Thanks to John Derbyshire (in The Corner), our attention has been drawn to a must-read piece in the current issue of the always interesting Claremont Review of Books. A former Marine officer and college professor who now runs a charter school in Colorado tackles a subject I will be taking on in a book that will be published next year. In his essay, Terrence O. Moore wonders how Murphy Brown’s son would be faring at age 10. He argues that Avery (“Avery”–I had forgotten how perfect that was) would be likely to suffer the fate of other young men who are being socialized by our modern culture to be either barbarians or wimps.
With the courage befitting one of the few, the proud, Moore covers ground dotted with the landmines of gender, single parenting, sex, and sports. Because readers bring their own experiences with the universe of young men they know to the crucially important subject of how young men are faring, many are bound to disagree with the emphasis he places on the factors that conspire to emasculate the next generation of American men. In my opinion, baseball caps and playing sports are treated far too harshly. And, young women who complain about the brutish young men they must contend with are let off the hook too easily. The aggressive young males who troll my local mall are typically paired with 16 year-old girls who look like streetwalkers. Moore reminds us that young men used to be taught how to behave properly around women first by their mothers and later by girls their own age.
But, it’s impossible to disagree with the destructive effect our feminized culture is having on boys. While Moore notes the peril of raising a generation of young men without the intimate experience of a strong male role model, as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan did a generation ago, he also criticizes modern intact families for refusing to discipline their errant sons. Mostly moms, I suspect, which is why boys are meant to have fathers who will spare their sons our tender mercies.
Terrence Moore has nicely started our conversation on a big, fat, worthy topic. Talk amongst yourselves and share your thoughts–after K-Lo smooths out kinks in my e-mail, I’ll be making good use of them. I have a book to write.