House of Eratosthenes

So says Dr. Helen Smith. “People don’t know how to deal with boys.” That’s been this father’s observation as well…it isn’t just the two of us noticing it.

In fact, it seems hard to argue with it, with these diagnose-and-drug statistics. Earlier, Mr. Whittle makes reference to one in seven being diagnosed with ADHD before the age of eighteen.

I have long been alarmed over the lack of alarm. You have to dig a bit to find statistics like this, but once you do, they aren’t seriously disputed and the trend remains uninterrupted. So if you do take each and every diagnosis seriously and don’t question any of it — you would have to conclude something terrible is happening and the diagnosing part isn’t helping, it’s chopping away at the leafy part of the weed, failing to get to the root. Someone has to get into full Erin-Brockovich mode, toot-sweet, and start asking some scrutinizing questions about tap water, power lines over living areas, pesticides — whatever.

That’s if you take them seriously. But taking it seriously comes at too high a price: There are too many other things you have to stop taking seriously, in order to take the so-called “diagnoses” seriously. Too much critical thinking you have to stop. Too many questions you have to not-ask.

I do not understand this mentality about “we know this one has it because he was diagnosed…and that one…and that one…and that one, over there.” Kicking up drama about each individual specimen, ignoring the implications of the pattern as a whole. It has always looked to me like a disorder unto itself, like an alcoholic not bothering to keep track of how many glasses, or a fatty not bothering to keep track of how many donuts.

I sometimes wonder if the whole standardized-test, grade-level thing isn’t partially to blame here. (Nothing political; I’m just spitballing here). Different tranches of kids mature at different rates, right? This seems to be especially true for boys. Go to any Little League or Pop Warner game — there’s always one kid out there who’s just head and shoulders above everyone else (often literally). But you’re not looking at the next Mickey Mantle; he’s just a kid who got a spurt of hand-eye coordination maturity a season faster than the others in his age group. He’ll be just another player next year.

School subjects work the same way. Or, they sure seem to, for me and everyone else I know. Some kids are restless and bored in their grade because it’s too easy; some are fidgety because it’s too hard; and some are fidgety because some subjects are too easy and others are too hard. Before teach-to-the-test, teachers at least had a little leeway; they could “grade on improvement,” as the euphemism was. Nowadays, I hypothesize, we’ve got “proof” that little Johnny has ADHD, because he’s fidgety and can’t do his fractions…. when, in fact, the reason Johnny can’t do fractions is because he just can’t; his brain hasn’t gotten there yet. Give him a few months to grow, and he’ll be knocking them out easily.

Or, you know, make a Ritalin zombie out of him. 6 months later, and he can do his fractions… hey presto, he must’ve had ADHD, because look at how well the Ritalin is working!
- Severian | 05/11/2015 @ 07:12
I would go another route, Severian. American Women take mood altering drugs at an amazing rate ( http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/astounding-increase-in-antidepressant-use-by-americans-201110203624 ), and I think the boys are getting sweep along by that very feminine concept, “Everyone should do it the way I do it!”.
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 05/11/2015 @ 11:12
Holy guacamole!!! That explains a LOT.
- Severian | 05/11/2015 @ 11:51
There is a PC angle to this, as well. Was thinking this morning I forgot to mention something, and this has been bugging me for awhile…

If you’re addressing a boy, or a boy-man, or even a young man, it’s perfectly okay in our society to say something like — “Turns out, snowflake, for the times you’ve seen fit to pepper your resume with the hackneyed catchphrase ‘excellent communication skills’, you actually suck at it.” After all, it’s more than likely true! And it doesn’t matter why his wife left him, after all he picked her, so anything she does is his fault. Takes two to tango, and all that.

But there’s an imbalance, because it isn’t so okay to say that to a girl. Their self esteem is just so fragile, you know. This is a two-edge sword: You’re a creep if you confront a female with the idea that maybe she isn’t as good at interpersonal relationships as she thought she was, and at the same time, if you ply her with praise, earned or unearned, the wind beneath her wings becomes the wind lifting yours. So there’s always a mad scramble to be the first to tell her what a natural-born leader she is. And don’t call her bossy.

So we have a whole generation of “kids,” male and female alike, who aren’t as good at interpersonal relationships as they thought they were. On top of that, we have a societal taboo that says you can point this out to the boys, but don’t even think of mentioning it to the girls. On top of that, we have modern feminism…which means, no, we don’t have isolated instances of girls who suck at interpersonal relationships. We have whole crushing mobs of them.

Then they become mothers, and find out they can’t relate to their own sons. Well, it obviously can’t be any deficiency on her end, that just doesn’t compute. So, “let’s just take him in to have him tested, to make sure there’s nothing wrong…”

Once those words are spoken, the kid’s already diagnosed, that’s what a lot of people don’t understand. With that utterance, the Rubicon has been crossed.
- mkfreeberg | 05/11/2015 @ 17:01
Schools are most concerned with blotting out the heresy that boys and girls are different. Gasp. My wife, a thirty year elementary school teached has observed this basic fact that is ignored by educators. Most teachers and administrators in elementary school are women and expect boys to act and behave like the girls. The curriculum are tailored to the little girls who sit quietly in groups and cooperate while the boys are pushing, shoving, wrestling and acting like the males of all species do. Recess, has been sissified down to girlie games with no dodge-ball, king of the hill, red-rover etc. When boys act like boys the diagnosis is ADHA, ( a condition that rarely exist), and drugs are the prescription. Get those boys to settle down is the main objective. Thank heaven for Dr. Smith. It takes a woman to champion boys rights.
We truly need a masculinist movement.
- Open other end | 05/12/2015 @ 03:34
The only cure for rampant drugging of boys is to place them in boys-only schools staffed by men-only teachers.
- Bob Sykes | 05/12/2015 @ 05:08
I think OOE is closest to the truth. I went into the military first, so my sister and I went through school around the same time. Hamstrung and shafted into a arts degree that I didn’t want through repeated cancellations, I decided on getting an Associates of Science after obtaining my BA. My sister went for her MAT. It was the last I would ever see of my sister as I knew her.
The horror stories came fast and furious at first. Males were hit the hardest. Male teachers-in-training that didn’t toe the line and immediately feminize and liberalize were quickly washed out of the program. Teachers were taught that males were second-class citizens, mere disruptions in the classroom to be ‘dealt’ with in order to create a sterile working environment for the female elites. Subjects that boys typically excelled in such as PE, Math, Biology and math-based Sciences were either eliminated or simplified so radically that they could be rushed through to the important “classes” like discussions of class and society, gender, sex and sexuality, liberal politics, and the evils of capitalism and conservatism. These had completely taken over the bulk of classes labeled “History, Social Sciences/Studies, even English.”
My sister went from red to blue in order to survive. We rarely talk anymore. She moved to California to teach and complains heavily of the problems brought about by “conservatives,” crushing state debt, illegal immigration, road tolls and tax, rampant STD’s, unruly male students, pregnant female students, evil “religious fanatics” killing people in the middle east (always pointing the finger at Christians somehow), fascist government over-regulation…it doesn’t matter the subject, somehow it’s always a white male conservatives fault.
- P_Ang | 05/12/2015 @ 07:09

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