When Did Men Become Irrelevant?

As Bob got older, he realized Dad's advice just wasn't cutting it.
"Dad, where do I get a change of address form."
"Just stick your new address under your pillow, Robert, and the Change of Address Fairy will leave the proper form."

This Public Service Announcement for FirstGov.gov is just one of many commercials, PSA's and TV shows we are bombarded with each day that makes men look like useless, blubbering idiots. We have become a society that attacks and belittles males. A goal of the progressives has been to make sons as different from their fathers as possible and unfortunately for all of us, they are succeeding.

As the mother of two boys, I will be the first to tell you that they are completely different creatures than girls. But instead of accepting and celebrating those differences, boys are forced to act more like girls. When that doesn't work, they are diagnosed as having Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and prescribed Ritalin. I think they added the "H" a couple years ago just to make the condition sound more severe; it was ADD when I was growing up.

I, for one, am convinced that all boys are ADHD to some degree and if all boys have ADHD, is it even a disorder? If it is, it is over-diagnosed. Boys can be more difficult. They don't sit still for long periods of time. They can be louder and more boisterous than girls. Instead of accepting and working with their maleness, teachers find it disruptive and seek to drug the "problem".

I just read a study that said 10-12% of adolescent boys in the US are on Ritalin and the US consumes 80% of Ritalin sold in the world. In researching for this post, I found some scary facts about Ritalin.

-After 3 years on the drug, children are, on average, 1 inch shorter and 4.4 pounds lighter than their peers.
-A study funded by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health shows that children taking Ritalin or other stimulant drugs for ADHD are several times as likely to suffer sudden, unexplained death as children who are not taking such drugs.
-Ritalin may cause long-term changes in the brain. The brains of rats given Ritalin showed the same type of changes seen the the brains of cocaine and amphetamine.

To further handicap boys, schools are doing away with recess and PE. Boys can't even blow off their energy when they get home from school. Teachers are assigning more homework than ever in an effort to be tough on education. Top that off with the fact that the distance from home a child can roam, play and explore has severely decreased in the last 50 years and it's little wonder our boys are hyperactive!

More and more children are being raised in households with no father present. (Interestingly, children of two-parent families are less likely to be prescribed Ritalin.) I believe this can largely be attributed to "Great Society" programs (see the PSA at the top of this post. The government knows better than Dad, don't you know.). 27% of American children live in single parent households. In 2004, 64% of black children lived in a single parent households. Most of these households are headed by women.

Our society canonizes the single mom. They are practically heroes, but in truth, being a single mother is probably the best way to ensure your children do worse in school, take drugs and end up in jail. Children of single mothers are twice as likely to drop out of school and 2.5 times as likely to become teenage mothers.

So boys are drugged to act more like girls; fathers, when they are present, are portrayed as buffoons; when they aren't present, it's okay, they are only irrelevant sperm donors. What's next? How about, for the first time ever, there are more women in the workplace than men. Feminists have won. The traditionally male role of breadwinner has been reversed. Ironically, women are more unhappy than ever.

Think kids don't need dads? Here's a great clip that shows just how much daddy means to a child. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svTTxC_LbzA

It's time we stop demonizing and belittling men. It's time we acknowledge and respect their place in society and raise our sons to be real men!