Saturday, June 12, 2010

What are we doing to our young men?

By: B. Brown (BREG)

Recently, while I was having a meeting at a restaurant, I noticed that a lady and her son walked past us, and they both went into the women's bathroom. I know you are saying, what's up? Here's what's up. The young man had to be at least 6 - 7 years old, and I believe that he is old enough to go into the men's bathroom by himself and the mother should wait for him outside of the door. He is definitely too old to go into the women's bathroom.

Since I was sitting near the bathroom of this facility, I started paying attention to who was going into the bathroom and at least two (2) more mothers or guardians took 6 - 10 year old young men into the women's bathroom! I was shocked and very disturbed by this trend.

I have spoken to several people about what I saw and they said, "you haven't seen that before", and I said, "no!" Obviously this has been going on for quite awhile now and poses several questions from me and explains the state of a lot of our young men, especially African-American young men.

My questions are:

1. Why are our adult females continuing to treat our young men as babies when they obviously have to grow up and be able to do things for themselves & by themselves?

- And a lot of our women wonder why we have a lot of men that are not self-sufficient. They are raised that way.

2. As our young men are continually taken into the women's bathroom, which bathroom will they choose to go into when their mother or female guardian isn't around?

- And we wonder where sexual identity issues come from for a lot of our young men. They are confused at an early age.


Parents, I do understand that watching our kids grow up is scary, but it is going to happen if we like it or not. I believe that we must embrace the process of our children growing up and let's empower them to do what they are supposed to do and set expectations for them.

If we want our young men to grow up to be responsible men, then we must start grooming them and teaching them how to be men as soon as possible. We cannot afford to wait until they are 14 years old to start teaching them how to be a man.

Now, I know that there are other factors involved like the fact that there are a lot of absent fathers in the home, but there are a lot of fathers that are present in the home. We have grandfathers, uncles, older cousins, teachers, coaches, counselors, mentors, etc. Women, please reach out to these men that will help you teach your son how to become a man. It is critical!

This blog is specifically speaking to what I have seen recently, and I would like to see our adult women stop taking our young men into the women's bathroom. It may have bigger ramifications then we all can even imagine.

One Love!

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