Saval's book is one of the latest tack-
ling the subject of the crisis of teenage
boys. They include Boys Adrift: The Five
Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of
Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving
Young Men" (Basic Books, 2007), by
Leonard Sax; Raising Boys: Why Boys
Are Different — and How to Help Them
Become Happy and Well-Balanced Men
(Celestial Arts, 2008), by Steve Biddulph
and Paul Stanish; and The Purpose of
Boys: Helping Our Sons Find Meaning,
Significance and Direction in Their Lives
(Jossey-Bass, 2009), by Michael Gurian.
"Boys are the new girls:' Saval said.
Girls — specifically teenage girls
— took center stage in 2002 with the
release of Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees
and Wannabees: Helping Your Daughter
Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and
Other Realities of Adolescence, which
spawned a feature film (Mean Girls), more
books (Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves
of Adolescent Girls) and a national debate
about the problems of teenage girls.
Focus: Boys
"No one was really talking about teenage
boys',' said Saval, who followed Apollo and
other teenage boys for a 2006 L.A. Weekly
article that resulted in her new book. Now
they are; educators, psychologists and
authors have diagnosed a serious crisis for
boys.
"Something scary is happening to boys
today,' Leonard Sax writes in Boys Adrift,
in which he says that a combination of
social and biological factors is creating an
environment that is literally toxic to boys.
"From kindergarten to college, they're less
resilient and less ambitious than they were
a mere 20 years age
The problems, experts say, range from
academic failure to absentee parents (and
fathers) to gangs, bullying, drugs, teenage
pregnancy and their general lack of a clear
sense of how they fit into society.
How do Jewish boys fit into the equa-
tion? Are Jewish teenage boys in crisis,
too? Is it even possible in today's integrat-
ed society, where most Jewish teenagers
attend public school, to make a separate
statement about Jewish teens?
Not exactly, since it is equally impos-
sible to distinguish all Jewish boys from
non-Jewish boys and to lump together all
Jewish boys.
Maxwell Scheffield, a nerdy, ambitious
perfectionist who at 14 runs numerous
businesses, organizes his parents' law
practice and lives for getting into Harvard;
and "The Rich Kid',' Preston Bard, whose
money couldn't save him from a severely
debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder.
They all feel isolated, different, alone. Is
that a teenage characteristic or a Jewish
one?
"I think I mention the fact that I'm
Jewish mostly when talking about how I
don't belong or how I can't ever fully relate
to so many parts of society' Apollo says in
the book.
Other boys in the book include "The
Teenage Dad,""The Troublemaker" and
"The Average American Kid:' Some stereo-
types are less recognizable in the Jewish
community — the absentee father, the
parents who don't help their sons with
school, the teenage father, the gang kid.
That's because Jewish
boys are not exactly in
crisis, says Gurian, the
author of Purpose of
Boys.
"Jewish boys are
doing better than
other boys:' he said. "I
wouldn't say they're in
crisis in the same way
other boys are in crisis.
If we define crisis as
severe falling behind"
— which he writes
about in his many
books on boys — "we
wouldn't find that with
Jewish boys."
Jewish parents tend
to be from a higher
socioeconomic background, they tend to
be more verbal, they tend to read to their
children at younger ages and tend to push
college prep as a necessity.
"Jewish culture tends to provide men-
toring systems via synagogue or commu-
nity' Gurian said.
He created a mentoring program for all
boys called "Hineni" (Here I Am), which
he started at his synagogue, Temple Beth
Shalom in Spokane, Wash. The program
aims "to lead and supervise boys into
healthy male adulthood through orga-
nized physical and spiritual actions of risk
and challenge the author said.
Diverse Types
In her book, Saval profiles 10 different
"types" of boys — three of whom happen
to be Jewish. (Originally there were four,
but one dropped out because his parents
worried that he wasn't portrayed well.)
There's Apollo Lev, the recovering addict
whose chapter is called "The Mini-Adult";
Gender Lines
But Jewish boys — and others from "high
performing" subgroups — do have some
of the problems affecting many boys:
entitlement, overmedication, high expec-
tations and lack of purpose.
"I say every boy should work at age 16;
everything is given to them. That is some-
24
Septi?..{-nber 17 - 20()9
thing I do work with in the Jewish com-
munity," said Gurian, a family therapist
who founded the Gurian Institute to train
educators how to teach boys differently.
