Jeremy Bodenhamer

I'm changing what I write about here. I'm focused on boys, fathers and formation. I write fiction, poetry, and essays because lectures don't reach boys and fathers don't need another manual. If you are here for that, welcome.

Yes, there’s a vacuum. Yes, boys are getting a long list of don’ts and no map forward. Yes, someone crude and extractive is filling the gap. All true. But the author fails to see past his own frame: the moment you use the word “manosphere,” you’ve already conceded the terms of the debate. You’re treating the appetite for male formation as a problem to be managed rather than a need to be met. The article wants to out-compete Tate with a better pitch. What boys actually need is what they’ve always needed, men who take their development seriously, who hold them to real standards, who transmit something worth transmitting. Not a TED talk about “individual ambition and collective benefit.” That’s still just therapy-speak. The market failure isn’t that nobody’s offering a counter-narrative. It’s that the men who should be doing this work, the fathers, coaches, teachers, have either been sidelined, checked out, or told their instincts are dangerous. Davey didn’t get radicalized by an algorithm. He lost his father and nobody stepped in. That void is the whole story.

“Rather than being primarily about ideology, the manosphere is a contest over who gets to define success for a generation of boys actively searching for an answer.” Superb weekend piece by @S_VanTeutem @FinancialTimes ft.com/content/a00cba… via @ft

The same parents saying this are those who refuse to admit their kid does anything wrong, yells at the teacher when their kid earns a bad grade, does the work for them at home, threatens to bring in their personal attorney when the don’t like the answer. Snow plows is what they are called as adults. Bullies is what we would call them if they were still kids. Watch who walks into class and picks up trash and watch who steps over it. The kid who steps over it learned that from someone.

Every time I post something about poorly behaved students, people will comment something to the effect of the below, implying that it is mainly or solely the kids with bad home lives that are misbehaving. But this isn’t true. And it’s pretty insulting.

@GenXMormon @JamesAFurey Exactly. “Chased” was generous. They didn’t chase. They converted. The whole pipeline optimized for one reader and called it the market. And then told boys the problem was them.

To say that publishing chased girls is a huge understatement. Publishing IS girls today. The traditional publishing industry is dominated by women from executives to editors to agents to authors. And they cultivate female authors and female interests. Go to any bestseller list, book club list, etc., and 70-80% of the authors being featured are women. The publishing media will tell you this is simply because women are reading and men aren't, and while that is somewhat true, men aren't going to read when there are no books written for them.

Buried lede: Decades of emphasizing cultivating a “love of reading” has resulted in girls reading mostly absolute garbage and boys not hardly reading at all.

Dungeon Crawler Carl by @mattdinniman It’s like your wife wanting ice cream and you say no because you’re being good. So she orders it anyway. She offers you a taste. You know it’ll be good. You also know it’s gonna make you fat. So you take one bite. Just one. Then another. Call it your Doomsday Scenario. Next thing you know you’ve taken the cup clean out of her hands and you’re licking the bottom while she watches in silence. Gonna be a long nite. The next thing you know you’re on book 7.

Have you ever read a book by an author that was so good it made you want to read everything else they've written?

Today, college = debt. Trades = freedom. I’d rather my sons become master electricians or fix old sewer pipes and own homes, coach little league, and set their own hours than sit behind a screen in a sterile downtown condo to make rent. “Elite” parents know that’s not settling. That’s winning.

College degrees were more valuable in the job market when fewer people had them Is it any wonder why college educated parents who are sending their own kids to elite private colleges are telling everyone else, “No, your kids should go into the trades”

@drantbradley The bubble wrap isn’t protecting boys from the world. It’s protecting parents from the discomfort of watching their kids struggle. Responsible, polite, and safe is a parenting win disguised as a formation failure. Result: We got compliance. We didn’t get a man.

Evangelicals don't have an elite problem. They have a formation problem. They raise bubble-wrapped cubicle boys and then complain about them later becoming passive men. Raised for passivity, destined for people-pleasing.

