The Former President’s Focus on Men and Boys
Post-president legacies are a strange thing. By the time Reagan was out of office, he didn’t know who or where he was, mirroring Joe Biden’s experience. W. Bush backed out of the spotlight just long enough to return by forming friendships with Clinton and Obama in an attempt to show solidarity for a country they all love. Jimmy Carter had one of the best post-president legacies, offering his time for humanitarian causes. He was often mislead by his feelings to ignore facts, the same dysfunction that soured his presidency, but his efforts were driven towards peace and love for other human beings, causing him to be very loved by most Americans. As it turns out, Obama may go down as having the best post-president legacy in history, other than maybe George Washington.
I was not a fan of much of what Obama did (and did not do) in office. The entire time he was in office, I felt like he was regurgitating buzz words for the demographic party that further ensured division. The democratic party drew the hard line that “we’re over here and you stay over there”, and Obama seemed forced to fall in step. I didn’t get the sense that he was saying exactly what he wanted to say. He wasn’t promoting ideas he really believed needed to be emphasized. He was a champion for ideological dichotomy.
He always struck me as someone who was very common sense oriented, level-headed, and a deep thinker. But during his presidency, his actions, and often inaction, were very divisive, lacked evidence necessitating emphasis, and was void of issues that were important to most Americans. But they lined perfectly with every flyer posted by the democratic party and their super PAC donors.
What is Obama Up to Now?
Now he’s out of office and doing podcasts. The recent podcast with his wife and brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, came out and got mixed reactions. The first thing many Americans lamented was highlighting that he called for men to have gay friends so if their son comes out, he has someone to look to. In context: He was not highlighting sexual orientation. He was highlighting diversity in friend group. Don’t just have a bunch of guys in your circle that look and think exactly like you. Challenge each other and yourself. That was his point. But leave it to hardline conservatives to refuse to remove the side blinders and focus on what was not being focused on. Yes, the right can be ideological too.
Obama Talks About Men and Boys
The focus of this podcast was on young men. Right away—that’s new! Since when did someone care about boys and men? I am of the belief that Obama cared the entire time but was not allowed to address it, except the one time he did in a speech, and received backlash from his party. After their slap on Obama’s wrist, he never did it again. But listening to him here, it is clear this is something on his mind. It is also clear Michelle (Misha- as Craig called her) has read research and is equally as concerned about where boys are headed.
Other Criticisms
Some have criticized the podcast as them saying what needs to be fixed about boys so that it benefits girls. They have two daughters. What other perspective would you expect from girl-parents? I’m a girl dad and I thought the same thing. My daughters need good men to marry. But even that criticism has no merit. Obama literally said,
“We have spent so much time talking about what boys do wrong that we have failed to say what they did right.”
Obama’s Marriage
Obama covered the laughable rumors that their marriage is in peril. Michelle did openly state that there was one time during their long marriage when she thought it was about to end, but that they worked through it. She did not cover when that was. Obama shared openly that he did not know his father and was raised by a very young single mother who did her best but was ill equipped to raise a young man. So he knew the importance of having a good father and set out to be that for his daughters.
What They Really Got Wrong
There were at least three times when they (really Michelle) were way off in their approach to issues with young men and boys. They basically kept referring to boys’ natural tendencies, like risk, adventure, and aggression, as broken and how they needed to be more like girls. This is so incredibly false. You will not convince a dog to purr. It just doesn’t know how. At one point. Michelle made the statement,
“I think it’s time to look at stepping away from sports and looking towards the arts, theatre, music, to give them an outlet for their feelings.”
Wrong. It’s not that the arts are bad. They’re not. I was in the music industry for 15 years. It is a great outlet for expression and the people I became friends with were very good people. But stepping away from sports is a terrible idea. Sports brings out the best in boys and young men. Camaraderie, teamwork, adversity, resilience, all get built in sports. The only idea in this part of the conversation I liked was that boys and young men need to diversify their interests and find outlets for expression. That’s true.
With all of that, Obama did attempt to keep the focus on the idea that we are pathologizing boys and young men, rather than allowing or creating spaces where they will thrive. Michelle quoted Obama as saying that the education system in its entirety is feminized, having no space for boys to be boys. Thus, instead of allowing boy traits to shine, we pathologize them because they can’t adhere to guidelines of sitting still the same way girls can.
My Assessment
Overall, the theme was clear. Young boys and men are suffering. Whether its due to failed parental strategies of trying to make them be more like girls, or even a more systemic dysfunction of making all learning spaces feminine and wondering why boys are
- A grade behind girls in English1
- more likely to drop out of high school
- less likely to earn a college degree
- and more likely to commit suicide2
There is a current need to turn our attention towards boys also. Notice that I said also and not instead of. As Dr.
Richard V Reeves says,
“People are capable of having two thoughts at once.”
No one is calling for attention to women’s issues to end. Only that we open our focus to both males and females.
So I understand Dr. Richard Reeves’ enthusiasm for what Obama had to say in this podcast. I hope we hear Obama’s emphasis on boys needing a community of men, not just a good father, to steer them in the right direction. I believe that’s true. However, I also hope we stand firm against Michelle’s approach to feminize boys, as if that’s the path to true morality.
All in all, with Obama talking about issues among men and boys, which was most likely very important to him the entire time, having been raised without a father, if he keeps this up, he may go down as having the best post-POTUS presidency ever..
Stay Classy GP!
Grainger
1 Reardon, S. F., Fahle, E. M., Kalogrides, D., Podolsky, A., & Zárate, R. C. (2019). Gender achievement gaps in U.S. school districts. American Educational Research Journal, 56(6), 2474–2508. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219843824
2 Murphy, G. E. (1998). Why women are less likely than men to commit suicide. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 39(4), 165–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-440X(98)90057-8