Live from Not Checking Social Media and Working Class Boys in America

I’ve been rocking a couple days of no scrolling on facebook, instagram or twitter. I’ve been jumping on to post about the Heiruspecs show coming up on Friday, December 23 because I do believe that attracting digital friends to real life events is a worthy cause. I also still help with social media on Jazz88 during my shift, I believe that attracting listeners away from their phone and into the amazing world of radio is fruitful work. But I’m done with scrolling, with reading DMs et cetera. My wife Rachel is taking a quick glance at the DMs and the mentions for me on Sunday nights (to all the numerous potential suitors who slide in the DMs on the regular asking when I will end this thing with Rachel, she can now answer that for you). Rachel is doing minor scanning for opportunities (shout out to Brian Oake who said he might like to have me on his podcast) and for minor scandals but she’s not necessarily telling me about every person who said something kind of positive about work I did on the radio or similar. I WOULD LIKE TO BE CLEAR: I am not avoiding social media for the same reasons as Beyonce. My life is not dominated by the small profile I have acquired as a broadcaster and bass player. You’d be amazed but my family can go into an Olive Garden in Roseville without being mobbed for autographs. I am also not avoiding social media because I think Elon Musk is a doink. I do think he is a doink, but I give a lot of my money to companies owned and ran by doinks. I am avoiding social media to see if my brain can thrive more without it. I am avoiding social media for some of the same reasons I don’t step on the scale anymore. Is the positive feedback I get actually positive? Is the negative feedback I get actually negative? Is it all negative? Is the information I get from social media helping me be the best possible me I can be? And I don’t mean the most productive. I mean the best. I mean the one that is most present for my wife and for my daughters. The one that sounds the best at band practice, on the radio. The one who is most supportive of his friends in his life. The one who doesn’t the most he can to make the world a better place. The one that can most easily focus on enjoying a movie when it’s time for that, the one who enjoys food the most, who gets the best sleep. I don’t really have my doubts about this, I think I can be better with the bare minimum of interaction on social media. I get a lot of out social media, I get laughs, I get that rush from feeling liked. I like that on social media I feel admired and appreciated for my passion for music and my ability to communicate that passion. But, I miss out on silence, on feeling positive about myself as opposed to downloading the support of others into my spirit. I miss out on focus and on productivity. There are surely laughs, opportunities and things I will miss out on, but I believe there is a focus I will gain and I believe that focus will be worth more. To be honest I started to be on social media to get the better gigs, to spread the word and to hopefully get a cooler job than working at a group home (no knock on people who do that for their whole career, that just wasn’t where my head was at). Well I got the cooler job, I play in a cool band, we can play at the venues we want to and I need to change what I do day to day to stay positive and be my best myself. And I tell you, so far it’s working, I’m feeling more focused at work (I even already had blockers set up for my office hours, but just having that thorough commitment is a new level). Rant about social media complete.

Rant about boys to begin now:

I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts lately featuring Richard Reeves who has a lot of arguments about treating boys differently then we currently do. The best episode with him I’ve heard came out today on Vox’s podcast “The Gray Area”. The most salient argument of Reeves that I hear whenever he speaks is that “boys are at a tangible disadvantage in school settings. There are ways we can address these disadvantages and the solutions do not involve placing girls at a newly engineered deficit, but rather just by tweaking things to make them more hospitable to boys.” In every episode I’ve listened to Reeves takes great care to point out that the data documenting the problems for male achievement in schools is long standing and primarily impacts working class boys and specifically black boys. I have a lot of complicated feelings about this:

I Don’t Know Working Class Life In Enough First Hand Ways to Trust My Anecdotes - I grew up in Williamstown, MA (small college town with the most elite liberal arts college on planet Earth parked at the center of town). My dad was a professor. We left Massachusetts for him to become the President of Macalester College. I didn’t see a lot of working class from the windows on Summit Avenue. I am thankful to have lived life with people from many walks of life, including working class. But sharing life and space with working class folks is no substitute for being in touch with it. It is relatively easy for me to think boys are doing just fine, but that is based on the boys in my circle, in my world. When I listen to these podcasts I hear the data and I believe boys are struggling in school.