As boys' brains develop later — some-
times boys don't read until age 7 or 8
— highly involved parents (read: Jewish)
worry early, concluding that "we have to
medicate he said. Another problem is
expecting a son to be good at everything
"when he's asserting what he's really good
Gurian says it is the expectations that
must change.
"That's something the Jewish commu-
nity has to deal with:' he said.
Aside from lofty expectations, Jewish
educators are worried that Jewish boys are
more likely to fall out of religious training
than Jewish girls.
Leonard Saxe (no relation to the author
Sax) and Shaul Kelner, authors of Being
a Jewish Teenager in
America: Trying to
Make It — a report
based on a 2001 sur-
vey of 1,500 Jewish
adolescents and their
parents — wrote
that they consistently
"found that girls were
more likely than boys
to be active members
of their Jewish com-
munities, to espouse
Jewish values, and to
enjoy participation
in the community;
author Leonard Sax boys more readily
bid farewell to Jewish
involvement."
"Why do you
think that is?" asked Dr. Wendy Mogel, a
clinical psychologist and author of the
popular The Blessing of a Skinned Knee:
Using Jewish Teaching to Raise Self-Reliant
Children (Scribner, 2001), a book that
tackles the problems of affluent, upper-
class (often Jewish) parents and children.
"Jewish life gets a little bit low in the
pecking order for boys:' Mogel said.
"Parents are in terrible anguish — the
people I see are having problems, so it's
not the average teenage boy. The boys say,
`I'm not doing any more homework:"
Mogel says religious life has opportu-
nities more natural to teenage girls, like
tending to younger kids and teaching
them, and socializing, while boys prefer
more dangerous and risky activities.
Another factor, she said, is that children
today are increasingly busy.
"It's so much effort for parents to push
boys that are not naturally engaging into
something like SAT prep, that they just
give up on the other things like religious
"Something scary is
happening to boys
today ... They're less
resilient and less
ambitious than they
were a mere 20 years
ago."
school," Mogel said.
Beyond Boys
In fact, according to another survey for
Moving Traditions by Dr. Michael Reichert
and Sharon Ravitch, 47 percent of boys
think the bar/bat mitzvah was gradua-
tion from Jewish school, compared to 34
percent of the girls; and 41 percent of the
boys said Jewish-sponsored classes or
activities "offered nothing of interest to
me," as opposed to 32 percent of the girls.
For many researchers, the numbers in
its study suggest that the "boys' crisis" is
really one facing the whole society — for
parents, for girls and for women who
eventually have to marry these boys.
"If we don't meet the needs of teenage
boys and girls today, we are not going to
have Next Gen people to talk to in five to
10 years," said Deborah Mayer, the execu-
tive director of Moving Traditions.
Her organization just started a
"Campaign for Jewish Boys" to reverse
their mass exit from and dissatisfaction
with Jewish life. The program, which com-
plements the organization's "Rosh Hodesh:
It's a Girl Thing" initiative for girls in
sixth to 12th grades, aims to educate the
Jewish community to better understand
and meet the needs of adolescent boys,
to spark their interest and maintain their
participation in Jewish life and build boys'
Jewish identity.
"What can we be doing in the Jewish
community to meet their needs as boys
with Jewish offerings?" Meyer asked. "By
doing that, we will be building Jewish
identity more effectively"
Steve and Carol Meranus' 14-year-old
son just finished the pilot program in
Philadelphia. For a few hours every week,
a group of boys met at each others' homes
with the 26-year-old group leader, engag-
ing in activities such as playing sports,
watching movies, hanging out and talking.
Not that the Meranuses knew exactly
what was going on — "Boys don't talk,"
Carol said — but they knew their son
really liked the program.
"He was the one making sure he was
prepared and ready to go on time Steve
said.
When their family hosted the last ses-
sion, their son said, "I gotta go out and
make sure everyone's greeted, and they
know where to go:'
His father was impressed.
"That's very highly unusual behavior
for most kids that age Steve said, adding
that he grew up "like a cork in the ocean"
— the only Jew among non-Jews — so he
was happy to see his son doing "guy stuff"
with other Jewish kids.
"Maybe," he said, "it will help him still
be connected to that when he's older."