National Boy Crisis

Kate points out that Laura Bush speaks out in Newsweek on the nation’s Boy Crisis. Not the Boy Crisis you might expect her to be an expert on — the one involving the overgrown kid who picks fights, lies about them, brags about them, and utters threats that other boys (and girls) will have to back up. And when he’s not fighting and lying and swaggering, he spends other people’s money like there’s no tomorrow (it’s OK because he’s giving lots of it to his friends). And to top it off, he still hasn’t learned how to chew his food before swallowing. No, not that boy.

No, Laura is worried about all the other boys in America who are suffering from the lack of positive male role models and from males who model tough, empty-headed behavior instead of feeling, empathetic behavior. Translation: It’s OK for boys to be girly-men. They can even cry if they life. How does Laura think we can do to solve the Boy Crisis? Here’s some of her level-headed wisdom:

I know there is something we can really do about it, and part of it is just paying attention to it, for there to be a national focus on what we can do for boys, getting the word out to parents so that they also don’t just act upon the stereotype that we have of boys…

And also, you can teach boys to read. Just like the boy in her life. Thanks heaps, Laura.