Book Review: Boys Adrift by Dr. Leonard Sax

This week's review is on Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Leonard Sax.

Leonard Sax is a "family physician, psychologist, and acclaimed author" (back cover) who presents a case of five factors affecting boys (drawn from observations, discussions, and limited studies) in this book published in 2007. Like Bad Therapy, I found myself nodding along with the problem, some of the diagnosis, and drawing backwards at other aspects of this book.

The book follows a simply social psych format: chapter one is the problem, chapters 2-5 and 7 present the five factors, and chapter 8 presents possible remedies. Chapter 7 will be addressed later and mainly serves as pages of emails.

The factors and solutions, Sax presents make sense, but do so in a dated way. Chapter 2 presents the academization of kindergarten as a problem, while the solution seems to be red-shirting boys ("it now appears the language areas of the brain in many five-year-old boys look like the language areas of the brain of the average three-and-a-half-year-old girl" (18), advocating for play-based instruction, and single-sex schools. Chapter 3 presents video games (and a weird connection to Nietzsche's concept of the "will to power"), the solution being limited and nonviolent video games. Factor three is ADHD overdiagnosis; with Sax prescribing higher bars to medication-related therapy (and greater understanding in the differences that boys have in the classroom). These three make sense and to some extent we are see pendulum swings around these topics; of course social media and cellphones (and AI) are now an even bigger threat than Halo or GTA.

Chapter 5 and 6 represent the most baffling parts of the book. Chapter five highlights the factor of plastics and some studies showing its affect on animals; but later chapters say to simply switch the glass water bottles and not worry too much. With both the basis of science being underexplored (there's some good discussion of the shift in puberty for girls (104) and delay in boys but it is limited) and explained and the remedy being oddly modulated - it's difficult to take this seriously. Chapter 6 is centered on the responses to an Op-Ed Sax wrote about 2006 film, Failure to Launch. This odd collection of worried, exploitive, and condescending emails is wrongly included - seemingly to add fifty pages to the text.

The fifth factor can best be summed up by a lack of male role models and initiation rituals associated with it: "A boy does not naturally become a gentleman...That behavior is not hardwired. It is taught" (163). This chapter suffers from a reliance on anecdote rather than science; on vibes rather than data; on correlation rather than causation. Even though I agree with the premise, the odd social polemic is in contrast to Chapters 2-4. We certainly need to "choose, individually and collectively, how we are going to define masculinity" (182). Here Sax, barely mentions religion or the boarder social trends better written books focused on societal decline like Bowling Alone discuss. Here too, the solution seems to be a combination of single-sex schools, membership in gender segregated and outdoor activities, and a conscious choice. For a chapter focused on the societal sweep; there is little to be said for a broader change; much less any acknowledgement of the potential for toxic masculinity.

In the end, I agree with JAMA's review: "Boys Adrift is at its weakest in supporting the thesis that there is an epidemic of unmotivated and underachieving young men." The piling up of anecdotes honestly seems to make this book too specific - rather than geared towards parents and educators as a whole.

Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Leonard Sax.

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

Good For: A somewhat dated approach to parenting advice with boys.

Best nugget: Boys need active play. Seriously; that's all I got.

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