Leving and Sacks Take on "Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice"

Her e-mail addy failed on my end?

Big Sisters double speak never ceases to amaze me.

“The idea that men are obsolete is progressive and open minded”

“The best boys are boys raised by women to feel obsolete and unneeded”

What psychos. Cant wait till society grows up and we realize it’s not only white men that are capable of hatred, at that point women like this and all the other Enslers and Mckinnons out there will finally be given their rightful title in literary history.. Hatemonger

Rosanna Hertz's little tome is nothing more than apologia for bastardy. She obviously has a deep need to not only justify it but to present it as a superior alternative to the traditional family paradigm. Maybe she is a bastard herself? She certainly sounds like one!

Her email addy is rhertz@wellesley.edu, not rhertz@wellsley.edu (see the difference? A missing 'e' in the originally-posted address). I have corrected the main post, too.

I recall reading book reviews of this piece of fem-crap.

The authoress did a very limited qualitative study (no stats, no longitudinal data) of feminist mothers in her own social circle.

She interviewed only self-selected rad-fem single moms and lesbian couples.

One major critique of her book was that she "studiously" avoided interviewing the boys who were trapped in these dysfunctional matriarchies.

I predict Ms. Hertz will be president of Harvard within three years.

She represents the very best of Harvard's modern contempt for actual scholarship, and a total surrender to wacko feminism.

Larry Summers, what toxic weeds did you plant in the Ivies with your incessant apologies and groveling?

I work as a mental health counselor, and my referrals are 90% preadolescent males that were referred with behavior problems. In almost EVERY case that I have had, these boys were growing up in single-parent homes (i.e., with mom and without Dad) with very few exceptions. But those that had fathers available, were much much closer to normal functioning and had a much better prognosis than those boys that did not have their fathers available. So what is ithat that Dad gives these few boys, that is so apparently obsolete? Far more than just their seed.

Are you a school psychologist?

Because men's rights advocates are increasingly zoning in on the hostile feminist-controlled environments that our boys are trying to survive.

What exactly are the "behavior problems" that boys are being accused of?

Who is "referring" 9 boys for every 1 girl that comes into your office?

Do you see a pattern?

What is it?

What correctional psycho-dynamic treatments are you authorized to administer?

Do you recommend Ritalin and/or other psychoactive drugs for boys?

What degree of discretion do you have in dealing with your referred preadolescent clients?

Where are the parents in this scenario?

Based on your experiences, what do you believe is happening to boys in our schools?

(Apologies for sounding like an interrogator; however, your insider knowledge is critical and needs to be shared, please.)

Actually no, I am not a school psychologist. School psychologists are typically responsible for administering and interpreting specialized assessments like the WISC (Weschlet Intelligence Scale for Children) and participating in team planning for special needs students. They do not often provide direct services.

I am a former elemetary school counselor. Now, I am a university professor in the field of counselor education (my day job), and a liscensed professional counselor in my state. I moonlight as a mobile therapist in my county, and I often find myself working with children and their parents.

As I said, most often the identified client is a pre-adolescent male, and the parent that lives with the child is a single mother. And often it is the mother that made the referral for services, as you might have suspected. It is also not uncommon for the mothers to request services because the school requests it from the mother.

The reason for the referral is fairly simple: They often cannot handle their boys. They are getting in trouble in school, and mother's cannot seem to manage their behvior in the home. I have two such cases right now. Mothers generally resort to something called 'coersive parenting' which follows the following pattern:

Parent makes a request; Child resists; parent increases intensity of request; child escalates reistance. (This can go through several cycles.) At the end, parent becomes frustrated and either uses physical force, or withdraws completely. In either case, the child learns that might makes right, or that if you behave in a crazy enough way, then you're off the hook.

If a father is present, my experience tells me that this cycle is short-circuited. It appears to not develop so severly that it is almost beyond management. Or it simply never begins anyway. I can only guess about this, since I rarely have a referral with a child that has their father at home.

As far as what types of treatments I can administer, I have a fair amount of latitude. But I am also pressed to do something to improve the situation as quickly as possible. And since psycho-dynamic interventions are time consuming and often impractical, I work with the parent to break the coercive cycle using behavior management plans.

What do I think about psychoactive drugs? I think these drugs are short-sighted and unwise. If I had a son, I would home-school him before giving him such pills. But schools put pressure on parents, and parents run to the doctor. As far as I am concerned, the gender bias is obvious. 80% or more of school personnel are female, and they misunderstand male energy. So they try to medicate it.

What do I believe is happening to boys in our schools? Hard to be objective here, but it seems to me that they are being taught to be girls, by girls. And it isn't working. The evidence is the rates of referrals to special education services. Boys are by far in the majority. And they are also a minority in higher ed. nowadays. There are not many indicators where boys are equal with girls of the same age these days. And some research that I did about 5 years ago suggests that some boys have disengaged their self-concept from educational achievement.

Sorry about the long answer.