I Don’t Believe it’s Reasonable to Say that School is Designed for Girls - This comment gets tossed off pretty often by Richard Reeves and I find it just pretty dumb to say. I believe he is trying to say that girls excel in elementary school and beyond. Fine. To go on to say that based on how, when and in-what-nature most girls develop that they excel at school. But to say it was designed for them is historically disingenuous. THERE WASN’T SHIT DESIGNED FOR WOMEN until very recently. I would argue that bras weren’t designed for women, they were designed for men for women. Girls might be excelling at school but that does not mean the shit was designed for them and that’s an important distinction and not just cause I’m picky. The distinction is that if girls excel in school the right question to ask might be “why?” not “how can we change this so boys excel too?”. It seems knee jerk to change something because boys don’t excel at it. I can see that sounding callous, and I agree to that right response is to not sit on our hands and say “tough noogies you dumb boys”. We need a world where boys and girls thrive and that might mean not giving up wholesale on a system where girls thrive.

I Believe it is a Struggle to find a good masculine identity nowadays - There is a lot of negative reaction to the term “toxic masculinity” in this space of conversations. Many individuals on these podcasts simply say “don’t say that. . .it’s bad, don’t say that, it doesn’t give boys a path towards good manhood”. Okay, cool. BUT, but, but. If it exists, say it. It reminds me of parents who are up in arms about American history being taught honestly in American schools. Their rallying cries largely balance out to “stop telling the truth” or “don’t tell the truth so early”. The idea of sheltering young kids from some of the most painful parts of American history makes some sense to me. The idea of ridding our high schools of that information is such a terrible idea. The term toxic masculinity exists because the reality exists. I don’t think it is made out of whole cloth. So, I do think we need language that supports positive masculinity because that exists too. Big time. I see wonderful men in my life do amazing things, things that code somewhat towards masculine behavior. All for it, fantastic. Bravo. And I do think we are lacking language and conversation about positive men. I think the problem lies in the fact that many excellent things that men do. . .women can do too. So if you shout somebody out for that masculine energy in this world where we think of these qualities as binary one might feel the men are laying claim to a whole set of behaviors and keeping them from women. I don’t think people are actually that provincial. If I shout out a man for being a good ass man I don’t think the grand majority of men or women would think of that as being somehow exclusionary. Could be wrong, I’m probably not.

I’ve Never Found Self-Knowledge to Pre-Empt Self Love - I believe in an almost indefatigable will for people to love themselves. I have that. I am aware and consider in my day to day life the unearned privileges I enjoy as a white man in America. And I consider the heinous ways in which those privileges accrue now and deep into the past. I consider all that and I still love myself. I do not hate myself, I do not hate my family, I do not hate men, I do not hate white people. My disgust with terrible actions and terrible history does not prevent me from feelings of self-love. I understand that I come to this as an adult, but to be honest, my parents were pretty disinclined to sugar coat American history so some of this stuff I received from a young age. Is there research that suggests that young pupils who are presented with a relatively raw presentation of American history grow up with more feelings of hate or self-hate? I’m not certain either way, but I am inclined to think that the mission of keeping the shames of our history away from kids might last til maybe. . .fifth grade at best? Also, is that what we want to teach? LOVE AMERICA, AMERICA IS GREAT, MEN ARE GREAT, DON’T LOOK OVER THERE. IF YOU DON’T LOOK OVER THERE AND DON’T READ THESE BOOKS OR WATCH THESE MOVIES OR READ THESE BOOKS WE ARE GREAT, AMERICA IS GREAT. It’s a fool’s errand.

I believe male role models matter in a special way to young boys - I cherish the men I had in my life growing up as a boy. I had my dad, I had uncles, I had my brother, I had my bass and piano teacher. These men taught me good and bad things about manhood but seeing manhood in practice, in the flesh was important. Reeves’ argument that having more male teachers in elementary school is one I agree with. My first full-year male teacher was Mr. Coniglio in sixth grade and I hated that motherfucker, but man did I love him too. We fought, we butted heads even when we didn’t fight, he was hard on me, but man do I know he loved me, do I know he was trying to teach me some things that I needed to get taught. And some of the ways he did were very masculine. He cracked jokes with me, but not at me, while I would be crying. He didn’t actually say “tough shit” ever, but that is basically how he answered a lot of my complaints. My mom was also the “tough shit”-in-chief at home, but to get it from Mr. Coniglio was an important step. I believe it is relatively accepted that having more men in the classroom might be uniquely good for boys. Why can’t that also be relatively accepted when we talk about the idea of having more black teachers? I feel like that’s the line and I don’t know why. . .except I kind of do, because I think a lot of white parents don’t want black teachers teaching their children. . .which is stupid.

