Boys and Men are falling behind in our modern world. This is happening in education and the workplace. Boys and Men are also having huge mental health challenges, and an increasing number of boys are being put on medication to try and manage their behavioural issues. Should we be surprised that boys are struggling so much in a culture that doesn’t even know the difference between a boy and a girl? The solution isn’t to just “let boys be boys”. But we do need to let boys become men, and stop getting in their way.
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I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise to you, but the world for quite some time has been trying to figure out what a boy is and what a girl is, and what are the differences are between the two.
And I think it’s fair to say that the world has made quite some strides, some progress towards figuring out these differences.
But we were reminded just last week just how confused some people still are. How’s this for some alphabet soup?
It was released. I was shocked to find out that Prime Minister Kearney is cutting $7 billion between Indigenous Services Canada and Crown Indigenous Relations. They provided $0. To deal with the ongoing genocide of MIWG two s, LGBTQ LGBTQIA plus. This is abhorrent.
Well, if she ever gets sick of doing what she’s currently paid to do, which is obviously just spout nonsense, I’m sure she’d have a pretty successful rap career. That’s a pretty impressive rattling off of some word salad. But if you are wondering what MIWG two s LGBTQIA plus stands for? It is missing and murdered. Indigenous woman, girls, two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and Asexual plus the plus is four for anyone missed out off that list ’cause you wouldn’t want that.
So, they’ve added, missing and murdered people to the list of sexual and gender identities for reasons that only their victim mentality and identity politics could explain to you. But that’s not actually the point of this video. The point of this video is that boys are falling behind in school and work and in life in general. But in order to care about that, you have to know that boys and girls are different and you have to care that boys are in fact falling behind.
Which unfortunately is more than can be said for a lot of left wing liberals out there. But the reality is boys and girls are different, and boys grow up to be men and girls grow up to be women, I know arrest me now. But the fact that we in our society have tried to level out these differences has been at their cost and the expense often of boys, unless of course these boys think they’re girls, then the world will celebrate as they go and win women’s sporting trophies or they’re even given woman of the year.
Come on ladies. What have you been doing this whole time? Let a man show you how to be the best woman you can possibly be. Woman of the Year Award to a man. What a great sign in our society.
Our boys and men are struggling today in our culture, in our societies. We’re gonna take a look at that, why it’s happening, what we can do to better support young boys. This is a crucial conversation to be having. Let’s dig into it.
All right, so boys and men are struggling, but what do I mean by that? Well, here in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and America, 55 to 60% of university students are female. Here in New Zealand, boys are much less likely to pass NCA level two and three. This is really important ’cause it’s the gateway for them to secure stable income and employment for the rest of their lives.
And they have significant reading gap between them and girls as well, which causes higher dropouts and more disengagement with schools and tragically. Men in New Zealand make up 75% of all the suicides. Now this is obviously a huge topic and we can’t discuss it all today here on this episode, so stay tuned, counterculture, and Built on truth. We’re gonna discuss this more, but today we’re gonna set a foundation. We’re gonna ask ourselves, how can we help young boys? How can we pull them up out of the situation that they’re in? And first and foremost, we need to acknowledge that they are different than girls, what they need. It’s different than girls. And that masculinity and testosterone, which of course are inseparable, are not and is not inherently toxic. They, in fact, are needed in society, should be celebrated by society. And even in today’s modern world, they are crucial for thriving families, communities, and countries. And so that is the starting point now, I’ve just spent the last week on one of the greatest places on earth. It is Camp Raglin. This was a photo that I took on the last night of camp. Stunning sunset from the meeting hall. That’s the view that you get to enjoy when you’re at Camp Raglin. It runs every school holidays for age seven to 14-year-old kids. I go back often as a leader. I loved it as camper. It’s exceptionally well run, and I could not recommend it highly enough.
