Probably nothing. In the meantime, let’s check out the following data:
- Of the more than 110 million children out of school, approx. 60% are girls.
- At least one in three girls and women worldwide has been beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime.
- By age 18, girls have received an average of 4.4 years less education than boys.
This is just a tiny fraction of the widely available data on the girl child; hopefully something similar can be found for the boy child. Wrong! There is virtually no data about the boy child. If you really want one, then you have to hit the streets like I did. In fact, the phrase “boy child” probably doesn’t exist. Still in doubt? Search for “girl child” and “boy child” respectively on web search engines to see the canyon-like difference in the number of times each phrase appears.
I’m not trying to trivialise the plethora of issues confronting a girl child; I know better because I was once that child. However, the boy child faces more challenges than we give them credit for. Challenges that need our attention considering the fact that, the boy child later becomes a husband, friend, neighbour to our girl child on whom we have spent much resources on to groom & protect.
Bad boys i.e. male bullies or irresponsible adults (a number which seems to be on the rise) weren’t born that way. They are the result of a society (it includes the home) that believes:
- teen pranks are ok because “he’s just being a boy – boys will be boys;”
- boys shouldn’t cry, tattle or show excessive emotion — “be a man and suck it up;”
- a pregnant female teen is promiscuous while the teen sperm donor is just the unfortunate guy who got caught but nevertheless need not bother about the child’s upbringing – that’s for the teen mum & her family to do;
- only girls need to do or learn house chores — in the city, that would be the girls and the domestic help.
How then do the boys learn responsible behaviour? On never-ending TV programs & video games, football pitches or parties? How do they become responsible men; men, bold enough to face daily challenges in positive creative ways and handle stress without hitting others as a form of relief.
Recently, there has been a rise in the number of male students abroad dropping out of school, graduating with poor results, racking up credit card debts, mismanaging personal funds or doing drugs to the shock of their parents. On the other hand, their female/girl counterparts seem to be doing fine even going as far as taking part-time jobs to supplement their funds or obtain experience in their future career. Thus, while the girls are thinking about the future, the guys are goofing around. It’s no surprise that such bad boy attitude has even affected the operations of micro finance enterprises that favour female borrowers over male borrowers because the former are more responsible i.e. they will more likely use the loan for genuine cause and effectively so.
The challenges faced by boys can be narrowed down to one; becoming a responsible male adult despite little or no personalised direction/attention from the society. However, the answer to this challenge runs deep in different directions based on their various life experiences. So, unlike the main challenge the answer is not simple or in one-fold. Like an Auntie once said there are only 2 outcomes of a good girl turning bad; teen pregnancy and poor academics, but they are several more outcomes for a boy. This saying may not be as accurate as 20 years ago due to the rapidly spreading feminism ideology (a probable offspring of girl child awareness campaigns); nevertheless, the bitter truth is that boys need as much attention as the girls. It should be 50-50 and not skewed in favour of either sex. So like the girls, boy child rearing should be given more deliberate attention such that boys will realise that the question “Bad boy, bad boy, what they gonna do when they come for you …” will now be answered with a litany of punishments and reprimand.
