A Boy's Need for Adventure
by Stephen Wunderli

In our rush to ensure equal time and rights for our daughters, we have neglected our sons. In a year when the defining sports moment for girls was the US Women's soccer victory, the moment for boys was Columbine High School. Some of the players on that women's soccer team had children. They brought them to practice, depended on their teammates, worked hard and were tremendous sports. Who do the boys have? Dennis Rodman.

Certainly feminism has something to do with it---the rhetoric in our elementary schools and in children's book publishing was designed to make boys more like girls, rather than acknowledge the differences in gender and deal with them separately.

I am not bashing females here. Certainly boys have to accept their sensitive side. But discouraging competition, and making a young boy feel guilty for any expression of aggression only confuses him, buries real emotions so deep he never comes to grip with them. Boys are different than girls in more ways than physical. They develop differently emotionally, they are more aggressive, more restless at a young age, less focused, more spontaneous, more difficult to channel.

Punishing Boys
What feminism did to our boys is preach that all of the above should be punished (albeit passively) as if it were all categorically "bad" behavior. The backlash is epidemic problems in the boy population. Their overall academic performance is down, they are more likely to turn to violence to solve disputes, they suffer from depression in greater numbers than their female classmates, a higher percentage of them are criminals and they are more likely to commit suicide. I believe some of these problems are a result of the confusion our boys are feeling---the homogenizing of interpersonal relationships until they are all the same, sensitive, non-confrontational examples of what normal should be.

There is a way to nurture both boys and girls, to give women the rights they deserve without patronizing them. I am wholeheartedly for women who choose to have a career, just as I applaud men who are more dedicated to their families than they are their jobs. And I am convinced that it is much more difficult to be a good parent than it is a good salesman, or surgeon or carpenter. But today we are talking about boys.

So I have to ask: Where have all the great adventure stories gone? Where are those heroes for boys that embody honor, courage, and integrity? When I was a boy of 12 or so, I loved Huck Finn. I also read the antics of anti-heroes so popular in the sixties in books like The Outsiders, and Bless the Beasts and the Children. In my mind, these were some of the last great books for young adult readers that dealt honestly with boy's feelings. Before them were the wonderful (yet improbable) adventures for boys published in the 20's, 30's, and 40's. The Hardy Boys series, imagined by Edward Stratemeyer and written by ghostwriters such as Franklin Dixon, captivated millions of restless boys. This series has been reprinted by Applewood Books in hardback like the original, with all the original language. The publisher notes: "Much has changed in America since the books were first issued. The modern reader may be delighted with the warmth and exactness of the language, the wholesome innocence of the characters, their engagement with the natural world, or the nonstop action without the use of violence; but just as well, the modern reader may be extremely uncomfortable with the racial and social stereotyping, the roles women play in these books, or the use of phrases or situations which may conjure up some response in the modern reader that was not felt by the reader of the times."

With that disclaimer, the books are still a lot of fun; just as Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are a lot of fun, even with their stereotypes. As parents, we should talk to our children about those stereotypes and explain why they have changed. But let's not take away the adventure in the process. Boys need adventure to encourage their independence and growth, to develop that part of them willing to sacrifice for a greater good. They need conflict to play out in their imaginations so that it won't have to be played out in their lives. A make-believe sword fight helps a boy understand the consequences of violence, and mercy. It also helps him come to terms with his frustrations, his fears. By imagining his way through a battle, a boy almost always wins. This process develops in him an optimism he'll carry with him the rest of his life. By thwarting that imaginative process, a boy won't develop the hope or confidence he needs to solve problems.

Adventure always brings a boy safely home. And knowing that there is always a home to return to encourages a boy to venture out, to grow, first as a child using his imagination, and then as an adult using his experience.

Adventurous Fun
There are more recent adventure stories that help boys deal with their aggression, and channel their imaginations. My boys love the books by Gary Paulsen, especially The Hatchet, and The Winter Room. Still, Huck Finn does it for me. I grew up by a large horse pasture with a canal rimming its edge and abandoned chicken coops at the far reaches of my childhood territory. We had everything Huck and Tom could want in our world. We were free to imagine ourselves hunting for gold or rafting the Mississippi.

When we ventured out too far, we hacked at our fears with swords made of branches and scrambled back to some hideout among fallen elm trees. We bonded as friends. We trusted each other. We rarely fought, and when we did, we forgave easily without the intervention of parents. And though we didn't quite like girls yet, I think each of us secretly had an eye out for Becky Thatcher.

* See "The War Against Boys," by Christina Hoff Sommers.