You know, something I’m reminded of every time I go to camp as the boys sit on one side of the meeting hall and the girls sit on the other, and that is just how different they are, just how different boys and girls really are. But our culture hates gender stereotypes. They hate seeing and being reminded of these differences between boys and girls, but actually stereotypes and generalizations have a lot of utility and can bring a lot of good into our culture, into our society. But our modern world, especially our liberal friends, seem to despise them. So much. And so we self-censor away stereotypes because we think, Hey, if we bring up these stereotypes, we’re gonna be shot down. We’re gonna be given exceptions to them, and we’re gonna pretend as if they have been answered because of those exceptions. And so, as part of our fight against bigotry, all stereotypes, including those of the differences between boys and girls. Have been banned in our society.
And so if you were to say something like, men are generally taller than women, well you would be considered answered because someone has an auntie who’s six foot three. But that does not change the fact that on average men are significantly taller than women. And same is true for other generalizations between men and women. Men have more upper body strength than women. Women are more naturally nurturing than men. Men are more analytical when they’re thinking women are more intuitive. Women are more emotional than men, and men are better at opening jars than women. And if you’re rushing to my comment section to tell me all the exceptions to these rules, just save yourself the time and refer to my previous comments. And why does this matter? Because men and women are different. And so boys and girls are different. And so people don’t need to freak out when they see a room full of boys and girls like I did last week at camp and see just how different they are. And so because they are so different, they have different needs and those needs and those differences aren’t excused just because you can get the most tomboyish girl from one side of the room and say, hey, she actually fits in quite well with the boys over there during lunchtime. It does not mean they are the same, and it does not mean their needs are the same.
And the fastest way to forget the differences between boys and girls, men and women, is to ignore the generalizations and dare I say, stereotypes that separates and categorizes them. Once we wanna have a tantrum about every generalization and stereotype aimed at men and women, we are well on our way to dismissing the fact that God has made us different in the first place. ’cause many of us do not like the reality that God has created us.
And so we kind of hate him and just like an angry mob down in the village who is unable to actually hurt and harm the king as much as they might want to. So instead they build statues that look like the king and destroy and damage those instead. That’s like what we do when we see men and women who are made in the image of God and we hate that God has designed us this way and so we wanna destroy them because as much as we might want to hurt God, we are incapable of doing so. So, we tried to destroy his image, which has been created uniquely, male and female.
Once we’ve been brave enough to establish these facts, we can start to piece together what boys and girls need in a unique sense, and we can start to see why boys are struggling so much. The scriptures often do this. They give instructions that are unique to males and then unique too females because they know what males are gonna struggle with, and they know what females are gonna struggle with. They know what males need to be reminded of and females need to be reminded of.
An example of this is Colossians three 19. It says, husbands love your wives and do not be harsh to them. Here Paul is saying, love your wives, because he knows that love is the fuel that wives run on. And he says, do not be harsh to them because he knows that men are more likely to struggle with being harsh. The fact that harsh wives also exist doesn’t mean that Paul shouldn’t have aimed his command at men because he knows that men and women are different.
And so the sins, temptations that men are gonna face and struggle with are different to that of women and boys and girls are different also, and they have different needs.
And so when we set up community, schools, society in such a way that girls thrive, and then we wonder why. Are boy struggling. Why are boys lagging behind? Well, that’s because they have different needs, and so when we see their passion for life, their overabundance of energy, sometimes we see those things as obstacles to overcome and sometimes even something that needs to be medicated away rather than something that needs to be molded, shaped, disciplined, and then pointed in the right direction.
The solution to the weaknesses of boys is not to make them more like girls. Even though that can be our temptation because boys who are full of potential, even good godly potential, look very different than girls who are full of potential. A way that I can illustrate this is if someone gets up in front of a room full of teachers and parents and says, one day these girls, these young girls in this room, they’re gonna grow up to be amazing wives and mothers and everyone would nod their heads and say, yeah, absolutely.
We can definitely see that happening. Then that same person continues and says, and your boys are gonna grow up to be pilots and engineers and lawyers, and you are gonna have some like worried looks across the room. They’re gonna think, shoot these boys really? Do they have it in them? Surely not. And then they start to worry for their own safety thinking, man, these boys might fly a plane I in one day.
