I have lots of thoughts on this as a grandmother of a 13 year old boy. His parents limit and supervise his online time. He knows about the manosphere, and so far is not drawn to it at all. His father is a nurse, does all of the cooking and definitely his share of housework. His dad knows his friends, and his teachers. His mom is a very competent and accomplished person. But, when I'm around his friends, I can see a level of privilege that is so much part of the air they breathe that it's assumed that their life should be easy and what they want should be given to them. One friend, whose mother is a cardiologist, makes disparaging comments about women. All of them have trouble working toward goals, and even sports require too much discipline and effort.
Another interesting thing I've noticed about these kids is their class prejudice. They are all upper middle class, and very much look down on boys from working class families - they're not considered cool or fun, and the parents feed into it by saying they're "uncomfortable" with these kids' home and families. A lot of it comes to the surface with birthday parties - the lower income kids can't afford parties at the expensive venues, so they can't be part of the same social milieu.
Recently, grandson has been socially excluded from this group. He doesn't know why, but he's been "iced out." He's hurt and confused. We're all trying to help him through this because it might be at a vulnerable point like this that kids get into some of the toxic online stuff.
Most of the writing on the problems of young men focuses on women, but I wonder how much of it is how they're treated by other men. I've also read that American kids have more competitive and unstable friendships than other cultures because of our form of capitalism, but that's a whole other subject. Sorry for the long post, but I've been reading and thinking about this a lot on a social and personal level.
No, not at all, thank you for sharing. The class element is really interesting. I'm sorry your grandson is being treated poorly by his friends.
On a different note, I recently stayed with an old college friend who has a 14-year-old son. He's fantastic. Brilliant, funny, caring — and like your grandson has no interest in "the manosphere." My friend did a great job despite a mentally unstable loser of an ex-husband as co-parent.
He's also very sociable. Talks to the neighbors. He wanted to hang out with us the whole time and talk even though to him we're ancient (this was slightly annoying as he wanted to talk politics and the Issues of the day while we wanted to pettily gossip about old college people lol.)
So it surprised me when she said that even though he has lots of friends, they never see each other outside of school. His friends never come over to the house. They don't go to the movies, hang out in coffee shops, try to filch beer and party when the parents are away, the things I did as a teenager. They engage almost entirely over their phones.
I'm generally not in favor of generational hand-wringing but i do think a combo of the smart phone and the pandemic really did a number on pre-teens and teens. I didn't enjoy my teen years. I was awkward and bored and didn't come close to getting laid till college. But in hindsight I remember the hours my best friend and I spent chugging coffee in coffee shops and having what we thought were profound conversations and am grateful for that.
I have lots of thoughts on this as a grandmother of a 13 year old boy. His parents limit and supervise his online time. He knows about the manosphere, and so far is not drawn to it at all. His father is a nurse, does all of the cooking and definitely his share of housework. His dad knows his friends, and his teachers. His mom is a very competent and accomplished person. But, when I'm around his friends, I can see a level of privilege that is so much part of the air they breathe that it's assumed that their life should be easy and what they want should be given to them. One friend, whose mother is a cardiologist, makes disparaging comments about women. All of them have trouble working toward goals, and even sports require too much discipline and effort.
Another interesting thing I've noticed about these kids is their class prejudice. They are all upper middle class, and very much look down on boys from working class families - they're not considered cool or fun, and the parents feed into it by saying they're "uncomfortable" with these kids' home and families. A lot of it comes to the surface with birthday parties - the lower income kids can't afford parties at the expensive venues, so they can't be part of the same social milieu.
Recently, grandson has been socially excluded from this group. He doesn't know why, but he's been "iced out." He's hurt and confused. We're all trying to help him through this because it might be at a vulnerable point like this that kids get into some of the toxic online stuff.
Most of the writing on the problems of young men focuses on women, but I wonder how much of it is how they're treated by other men. I've also read that American kids have more competitive and unstable friendships than other cultures because of our form of capitalism, but that's a whole other subject. Sorry for the long post, but I've been reading and thinking about this a lot on a social and personal level.
No, not at all, thank you for sharing. The class element is really interesting. I'm sorry your grandson is being treated poorly by his friends.
On a different note, I recently stayed with an old college friend who has a 14-year-old son. He's fantastic. Brilliant, funny, caring — and like your grandson has no interest in "the manosphere." My friend did a great job despite a mentally unstable loser of an ex-husband as co-parent.
He's also very sociable. Talks to the neighbors. He wanted to hang out with us the whole time and talk even though to him we're ancient (this was slightly annoying as he wanted to talk politics and the Issues of the day while we wanted to pettily gossip about old college people lol.)
So it surprised me when she said that even though he has lots of friends, they never see each other outside of school. His friends never come over to the house. They don't go to the movies, hang out in coffee shops, try to filch beer and party when the parents are away, the things I did as a teenager. They engage almost entirely over their phones.
I'm generally not in favor of generational hand-wringing but i do think a combo of the smart phone and the pandemic really did a number on pre-teens and teens. I didn't enjoy my teen years. I was awkward and bored and didn't come close to getting laid till college. But in hindsight I remember the hours my best friend and I spent chugging coffee in coffee shops and having what we thought were profound conversations and am grateful for that.