Brom Bones and Ichabod Crane, Hero or Victim?

I'm currently reading another book by Dr. Leonard Sax, author of Boys Adrift. This book is called, Why Gender Matters: What parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences.

As I'm reading and going through my day, I keep noting little things that people do (myself included) and how it relates to the gender differences elaborated in the book.

Today, for example, I took my three little boys to see a student musical version of The Legend Sleepy Hollow. It was exceedingly well done, not surprisingly, because I know several of the performers and they have always put on a great show.

The thing that struck me about this particular show was the way in which Brom Bones and Ichabod Crane display the archetypal boy and the anomalous boy.

Brom Bones is tough, rather lunk-headed, strong, and self-centered. He's quite knowledgeable about farming and horses, but is not an intellectual, nor is he very good at telling Katrina his true feelings (if he even has feelings). He is a trouble-maker, and is known around town for playing pranks, including one which caused the last schoolmaster to leave town.

Ichabod Crane, is lanky, intellectual, superstitious and self-centered. He's quite knowledgeable about history, (particularly the history of New England witchcraft) and other standard school subjects. He's good at wooing the ladies with his amiable manner and quick wit. In fact, the ladies of the town seem quite taken with his culture and refinement.

Katrina, the love interest of both men, is taken in by Ichabod's culture and charm and Brom Bones is jealous and angry. He tells Ichabod to lay off his girl and to leave town, but Ichabod is committed to stay in Sleepy Hollow.

Just how and why Ichabod finally leaves Sleepy Hollow is the main tale being told, but Brom Bones is no wimp when it comes to the manly arts (courage, strength, risk-taking). While Ichabod, it struck me, is quite good at practicing some of the feminine arts (charm, culture, refinement).

I never really understood who the hero of this story was supposed to be. It always struck me as rather tragic. Until I watched it in the light of the science of gender study. Now it all makes sense!

To confirm my suspicions, I asked a group of boys, ages 7-13, who had just seen the show, who was their favorite character?

"The strong guy," was their nearly-unanimous answer.

After all, who wants to be the victim?

How to keep your son from being a mama's boy

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

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I started reading this book after hearing about it from a mom of a teenage boy. Her son is a good kid: good student, practices his faith, athletic, mannerly, but she saw warning signs of how easily good kids can go astray when they don’t have someone to help guide them. If she was concerned about her son, I figured I ought to be concerned about mine, since I have five, and three of them still have many years before they enter the turbulent teens. Best to be prepared.

It didn’t take long before I couldn’t put the book down. Dr. Sax relates stories of real boys, told by real parents, and how they were often intelligent kids, who lacked motivation for school or life outside of video games. I could easily imagine any of my boys, given free reign, could easily turn into video zombies. Girls might spend too much time chatting with their friends on Facebook, but boys like to play action-packed video games until their eyes glaze over and their heads drop to the keyboard from lack of sleep. Neither food, nor school, nor senior prom can propel them from the game machine unless a parental foot on the backside gives them an extra boost.

So it was with a great deal of expectation that I read Dr. Sax’s book on the “growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men.”

I suspect everyone knows at least one (or dozens) of 18 to 30 year-old males who seem to have no motivation for doing much of anything with their lives, but are often content with their low-paying jobs and single status, quite frequently still living at home with Mom and Dad. Before you call me judgmental, look at the statistics: Women now outnumber men on college campuses and in medical and veterinary schools. The number of women entering traditionally male fields, such as engineering and technology, is increasing, while the number of men entering those fields is decreasing. Where are the men going? They’re dropping out of college, or not even entering in the first place.

Dr. Sax lists five reasons for the alarming trend of unmotivated males. No, it’s not all the fault video games, although that is the first reason he lists. The others are: the feminization of education, overuse of prescription medication (for ADHD), endocrine disruptors in the environment, and the devaluation of masculinity.

He makes compelling arguments for each of the five reasons and all parents of boys should educate themselves on these topics. The one I found most interesting, and the one I’d heard nothing about was endocrine disruptors in the environment. These are environmental pollutants caused from a variety of sources, including phthalates found in plastics such as plastic water and soda bottles, pacifiers and baby bottles. These endocrine disruptors have been shown to cause early onset of puberty in girls, while having the opposite effect on boys. According to Dr. Sax, “The overwhelming majority of modern chemicals that mimic the action of human sex hormones, curiously, mimic the action only of female hormones.” They have also been linked with the disruption of brain function in the area of memory and motivation, as well as ADHD, again, affecting girls differently than boys. He also refers to these chemicals as “environmental estrogen,” as they mimic those female hormones. Dr. Sax further gives evidence that the increase in childhood obesity can be directly linked to these environmental estrogens. There are other alarming symptoms as well: male genital abnormalities, lower testosterone levels and male infertility.

Another pollutant in our environment that affects males far more than females is pornography. (See my book review on The ABCs of Choosing a Good Husband). Men no longer need women for sex, just as women no longer need men for babies. As a result, men and women are putting off marriage until much later, or in many cases, forsaking it altogether. Dr. Sax cites the number of men ages thirty-five to forty who have never been married has tripled in the last thirty years. Just twenty-five years ago it was 8%. It currently stands at 22% and is rising rapidly.

Dr. Sax also mentions the rise of contraception as a cause of the divorce of marriage from sex. (Once again, Pope Paul VI was right). Dr. Sax says, “More and more boys are discovering that they prefer a sexy image on a computer screen to a real live woman with expectations…” Some of the physical results of this dependency on pornography are the increasing number of men who need Viagra or Cialis.

And now the good news:

Dr. Sax gives hope to concerned parents (and disaffected young males) by giving concrete examples of young men whose lives were turned around by some simple changes. Enroll in an all-boy school. Get off unnecessary medications. Get unhooked from the video games and get involved in athletic competitions. Have examples of manly behavior from men. Experience the real world by getting outdoors. Do something physically demanding. Sweat.

For more information read the book and go to the website: www.boysadrift.com and www.singlesexschools.org.

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