It’s a very different reaction because boys that have potential, they look very different than girls who have potential. And so when you have a young girl showing feminine potential, it is gonna be institution friendly, meaning teachers are gonna recognize it, schools are gonna celebrate it, parents are gonna like it, it’s gonna be kind, caring, nurturing in nature, it’s gonna be godly feminine behavior, and it’s gonna look like godly in feminine behavior, masculine potential isn’t always quite so obvious. If you have a teacher walking down the corridor and he sees a boy clipping another boy over the back of the head, they’re gonna think, man, why are boy’s so intense, so violent, and yet what he doesn’t know is that boy just had his friend try and show him something inappropriate on his phone, and so he is clipped him over the head saying, don’t show me that rubbish.
I don’t want any part of your nonsense. That is still masculine potential. It just looks very different. Or how about another situation when a boy goes and punches another kid right in the face? And a teacher’s gonna see that he’s gonna wanna punish that boy, and maybe that boy needs to be punished. But what the teacher doesn’t know is that kid has just gone and punched a bully right in the face, for picking on his friend in horrific ways for the last three months.
Again, masculine potential. It is just raw and it is unshaped, and it needs direction. It needs molding, and it needs discipline. And so using that example of the young boy just taking justice into his own hands, masculine potential is not always institution-friendly. It does not need to be disciplined away. It needs to be molded and disciplined and pointed in the right direction. How we discipline. Masculine potential makes a huge difference to young boys in how they respond inside of our institutions.
And so unfortunately, in our modern societies and in our school systems, we can struggle to identify strengths that are unique to boys and celebrate those strengths. Now, girls often thrive in these systems, but they are hardwired differently. And so, we can’t just expect boys to do the same one day. Those boys are gonna grow up to be men, and we are gonna demand of those men that they are able to protect. And provide for their families. And so when they’re young boys, they shouldn’t just be celebrated for acting like good little girls.
They are not little girls. They shouldn’t be told to become like little girls and we shouldn’t expect them to be like little girls. And so if we’re willing to acknowledge and dare, I see even celebrate the fact that boys and girls are different, we’ll be well on our way to know how to encourage and equip young boys to reach their full, unique masculine. Potential.
When the Bible addresses husbands, it tells them to love their wives. When it addresses wives, it tells them to respect their husbands, because God knows the fuel that men and women run on. Men run on respect. Women run on love, and so if a woman is trying to improve her marriage, she’s gonna have a lot more success. By doubling down the respect she shows her husband than she would by doubling down her love for him.
The same is true for a husband if he’s trying to improve his marriage. Doubling down the love he shows for his wife is gonna be a lot more effective than doubling down his respect. And that is because, say with me, men and women are different, just like boys and girls are different.
And it’s really important that we know what these differences are. If we’re gonna help this younger generation of men, these boys who are falling behind, how can we get them back up to speed while we need to know the fuel that they run on? And just like men, boys run on respect. It’s an immature version of it, but it is still respect that they need. And it’s hard wiring, this desire that boys have to be respected. It’s a feature, not a bug.
And like men, boys run on respect, respect, concerns, achievements and abilities. Respect thinks about the score. It’s how many boys and men think. And so with our young boys, they have a natural tendency to compete, to strive for respect, to be worthy of the respect they earn. And so praise and encouragement when needed, and correction when needed is what it takes for this natural desire in them to be molded into something that is productive and helpful for society and not destructive to them and to the people around them.
And so going back to some of those harmful stereotypes I mentioned earlier, boys are more competitive than girls and this needs to be disciplined, discipled, but not destroyed. Ambition is not toxic or ungodly. Ungodly ambition is toxic and ungodly, but wanting to strive for excellence is not ungodly; it’s actually what many communities need from our young boys that desire to reach their potential to sharpen themselves with the competitiveness of their friends and of their peers.