The Crisis in Manhood Can’t Just Be Answered By Artificially Rigging the Game for Boys - The modern world might not suit the way boys are currently taught, supported and developed. The modern world might not reward masculine energy with the financial spoils it has for the eternity of time. But the answer to that. . .it’s not to just bend it back and start rewarding that. We can’t bend it back. If the modern world doesn’t appreciate masculinity as it currently is expressed, there needs to be carte blanche about what changes, masculinity has never been a fixed quality, it can be pliable, it can evolve, it can change.

Personally, I've had complicated moments with my masculinity. I’ve had times when it felt like masculinity as it is understood wasn’t a fit for me. I believe I wanted distance from misogyny, from blind aggression from these things that at time seemed like they were a mandatory part of masculinity. But I’ve also had these moments where being a calming voice in a tense situation, a courageous spirit when I was called upon - where I felt I was drawing from a well of masculinity. One could do the same thing and feel they were drawing from a well of femininity, but I did not feel I was.

If I take out my awareness that I want our ecosystem between Rachel and I to thrive no matter what, on the whole I liked it when I made more money than my wife. I like the fact that now that she makes more money than me, we have more money. I’ll take that all day. But if the total dollar amount is set and I have to divide up who makes it, I’d like to make the bigger piece. I can tell you why: it feels good to make money, it makes you feel like when you come up short on other shit, you are still dropping the dollars in that make everything click for your family. So it gives you a sense of purpose even when you are fucking up as a dad or as a husband. And I listen to a shit ton of podcasts, I know that the data says that by in large heterosexual women want a man who packs away more money than her. Now I think that is just a prime example of the patriarchy living rent free in everyones brains. But, even if that’s what it is, that phenomenon does exist. It was a trying moment early on in our relationship when Rachel asked me to write down all the money I was making each month. This was at a time where I was probably pulling about 75% of my money from playing in Dessa’s band, it meant the $$ was very turbulent. Rachel simply wanted to know about it on a monthly basis. This makes sense, but it felt emasculating, it felt like she didn’t trust that I was bringing in money. That’s not fair. That’s my shit, not Rachel’s. But I struggled. But god damn I was proud when the number looked high to me, a couple big gigs, a couple extra trivia events and I was feeling myself.

The podcast kept on mentioning these depths of despair, and how they happen far more frequently to men. There was research mentioned about the last words that men say before they kill themselves and it was often about feeling useless. This breaks my heart. In my world I have so rarely felt useless: I have felt needed, scheduled, counted on, missed if I’m not there. I’ve been connected to this world and the feeling is mutual. These men don’t. . .maybe it goes back to slipping in school, maybe it goes back to slipping somewhere else and not finding your way. I do think we should try everything we can to end deaths of despair.

This writer Richard Reeves is not wrong - You’re not wrong Mr. Reeves. Men are having worse outcomes in school then they used to and we should try things to make that better. Your ideas, including the idea of holding boys back for one year before they start kindergarten, they’re interesting. There’s something there. I worry that you want to solve the world for boys by catering to them. I think ultimately if the world is moving on from a masculinity that once helped someone thrive, the solutions might need to be more evolved.

Being a boy is awesome - I am raising two girls, I love them and I feel like there is a lot of talk in my young parents circles about how much better girls are than boys. But, we have to stop that. Humans are incredible. Boys are humans. Girls are humans. I think these boys around us, they can hear what we are saying. We need to not treat boys like an inconvenience, we can’t excuse their shithead behaviors as boys will be boys, but we also have to want them to be boys, great boys, amazing wonderful boys. Now I have that Lizzo song about Boys in my head. What a treat.

No one is useless, we can’t let boys be useless. But we can’t artificially create a demand for masculine energy if it’s not there. We need boys to be deeply useful, celebrated for their usefulness, needed, central to the life of their family. I’m glad to be thinking about this.