“The Kids are Alright,” The Who once sang. But about half of American kids are far from alright—in fact, our boys are in real trouble.

The statistics are jarring. Young men without both parents are more likely to spend time in prison than graduate college, according to sociologist Brad Wilcox’s Get Married. In the United States, the second leading cause of death for men under 45 is suicide. Political economist Nicholas Eberstadt contends in Men Without Work that male workforce engagement is at the level it was during the Great Depression.

Political scientist Warren Farrell and counselor John Gray point out in The Boy Crisis that by age nine, children who are not getting enough time with their fathers have telomeres (chromosome indicators which predict life expectancy) 14% shorter than average.

These are startling indicators that boys and men are struggling to flourish in America. What Farrell and Gray term the “boy crisis” is widespread and affects male academic achievement, employment, and mental, physical, and spiritual health. We are now seeing this crisis at each stage of life, and it often gains momentum as our boys become students and workers.

The main driver of the boy crisis is dad deprivation. Only roughly half of children today grow up with both their parents. When couples live together but are not married and have a child, by that child’s third birthday, Farrell and Gray write, “40 percent…will have no regular contact with their dad for the next two years.”

Whether or not dad is involved predicts academic achievement, drug use, employment, and verbal intelligence, among other important indicators of human flourishing. And the effects are often more severe for boys than girls. For example, the telomere loss for boys without fathers is 40% greater. And that is just one tangible measurement. So much of how we learn to be good men and women is by imitating good men and women—and having a loving father is tremendously helpful for a boy to develop a vision for his life.  

Of course, single parents make immeasurable sacrifices for their children. Their circumstances vary (never married, divorced, widowed) and are sometimes not of their own choosing. Trends are also not fatalistic and don’t necessarily apply to every individual. But children need a lot of time with their parents, and it can be difficult for them to get that time when their family lives in separate households.

Our culture doesn’t help. We have waged war on both male- and female-only spaces, even though we know boys and girls benefit from single-sex activities. Healthy male role models are few and far between. Dad is often the dolt, starring as the lead in Everybody Loves Raymond, while boys are told that masculinity is toxic.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that human beings belong to one another, that we are talking about our brothers, fathers, and sons—and that our lives would be poorer without the affection and friendship of the men in our lives.

Fathers are indispensable and deserve our gratitude.

Masculinity Eroding

One unique way dads tend to parent is by playing roughly with their children. Think of the belly laughs that erupt from a toddler as dad throws him into the air, seemingly testing the bounds of safety but always maintaining control. This sort of rough and tumble play helps children regulate their aggression and impulse control, and can be particularly beneficial for male toddlers.

These skills are important as boys enter the classroom—especially today, as both short- and long-term trends and policy shifts have made school more challenging for boys.

De-emphasizing the role of teachers, structure, discipline, and standards has been particularly harmful to boys, as Christina Hoff Sommers pointed out in The War Against Boys over 20 years ago. We have moved away from teaching our children about the great men and women of history—about honor, valor, and virtue—and hesitate to tell students that virtue is not only within their grasp but is expected of them.

Since the Industrial Revolution, American children spend more time in school. In 1940, less than 25% of people had a high school diploma; it is over 90% today. The classroom environment in many ways is inherently challenging for boys, as Richard Reeves emphasized recently in Of Boys and Men. A boy’s prefrontal cortex, which is the control center of the brain, takes two years longer to develop than a girl’s. Boys can be disorganized and struggle to sit still, which disproportionately hurts them, as teachers often factor good behavior into their grading. Some studies have indicated that compared to girls, boys are punished more severely for the same behavior or normal antics.

Zero-tolerance policies are part of this story. These policies demand a child be suspended, no questions asked, for bringing a squirt gun to class. And, of course, boys who are suspended can develop a negative attitude toward school or check out entirely. Zero-tolerance policies were implemented as an attempt to combat school shooters but have proven ineffective on that front. In fact, almost all school shooters are boys without dads. As Warren Farrell has said, boys who hurt, hurt us.

Over-credentialing has caused us to favor academic standards over developmental standards. As the authors of The Coddling of the American Mind point out, the checklist from 1979 for determining when a child could start first grade focused on physical and emotional maturity. Now, the standards are largely academic. Kids should be able to recite Shakespeare before they can hold a pencil (although, Shakespeare is probably banned in many schools today).

To be able to focus and learn, children need to move. But since 2001, average weekly recess time has declined by 60 minutes. We have shifted from a free-range, play-based childhood to a safety culture centered on academic intensity. Sadly, this is very much moving in the wrong direction, as studies indicate that the benefits of assigning homework in elementary school are smaller and could even be negative. 

