Lone wolves: boys' mental health crisis & how to help

June is men's mental health month. I did the worrying so you don’t have to.

sig·ma /ˈsiɡmə/ noun

1. a term in internet slang to describe archetype of a male who is a "lone wolf”

2. a cool dude

A lone wolf in a classic sigma uniform of hoodie and Nike kicks. Photo by Leonardo Toshiro Okubo on Unsplash

Any teacher or parent of a middle school male has heard the word “sigma.” Sigma is to Generation Alpha what “cool” was to Gen-X, “groovy” was to Boomers, “lit” was to Gen-Z, and “gucci” was to millennials. (Yes, I googled those terms.)

To Gen Alpha, or anyone born with a digital device strapped to their hand, sigma means “cool”—but it also means “lone wolf,” which is pretty on-brand for boys raised in a culture where Andrew Tate is the preferred username during class Kahoot! competitions.

For those who don’t know who Andrew Tate is, he’s a hyper-macho former professional kickboxer turned social media personality and self-proclaimed misogynist dressed up in washboard abs, cigars, and Italian race cars. His brand is telling boys and men how to reclaim their masculinity and, in doing so, their power. 

I only paid attention to this guy because when a young man posted on our community Facebook page looking for mental help, one user suggested to seek out the teachings of Andrew Tate (who I will now refer to as Tater Tot, so the algorithm doesn’t send me dick pics). Then the Taters disciple listed in his comment all the criteria a man must adhere to find success and happiness: 

• be strong and never show weakness

• never trust anyone because everyone will hurt you

• always take cold showers, never hot showers (maybe to make you tougher and meaner?)

Honestly, it’s giving lone wolf.

Look, I’m all for men becoming self-sovereign, empowered humans, but the douche canoe and alleged human trafficker that this young man idolizes is just a young, extreme version of Donald Duck Trumpet: a dual crisis mouthpiece and anxiety instigator plus the solution. A modern Messiah for men feeling isolated and disenfranchised for very real reasons that I explained in this post, Patriarchy is bad for men, too.

Those reasons being…

• Men are falling behind in education

• Men are dropping out of the labor sector due to poor mental health and less manufacturing jobs

• Men are having 10% less sex. (Look up the word “incel” and you’ll see what I mean.)

• Suicide rates have risen significantly in men over the past decade & four times as many males die of suicide than females in the U.S. (Girls and women are more depressed than boys and men and attempt suicide twice as much as males, but males are more likely to have access to firearms and carry it out.)

Image credit: Marko Eikholt

The cool thing about being a middle school teacher is I get to be at ground zero for middle school boy breeding culture. What I see in the stinky adolescent trenches is posturing, overly rough play, competition, an emphasis on materialism, roasting battles, and upping your rizz by getting a girlfriend. No wonder Tater Tot gets a seat at the table!

It probably doesn’t help that TT and much of culture espouse the belief that men should be breadwinners, sports winners, and winners of everything to become, as Tots puts it, “high-value males.”

Chris Rock recently said, “Only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provide something.” 

Ask me, a woman married to an unemployed man for eight years, if that’s true. But really, who cares? You can’t argue with feelings. 

Additionally, the expectation that boys be strong and independent, not show weakness, grief, fear, nor ask for help explains in part why males are disproportionately affected by the loneliness crisis. And it’s giving major sigma/lone wolf.

Photo by Patrick Desloge on Unsplash

Thank God I wasn’t born a boy.

Growing up in Alaska in the 80s, I often thought this as I looked around at the boys getting beat up on the playground. If I were a boy, I would so get my ass kicked. 

I didn’t know what to do about boys either. They were a different species. My polite, undemonstrative father from California, who skipped a grade because he was too smart and fell while skiing green runs, resembled little of my friends’ dads. Lacking cousins, neighbors, brothers, and uncles, I didn’t know what to do with this thing called Boy. All I knew was that Boying looked hard. 

As I got older, it looked fun. Boys ran the parties, the ski hill, the boats, the adventures. When I got next to Boy, my body hummed like I had hooked myself to a 9-volt battery. Boys treated me like leftover bong water, but I let them. I tried to be like them, saying “bro” and “dude” and walking like I’d just got off a horse. 

Is this how you boy? Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash

Thirty years later, karma is clowning me because now I have a boy. And not just any boy, but a boy-boy, a middle school boy. A boy who works on his jawline and practices roasts and has enough energy to power a small city. A boy who says things like, “Mom, you’re too sensitive.”  A boy who won’t talk to me about his problems or let me see him crying. A boy immersed in middle school conformity who is horrified by his younger autistic, authentic, gives-no-fucks sister. A boy who pops Taquis and jalapeños and Cholula like he’s preparing for a TikTok challenge or something.

But did I get this boy-boy to agree to do Shakespeare camp this summer? Yes! Is he playing Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream—appropriate, because he is a trickster?—Yes!