And so sometimes this isn’t best achieved by boys sitting down in a classroom writing for five hours a day. It’s not the way that often boys are hardwired. And we shouldn’t be that surprised when they don’t fit that mold as much as we would like them to. ’cause you know what’s gonna happen if you try to squash that desire, that masculine drive in him? Well, unfortunately, you’re gonna succeed. You’re gonna drive it out. Either that desire in him is gonna be squashed and destroyed, or you’re gonna drive him away because he’s gonna think, I don’t need this. I don’t need to be in this situation with these people that are trying to stop me from being a man.
And here’s an example of a young boy being pushed and trained beyond what some parents would maybe be comfortable with, but I just think it’s fantastic.
Get up, Bubba. I tried. Get up. All right. Get up. Take off. Boys are not a problem in need of a medication. They literally run on respect and they need to be molded, shaped, disciplined, and encouraged on that path to become what makes them uniquely a man. And the longer that we fail to do this for boys, the more harm we are going to do and the more damage our attempted solutions are going to cause.
’cause right now you have schools and communities who are often struggling to know how to love boys, train boys, and discipline them.
Now, I’m not saying that boys be boys, let them tear up the place. But here’s a crazy thought. Boys need discipline. One of the reasons why Camp Raglan is so successful is because it is run by very experienced leaders who know how to manage boys, how to celebrate boys, but also keep them in line with uncompromising standards. So those boys feel safe and like being a boy is actually a good thing. When discipline is offered in a way that scratches that need, that a boy has for respect, they thrive in that type of environment.
This is why so many boys, you think, man, they must hate discipline. These kids can’t stand being corrected while they end up thriving in an environment like the military, for example, despite the fact they have a sergeant. Screaming in their face, telling them about their mother and about their eating habits and about their waistline. They know that they are earning respect. They know what that uniform looks like at graduation. They know the community, the family they’re gonna be a part of. This is all just part of the game. I’m earning respect, I’m getting there. I’m heading in the right direction. Those same boys, you’re think, man, they cannot stand to be disciplined. Why do they thrive in those types of environments? Because that comes naturally to boys.
Last week, I had a boy in my group who I knew at the first meal was gonna take quite a bit of my time, energy, and attention that week. He was full of passion, shall we say, and yet I loved seeing that passion and energy pointed in a positive direction. That week at camp, he was the first one running off, ready to do the duties. He’d follow me out to the playground to get an extra workout in. He wanted me to record him as he flew down the water slide and crashed at the end. The bigger. The crash, the better. That was the type of boy that he was, and he just needed all of that energy to be pointed in a healthy direction. Not squashed, not destroyed, not ridiculed, but aimed. And that’s what all young boys with that type of potential need.
And so in the same way that if you love a woman well, she will become increasingly more lovely, the same is true for young boys. If you respect them, they will become increasingly more respectable. Give them a task to do. Show them that you are proud of them for completing that task. Show them respect, and when they earn that respect, they’re gonna want to prove themselves again. That’s what boys feed off of, and that is how we can encourage them forward into their potential.
So, if that young boy who needs to run off respect is running on fumes, he’s gonna try to get that wherever he can, however he can. That’s why young boys who are insecure, who don’t have what they need are often ones that brag in the same ways that girls when they are insecure and don’t have what they need, they will flirt. They’re trying to get what they’re designed to get from the wrong place, from an unhealthy source.
And so with boys, we need to give them the correct fuel from the correct place. And yes, of course, keep an eye out for that potential unhealthy ego, but every strength has a potential weakness. We mold them and shape them, but we encourage them. We give them respect so that they believe in themselves and they can contribute into this world with. A masculine potential with a masculine energy and not being so fearful they’re gonna be destructive or arrogant or even masculine, that we do not encourage them to reach their potential. And I believe that is the foundation that is the first step to helping support this young generation of boys to help pull them up. So that they can be contributing to their schools, to their communities, and to their future families in a way that is gonna make all of society healthy and thrive together.
