About the boys

The following is a Steven Bartlett LinkedIn post about young men and the crisis explored in-part by the TV show Adolescence:

‼️ We are losing a generation of young boys, it may not be popular to say, but boys and men need help...👇🏾

This month The Centre For Social Justice released a report that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.

The report opens with the following statement:

🗣️ "At the Centre for Social Justice, we are asked: what is really going on in our homes and communities? We listen to those working on the frontline - the teachers, youth workers, charities, and parents who see, day in and day out, the struggles playing out in the lives of young people. And in recent years, they’ve been telling us the same thing: something is going on with our boys."

📉 "Boys and young men are in crisis. Whilst the last hundred years have been marked by great leaps forward in outcomes and rights for women, in this generation it is boys who are being left behind. And by some margin."

📉 "From the day they start primary school, to the day they leave higher education, the progress of boys lags behind girls. The proportion of young men failing to move from education into employment or training has been steadily growing for 30 years."

📉 "Since the pandemic, the number of males aged 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training has increased by a staggering 40% compared to just 7% for females."

📉 "For those young men who are in work, the much-vaunted gender pay gap has been reversed. Young men are now out-earned by their female peers, including among the university educated."

🧠 "Young men are increasingly drawn to right-wing political movements, whilst young women become ever more liberal and left-progressive."

🧔🏻‍♂️ "In an increasingly online existence, boys and girls no longer walk the same path from childhood to adulthood, with their interests, values and aims in life increasingly incompatible with each other. As Britain grapples with an epidemic of family breakdown, millions of boys are deprived of any positive model of manhood."

😔 1 in 5 young boys grow up in households without a dad, and young boys in farther-less homes struggle more with depression & anti-social behaviour than young girls.

💵 "For boys in Britain - especially those who are poor - the picture is an increasingly bleak one. We also highlight different outcomes across certain ethnic groups."

📢 The first step in addressing this is public conversation (which we haven’t had enough of), I hosted a discussion this week on my show about this topic which will be out soon.

📺 I'm hoping to produce a documentary about this for TV / streaming sites, alongside several friends of mine / former podcast guests. (if you can help, please get in touch)

I'm extremely keen to hear what you're seeing & your thoughts? Teachers? Parents? Care workers? Therapists? What are you seeing? What can we do about it?

__

Thank you to Tim Shipman, who's article in The Times brought this to my attention. Search "The Lost Boys, The Times" to read his full article (I've linked it below).

In response to this, I vomited some initial thoughts, having had this cause close to my heart over the years both through The Creative Condition and a believer in the emotional benefits of artistic expression:

The intensified marginalisation of the arts in education, funding cuts to youth and cultural organisations, and the seismic impact (especially since 2010) of the Wild West age of social media is a triumvirate of evils for young men. Girls, too, of course. Arts and community organisations are key for not just filling in where the family and community failings have left holes, but also teaching fundamental life skills; independence, initiative, imagination, self-awareness, tolerance, primal release, physical activity, etc. We don't see maths not making 30 mathematicians per class as a failing, so to discredit dance, drama, and art as hobbying because it doesn't generate 30 Picassos is a preposterous oversimplification of a vital tool to get by in this information-drenched world. Look at Bikestormz, Dance United, CALM for examples of organisations creating unity, belonging, and purpose through arts. Read 'The Anxious Generation' by Jonathan Haidt, 'Your Brain on Art' by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, and the work of Richard Louv about the need for kids to play freely outdoors and be in nature. Young men are media scapegoats, instruments of political leverage when they should be, like the girls, seen as the next generation of everything.

and to follow on:

Ben Tallon Furthermore, lack of public space for young folk to hang out, play sport, explore, connect, and just be is shamefully scarce. Every plot of land seemingly becomes flats, car parks, or some other beacon of corporate dominance when a humble basketball court, skate park, or dare I say it, meadow – we've lost a terrifying amount of wildflower meadows (high 90%) since WW2, contributing to not only a dangerous loss of biodiversity, but also lack of open ground to roam and be free – would massively boost community and connection for kids and young women and men.

I’ll return to this topic with something more refined. We have indeed reached a crisis point. Several of my female coaching clients have voiced deep concern over rising misogyny, which I believe is completely weaponised by the same politicians and corporate cultures that I believe would strangle the last breath out of freedom of expression, inititative, and the natural world for every last penny. But to address this, we must start now, we must start with the roots, and we must start with the antagonist front of the aforementioned triumvirate of evils. It’s too much for here, but send me your thoughts and ideas.