Reeves did something remarkable, he got the mainstream to admit boys are in crisis. Of Boys and Men made the argument. Obama put it on his list. The policy world is now convinced. But the boys themselves? Still no voice. No fiction written from inside that crisis. No Holden Caulfield. No Ponyboy. No Owen Meany. What we have is Captain Underpants. Catcher in the Rye was 1951. We haven't replaced it.

@drantbradley The research tells you what's happening to boys without fathers. What it can't tell you is what it's like to be one. That's what fiction is for. These stories haven't been told in decades.

Marriage is something that college educated adults do and something that non-college adults do not. Regardless of the anecdotal stories of people you know personally, this is the America current trend line. If you don’t believe me, read this book for the data. It’s startling!

Just gonna leave this here for a bit

@cboyack The default advice used to be: “Go to college.” In our house, it’s now: “Don’t start your adult life in debt.”

Only 35% of Americans think college is "very important." That's down from 70% in 2013. The market has delivered its verdict.

@DanaPalubiak It was accountability once and for all. Shocker. It worked.

The 'Mississippi Miracle' wasn't just phonics. It was coaches, training, intervention, retention, and curriculum support.

@MBDscience Reading lessons at grade level for a 7-8 year old and holding their hand until they catch up.

Sometimes, staff voice needs to overrule student voice. If the 14y.o. with a reading age of 7 says they don't want to do reading intervention, we shouldn't be agreeing to just give model answers and sentence starters instead, we should be saying you're having reading lessons.

@educator4ever36 It's the school's job. The teacher's. The social worker's. The counselor's. The officer's. The judge's. The prison's. Or maybe it was the parent's job all along.

This is 100% parents’ fault. The school day and year could easily be shortened but schools are first and foremost child care facilities. The educators didn’t do this, the parents did.

Middle school is where kids get lost. The research is clear. One adult who actually knows them has the ability to change the outcome - regardless of home life or background. Twenty teachers and a sea of kids? The math no longer works. The transition from elementary to middle school is one of the most researched inflection points in education. GPA, attendance, and engagement all drop and rarely recover later. Chronic absenteeism accelerates in middle school. And once a kid is chronically absent in 6th grade, the dropout risk in high school spikes dramatically. Boys specifically fall off harder and earlier than girls. The gender gap in reading, math and academic engagement widens significantly in middle school. The information is known. And what has the system done for generations? Introduced class-to-class middle school earlier and earlier. The programs that are winning are those who do it the other way around and go back to one class room, one set of students and, if necessary, the teacher rotates, but the kids have a home room teacher who knows them, and cares about them, and is responsible for their success. The conversation we should be having is making grade school structure the standard.

The best gift we can give any kid is a hard thing they didn't want to do but had to finish anyway. Comfort is not the goal. Capability is.

@SarahBBeverly @educator4ever36 In this scenario, specialists could still rotate into each class instead of students rotating. But the home room teacher would maintain ultimate responsibility for the assigned class and would not rotate.

@FounderDad @educator4ever36 From a teacher perspective, I’d need a LOT more planning time if I were teaching all subjects. MS content is specialized & we’re required to be licensed by subject matter. I’ve taught ELA & SS, and w/ a good curriculum I could manage science but I’m NOT qualified to teach math.

I think it’s time we eliminate the current middle school concept and figure out a different grade configuration that makes sense for teens.

@FoundationDads This is the same reason schools lowered standards to begin with. Complaints without consequences are the easiest path. Just not the right one.

A father complains about the school curriculum at dinner, shakes his head at the teacher's methods, then drops his kid off at the same building the next morning and does nothing. Abdication with some commentary. The bluster makes him feel like he's doing something productive. But narrating the problem over and over again does nothing. Captain the ship.

George Marshall was an American five-star general who shaped the Allied victory in World War II. David Brooks tells his story in his book The Road to Character. Marshall believed real devotion means the mission comes first. Not title. Not personal upside. Not brand. You take the role the institution needs, even when it costs you. We seem to have lost this value and what an engaged and committed citizenry does for the country and its people.

Had an interesting conversation about how the younger generations don't see the value in working beyond their hours, and go into a profession with the plan of staying only 5-10 years. So will the teaching profession adapt to this?

Check out my latest post on Substack: Hard on Purpose open.substack.com/pub/jeremybode…