter from them worrying about "gay marriage" and whether girls were getting involved in enough sports teams...YET thousands of women were being dragged into court and losing their kids, yet the most essential thing in the lives of women: their children, THAT they never noticed or thought relevant to comment upon...

I just find them useless...media whores really who will jump into an issue for the coverage it generates...

Obviously they didn't feel this one was newsworthy enough...which shows me a lack of common sense that makes them unfit to represent women on any issues really...but that's just my opinion...others might find them useful, I'm not one of them...

"I respect that you see life as choices each individual makes, including the choice of women to elect men to positions of power. I also realize that you consider some of women's problems to be the fault of those oppressive males, and that males have nothing at all to complain about - so you and I will always have plenty to discuss."

I think as I said earlier this happens because many women are still locked within the matrix, probably at the chivalry program somewhere and actually believe they ARE acting in their own best interests by electing men to represent them...which is why to me the issue of chivalry needs to be dissected and discussed so that women understand exactly what it is...and what it is not...

Actually I think I read once that Muslim-Arabs introduced the original concept of chivalry to Europe during the reconquest of Spain and the crusades, although others say it started in Italy...Who knows...But, it's ironic really when you see the damage that men have done to women in that part of the world where chivalry was supposed to have been invented...

I mean so many of the Muslim nations have changed the balance of their population by the use of sonargrams combined with abortions of girl fetuses, that they've probably heading into a steep population decline pretty soon just by not having enough women around...

I read that Osama bin Ladin has 51 brothers, they never mentioned his sisters...so I'm curious as to what that number was...

Anyway they shot themselves in the foot with any meaningful ability to project themselves militarily anytime soon, so I thank God for that (as bin Ladin would say) everytime I see any news organizations' pictures featuring them with one man or boy on the street after another...

[stanton]

NYMOM, that was a very direct and succinct declaration of where you stand, and it did not address side comments as if they were the main issue. Thank you.

Of course, I disagree with most of what you said, but from such a place, real discussion can take place. This I love, even though we may never come to agreement. At least we may end up understanding why the other believes as they do - and perhaps even recognize and honor and goodness in the other despite the disagreement. If we can do this, I believe that progress will be inevitable, despite our differences.

Thank you for the clarity and the gift of acknowledging what I was actually saying.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

So no, MEN cannot voluntarily agree to have rights terminated nor can mother use abandonment as a reason for termination...it's like child support against public policy to waive. Same in ALL states.

Ah, OK, you're talking about a situation where either both parents want to terminate the father's rights and leave the mother as sole parent, or the father is gone, and the mother would like to terminate his rights. For some reason, I had this image of proven to be abusive fathers being allowed full and unsupervised access to their kids until some other man could be found to take their place.

Anyway maybe this was the 'loophole' they used for two lesbians to adopt saying parent instead of father

Presumably it's OK for both parents to surrender the child to an adoption agency, since the adoption agency will take care of being sure the new parents are financially able to support the child, and then it's a matter of whether the state, and the adoption agency in question, allow adoptions by same-sex couples.

[NYMOM]

No...I was also talking about abusive fathers, women are NOT allowed to terminate their rights and most states will allow visitation to continue even in prison unless a parent is convicted of capital murder...

I again, see that as benefitting men as there are 1.2 million of them in prison whereas only slightly over 100,000 women...so the numbers show who these rules favor.

"Presumably it's OK for both parents to surrender the child to an adoption agency..."

And why should this be okay, that the question,...Who said a guy who makes a drunken quick drop deposit should have the right to decide where a child will spend their whole life?

That's a very big deal to most women, a very big deal...

I mean you appear to be making very light of major rights that women have had cut out from under them? These two issues, women being able to terminate the rights of an uninvolved or dangerous father and making herself the only legal parent; and women having the sole right to decide if her infant can be adopted shortly after birth ARE HUGE, simply huge issues for most women...

AND I don't want Judges to be able to take those rights away from women or limit them in any way from the bench...attempting to please MRAs or a bunch of gender-neutral social engineers...

Watering down these rights is NOT like wearing a t-shirt or standing in line in the post office for some future callup that might NEVER happen...these things women are losing are real, impacting real women and children, not intellectual exercises that make for interesting discussion over brunch...

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

I mean you appear to be making very light of major rights that women have had cut out from under them? These two issues, women being able to terminate the rights of an uninvolved or dangerous father and making herself the only legal parent; and women having the sole right to decide if her infant can be adopted shortly after birth ARE HUGE, simply huge issues for most women...

I don't see where I'm making light of anything; I'm simply trying to determine what laws you're referring to, and how they can be compatible with my observation that some children don't have any legal father (the children adopted by lesbian couples that I was referring to). That's where my remarks about surrendering children for adoption are coming from.

To the best of my knowledge, states vary widely in just what rights they give to a birth father in an adoption situation. Some have birth father registries. Some have an undefined situation, which is problematic because courts can then come in later and disrupt an established adoption.

Also, there's a huge, huge difference, for me, between the different situations you're combining:

1) Abusive fathers should not have unsupervised access to their children. Sufficiently abusive fathers should not have any access to their children. (Ditto for abusive mothers.) If there are any states that really have laws on the books making it impossible to ever terminate the rights of an abusive father, until there is a father to take his place, that is wrong, wrong, wrong, and should be stopped. But I'm having trouble believing this is the case. What I'm suspecting (and I'm not making light here, this can be serious, too) is that, in a situation where in legal principle an abusive parent's rights can be terminated, some such parents may in practice be given too many chances (I know this sometimes happens in the foster case system, and is one way children get stuck there for long periods of time).

