RUSH: Remember the TIME Magazine cover story claiming that recent research concludes, men and women are different? Boys and girls are different? Remember that? It was a cover story in 1996. It was mind-boggling. What must they have thought in order to make that the cover story? Well, they’re back. On the Today show cohost Matt Lauer today was speaking with TIME Magazine editor at large David Von Drehle. Matt Lauer says, ‘David, what’s behind the apparent change?’ The thing they’re talking about here is that boys have caught up to girls.
VON DREHLE: I think there’s more of a celebration, recognition of differences. Our schools are becoming more boy friendly, I think, but most importantly, parents are putting more attention into parenting. The time to be afraid of our kids, afraid for their future, is over. Now we just need to believe in them.
RUSH: Uhhh, I think parents are farming out more of the parenting these days than ever before, and Hillary wants to come grab the kids at age three or four now. ‘Schools are becoming more boy friendly but most importantly, parents are putting more attention into parenting’? Anyway, then Lauer talked to a psychologist who disagrees with this, Dr. Leonard Sax, author of a book called ‘Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men.’ That’s the title of his book. Matt Lauer says, ‘Let me go over some of the problem areas. More boys than girls in special education classes,’ because, you know, women have decided that men are all crazy. ‘More boys are prescribed with mood managing drugs.’ Yeah, because girls just don’t want to deal with boys and the way they are. Neither do their mothers. ‘More boys drop out of schools. They don’t read well. They’re in prison and are five times as likely as girls to die by suicide. Any improvement anywhere in there?’
SAX: Some of those we’re actually going in the wrong direction. This problem I call the medicalization of boyhood. Today there are 20 times as many boys taking medications like Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, Metadate —
LAUER: Attention deficit disorder, right?
SAX: Exactly. — compared to 20 years ago. Boyhood in this country has become to be seen as some kind of disease. In affluent suburbs, it’s common today to find one in three boys are on medication.
RUSH: That’s right. The chickification of society. Yeah. One in three boys on medication. ADD. AD/HD. DDD. DDT! (sigh) Call the AAA Club! Get the initials. It’s the feminization of the culture. Boys are just the way they naturally are. ‘No, it’s not good! It’s not good. They threaten women. They’re predators,’ and so forth and so on.