Opinion: A bad era to be a boy

From American Thinker:

Huck Finn must be spinning in his literary grave. Just recently a Colorado Springs, Co., elementary school banned tag during recess, joining other schools that have prohibited this childhood pastime. Upon hearing this, I thought about the movement to ban cops and robbers, musical chairs, steal the bacon, and the kill-joys’ most frequent target and this writer’s favorite childhood school game, dodge ball. Then there’s the more inane still, such as the decision by the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association to prohibit keeping score in kids’ tournament play.

There are many ways to describe this trend. One might say it’s a result of the left’s antipathy toward competition, the increasing litigiousness of the day, or the inordinate concern with self-esteem and hurt feelings. Then, if I am to speak only of my feelings, the word stupid comes to mind. Really, though, regardless of whether the motivations are good or ill or the reasoning sound or not, at the end of the day I find a conclusion inescapable. Slowly, incrementally, perversely, boyhood is being banned.

I was the kinda kid who spent most of his free time in my room reading books. My idea of a great weekend was finishing an Edgar Rice Burroughs “Mars” novel, or perhaps watching “Star Wars” for the 10th time. But I did some of thr traditional but stuff, from “kill the man with the ball” (the P.C. crowd must loooooove that game) to building forts out of leaves, snow, left-over lumber, etc.

It’s all social engineering, of course. There is a segment of the population that believe men are responsible for all the evils of the world. The solution, they think, is teach them how to think like women. That’s an over simplication, of course, but it’s accurate. ‘If women ran the world, there would be no g-ddamn wars.’ Maybe. But if the West forgets how to “man up,” leaving half the world behaving like we’re back in the 15th century or earlier, we’re in serious trouble.

There is nothing more serious than the games children play. The kind of boy who excels in “kill-the-man” is the same man who goes running into a burning building to rescue some child, or who goes back to the battle to rescue a comrade. The same thing goes for women.

In a less extreme example, games are supposed to teach us how to compete within a framewook of rules. In an era of steroids and Enron, I would think society would want to encourage boys and girls how to not only play within the rules, but how to win as well.