Did I try to talk his friends’ moms into doing theater camp with him? Yes! Did they all say, “My boy probably won’t be into that”? Yes. (Well, all except one whose parents are actors.)

At least boys have sports. Sports teach sportsmanship, teamwork, and physical and mental health.

Yes. And. When my boy (who’s small for his size) gets up to bat, and the kids on the opposing team start chanting, “Easy out!” and their coach does nothing to stop it, what does that teach?

When the local traveling soccer league excludes its own players so out-of-town, better players can take their place and win the championship, what does that teach?

When the better players consistently cherry-pick and jook the ball among each other, rather than passing to the others, and the coaches continue to put the same kids in the outfield even though they show up at all the games and practices, what does that teach?

Because all of those things are happening in my town. AND ALL THE BOYS SEE IT. What are we teaching them, really? Are we teaching them sportsmanship and teamwork, or is winning more important?

Sign at the baseball field in my hometown. What happened for them to need to hang this sign?

What do sports teach us when there is a fixed binary, winner or loser, and winning is contingent upon the other losing?

Don’t tell me we’re teaching our boys to value teamwork and sportsmanship when the obvious message is to win at all costs. Boys aren’t stupid.

It’s no surprise that Tater Tot and Sigma Alpha Males are now #goals.

Islands and rocks

I saw a video on Instagram where a guy went around asking teenage boys what it’s like to be them. Most said they wanted someone they could open up and talk honestly to.

A Survey Center on American Life found that 28% of men under 30 have no close social connections.

• 27% of men reported having at least six close friends.

• 15% of boys said they have no close friends at all, a fivefold increase from 1990 when 55% of men reported having at least six close friends.

• Many young men ages 18 to 23 feel that “nobody really knows me.”

• High school counselors report that students routinely ask them to check in on friends they’re worried about but rarely come in concerned about another boy.

No wonder mothers end up doing most of the emotional labor. How can fathers care about their kids’ feelings when people weren’t available for theirs?

And a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries

—Simon & Garfunkel

When someone doesn’t validate my feelings, I, too, turn into a rock and an island. I become the worst mom in the world, a cold, callous mother who is numb to her children’s pain. I lose my humanity.

But I’m lucky because our culture has normalized me calling my sister to vent. Not so much for boys. 

I worry about where our world is going when boys casually hurl insults at each other online and rough each other up for fun. I worry when I see my son and his friends choosing online fighting games over being with each other. I worry when I watch my kid’s friends play together, where roughness is the default, and almost always someone gets hurt, and if you don’t like it, SUCK IT UP, and whatever you do, DON’T LET ANYONE SEE YOU CRY.

Sigma!!! Photo by Philipp Pilz on Unsplash

How we can make it better

The Latin root compati means “to suffer with.” Compassion is suffering with another person. Compassion is listening, understanding, and feeling another’s pain.

We must allow our boys and men to express suffering. We must listen and be with them in that suffering. At least, we need to make space for it. And to suffer with them, we must sit with our own. 

So yeah, basically, we all need therapy. Consider this my plug to gift your loved one a paid subscription to this newsletter. (See what I did there?)

A podcast that rocked my world discusses how humans can learn from nature. When the body receives a cut, the surrounding platelets stop everything and rush to the wounded area, releasing fibrin proteins that clump together to form a clot, seal the wound, and stop the bleeding. 

When I saw my boy become more of an island and rock as he transitioned into middle school, I rushed to the site of the wound. I made myself available, arranging childcare for my daughter so I could do things he wanted to do. We went biking and hiking; we hung out watching Young Sheldon. I didn’t badger him with questions, either. Eventually, he opened up to me, and now he makes fart jokes in Shakespearean.

What the experts say

In the WaPo article, “We’re missing a major mental health crisis: Teen boys are struggling, too,” Jennifer Fink writes there are three crucial things parents can do to help their boys:

1. Be aware that by just being a boy, “the chances of your son taking his life by suicide are about four times higher than your daughter’s,” states Richard V. Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What To Do About it.

2. Delight in our boys. Validate their existence. “Spend time with him, doing what he likes, without lecturing, scolding, or coercing,” says Michael C. Reichert, founding director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania and author of How to Raise a Boy: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men.

3. Remove firearms from the house. “Locking up guns is not as protective as removing them from the home,” Stacey Freedenthal, a licensed clinical social worker and author of Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts: What Family, Friends, and Partners Can Say and Do.

Richard Gater, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data at Cardiff University, encourages replacing conversations about “toxic masculinity” with positive expressions of manhood, such as emotional openness and empathy.

We should offer and encourage outlets beyond sports. If sports is their thing, we should model cooperation over winning. We should listen to our boys, ask questions, and talk to them with the same gentleness and attention we default to with our girls. 

But first, we need to feel compassion, to sit with our own suffering so we can sit with theirs.

<3, Summer

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