Boys are particularly struggling academically. Compared to 41% of girls (which is itself not very good), by 8th grade only 20% of boys are proficient in writing. Girls score on average 0.15 standard deviations above boys in reading from kindergarten through high school. And today, reading and verbal skills predict college attendance.

By the time our young men are ready to enter the workforce, things are looking pretty bleak. Since 1965, work rates for men have plummeted. Seven million 25- to 55-year-old men are voluntarily checking out of the workforce altogether, according to Nicholas Eberstadt. Such men are not captured in the unemployment numbers, because they are no longer even looking for a job.

The American economy has shifted from a domestic manufacturing to a global knowledge economy, and this has particularly affected young men, especially men with only a high school degree. Opportunities for men who prefer blue-collar work over working in an office have diminished, and so, it seems, has the return on those opportunities. Between 1973 and 2015, the wages for a 25- to 54-year-old man with only a high school degree declined by 18.2%, while the wages for a man with a college degree increased substantially. 

Many men without work are not pursuing an education or caring for a family member. Compared to working men and women and unemployed men, men who have given up on work spend almost eight hours more per day socializing, relaxing, and engaging in leisure activities, which often includes viewing online pornography. Some studies indicate that boys are being exposed to pornography at the average age of nine, well before their capacity for self-control is fully developed.

To get by financially, many men without work are living with a family member who provides most of the household income. Or they live off of disability, which creates perverse incentives. The most commonly listed reasons for collecting disability include “difficulty walking or climbing stairs” and “difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.”

So many of these men seem dejected and listless, residing in communities with little or negative growth. Five out of six say that a lack of jobs is not the reason for their disengagement. From 1995-2015, opioid prescriptions increased by 356%—and men make up 70% of overdose deaths. Economists estimate that the opioid epidemic could be the cause for 43% of the decline in workforce participation.

Nurturing Fathers

Our boys and men are struggling to flourish—to have meaningful relationships, dignified work, and a vision for the future that seems both optimistic and achievable.

So what do we do about it?

Since these problems are far-reaching, there are no silver bullets. We will have to push for numerous changes across a broad range of sectors. Solutions include affirming that fathers, as well as mothers, are essential, and that becoming a father is a noble pursuit.

In both our schools and society, we need to move toward embodied interactions. Less time on tablets and phones, more time for recess and play. The academic state of boys is yet another reason to push for school choice. Parents should be able to evaluate a school to see if it is a good fit for their particular boy. Does that school have books on the curriculum that their son will enjoy reading? Boys tend to like nonfiction and hero stories. Does the school carve out time for recess and encourage movement? Boys tend to learn kinetically. Do the teachers care about discipline and structure while at the same time being fond of the chaos that boys so often introduce?

Another piece of the puzzle is breaking the accreditation monopoly so that more male professionals can serve as teachers. Opportunities for vocational training and apprenticeship programs should also be available.

We need to emphasize, both through our policies and our culture, that going to college is not the sole track for success. This is currently not the case, as the Department of Education spends 79 times more on colleges and universities than vocational training, according to Brad Wilcox.

Perhaps the most important adjustments will be cultural. Our world is relativistic, permeated with the seeds of expressive individualism. It teaches young people that the inner self is the true self, that they should pursue self-actualization, shout their truths, and view relationships and traditional morality as restrictive and burdensome. We’re witnessing the effects of these ideologies: 58% of young adults say they lack meaning or purpose in their lives, 44% indicate a sense of not mattering to others, and 34% are lonely.

Our children are being taught to find belonging in their chosen identities rather than in what human beings have always been willingly to fight and die for: God, family, and country. As we watered down theological doctrine, our religious institutions have broken down. Fifteen percent of men have no close friends, and the most important factor for male health is close, loving relationships. Four out of ten Zoomers believe the Founding Fathers are more accurately described as villains rather than heroes, according to psychologist Jean Twenge’s Generations.

But there are also signs of hope. Both Bishop Robert Barron, who founded the ministerial organization Word on Fire, and psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson have millions of followers; their countercultural message is that meaning is discovered within relationships, community, and the transcendent. Nonresident fathers are doing a better job of staying involved. Classical schools are experiencing a resurgence, and parents are pushing back against Critical Race Theory and social and emotional learning in the classroom.

Of course, we still have considerable work to do. Much of that is because the boy crisis is at once a cause and symptom of the crisis of the West. So many young men are atomized, seeking authenticity but lost in subjectivity. They do not see the American experiment as a remarkable achievement that depends on their choices. But it truly does, and we are long past the time for choosing—both when it comes to articulating the richness of our heritage and for addressing the boy crisis.