2) For children being surrendered for adoption, I want a limit to how long a father who didn't know about the child, and wasn't around for the pregnancy, has to come and claim the child later (otherwise, children get moved from the only parents they have known). I'm in favor of birth registries for fathers, but I really want there to be some limit.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

AND I don't want Judges to be able to take those rights away from women or limit them in any way from the bench...attempting to please MRAs or a bunch of gender-neutral social engineers...

Gender-neutral doesn't entirely cut it for custody issues, since pregnancy isn't gender-neutral, and so, there's a point, right after birth, at least, where mother and father really aren't comparable. Especially if the father hasn't even been married and around during the pregnancy. At the same time, when it comes to childcare after the child is born, well, men and women can do a lot of the same things, and even if mothers, on average, play a different role from fathers, what's average doesn't apply to every particular family. So I do think there should be some level of gender neutrality in judging custody issues.

The way I reconcile it is to say that, in matters of child custody, a lot of weight should be given to attachment theory and to who has been doing the most actual care of the child. In the kind of case you're often talking about - unmarried mother, father who was only around for the conception - and where the child has just been born, this standard would inherently favor the mother (though I'm not prepared to say unmarried fathers should have no say). But some years down the road, in those particular families where the father was the primary caretaker, it would favor the father.

[bmmg39]

"I mean you appear to be making very light of major rights that women have had cut out from under them? These two issues, women being able to terminate the rights of an uninvolved or dangerous father and making herself the only legal parent; and women having the sole right to decide if her infant can be adopted shortly after birth ARE HUGE, simply huge issues for most women..."

You DO understand that mothers are statistically more likely to commit child abuse than fathers are, right? Why do you not want to protect innocent fathers and children from abusive mothers as much as you want to protect innocent mothers and children from abusive fathers?

[craichead]

NYMOM-

What do you see as the rightful place of men in the family? I mean, what do you see as legitimate limits for our rights and responsibilities?

[stanton]

Craichead: You ask what NYMOM sees as the rightful place of men in the family and what men's legitimate rights and responsibilities are. I would like to take a shot at answering from what I have seen her post. I am sure that NYMOM will correct me where I err, as she has so enthusiastically done in the past!

1. Women care for THEIR children more than men do, and have THEIR children's interests at heart. Men are only interested in their own advantage and pursue custody only for selfish reasons.

2. Men are irresponsible parents when not living with the mother of their children, and should have no say in how the mother's children are raised. These loving mothers will consider what the fathers have to say (if the father is worthy of being heard), but in the end, the mother rightfully calls the shots. Also: Father's must be coerced to support the mother's children (otherwise they would not) regardless of the role the mother allows them to have in HER family.

3. Men generally opposed the institution of marriage in the past, but now they are changing their minds about it as they see women gaining advantage from the weakening of this institution. The results are the fault of men, and therefore men deserve no redress for any injustices men mistakenly believe are part of these results.

4. If men receive stiffer penalties for the same crimes (compared with women) this is proper. NYMOM's brothers needed stiffer punishment than the girls in her family, so the point is proven.

5. Women deserve special consideration by society and employers due to the fact that they bear children. This consideration must never in any way confer any disadvantage of any sort upon the women, nor any advantage of any sort upon men.

6. Women of great power and achievement in America today are generally contemptible, because they do not generally subscribe to the opinions of NYMOM.

7. Women are being victimized by those nasty men, but women have chosen to allow this, and if they would just wake up and listen to NYMOM, things would be just fine. Despite conditions being the result of women's own choices, men are still jerks and responsible for many/most/all of the problems in the world.

8. Any disadvantage or victimization claimed by men is trivial and/or silly.

9. Disadvantages and/or victimizations of women claimed by NYMOM are genuine, significant, serious societal problems that urgently need to be addressed.

How did I do, NYMOM?

[stanton]

Oh - I could use a bit more info, NYMOM. I don't recall you weighing in on the matter of medical research spending. Of course there is a very good reason why spending on women's health issues is double that spent on men's health issues, and must properly remain this way, right? I just can't remember what that reason is. Could you remind me?

Thanks.

PS.I do recall something about the lifespan gap being men's own fault due to their risky behavior, so I know there is no need for society to concern itself with that part.

[souraaron]

stanton-

All I can say is... good post. I mean, gee willikers, it must be all out fault. Men = bad. Women = good (except for women who sympathize with men, those are enablers and gender traitors).

Seriously, I am glad that the only place I can find people this cynical about gender relations is on blogs like this.

[stanton]

Mythago:

I have not heard from you for a while, so perhaps you have decided that I am a hopeless case and so abandoned the discussion. But you might be interested in hearing that I took the liberty of sharing our discussion with Ruth Marcus herself. She was quite clear that you are misinterpreting her:

Thanks for telling me about this. It's obviously not what I meant, and not what I believe.
Sincerely,
Ruth Marcus
Washington Post editorial page

Will you accept it from her own mouth? And do you have any actual examples of someone saying that preformance disparities are due to genetic factors? A simple "no" would be fine.