Boys Are Dumb

“When do boys get normal?” my daughter asked me as I was driving her home from school.

I took a deep breath and began to answer before I realized that I didn’t really have one. To be honest I still don’t.

My daughter is at the age where she’s becoming aware of boys but she’s still not quite sure what purpose they serve. Frankly, with cloning techniques and IVF there are times when I’m not sure why they exist either. This is because most boys around my daughter’s age go through a period of idiocy the length of which varies from person to person. I can say that because I used to be a boy and know it to be true. Boys. Are. Idiots. We use words like “rambunctious” or “loud” to describe them but “idiots” is what we mean. To say otherwise would be ageist. If you saw a grown man pour a bottle of water over a woman’s head on a dare or eat a worm for a quarter you’d call him an idiot. “Idiots” is what they boys are so “idiots” is what I will call them.

So when do boys become normal?

It’s a deceptively simple question. Of course, what my daughter was really asking was “when do boys mature?” but don’t have a ready answer for that question either.

Depending on the state they live in boys can get a license to drive a car anywhere between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. That rite of passage certainly implies that they should have some semblance of maturity, and many of them do, but you probably wouldn’t willingly put them in charge of nuclear launch codes or even housesit while you’re on vacation. Statistics bear me out. Men of all ages tend to get in more accidents than women and the younger men tend to have more accidents than any other group. We can blame testosterone or a youthful sense of invulnerability but being stupid seems to be a pretty decent reason too.

Twenty-five years of age is an answer that’s often mentioned when it comes to maturity for both men and women. The thought is that our brains don’t reach their full potential until they’re twenty-five and that might be true. Unfortunately, I’ve known some people who peaked much earlier than that, say around seventh grade. I’m even related to a few of them. I recall, vividly, talking to a relative some forty years my senior who believed that snapping bras and fart jokes were the height of hilarity and thinking “Really? How is this guy married? How does he have a job?” To this day I still don’t have any good answers to those questions.

Age alone clearly isn’t a good yardstick when it comes to determining when boys mature but life events aren’t much better.

Being able to hold down a full-time job would seem to imply some measure of maturity but I’ve worked for many different companies and found that full time idiots abound in just about every field. The same goes for level of education, marriage and even having children. Idiot boys can be found anywhere regardless of age or achievement.

Once I really started thinking about the problem I began to wonder how our species perpetuates itself? If so many boys are so unbelievably stupid then how do young women ultimately find them to be attractive? Is it peer pressure? Does some kind of “dumbening” occur in women around puberty?

The short answer, of course, is biology. Biology is a powerful force and one that clearly trumps logic once hormones kick in.

The slightly longer answer is that we live in a society that pretty much tolerates idiotic behavior from young men when it doesn’t outright encourage it. Many women have been brought up to expect that aggression and immaturity are just part of the package when it comes to male behavior. “Boys will be boys,” they say and shrug off one bit of stupidity or another. It’s a sad state of affairs that teaches everyone the wrong lessons; first that men are uncouth morons and second, that women should expect nothing more from them.

About the Author

derekbremer Prior to his life as a stay at home father Derek spent more than a decade performing public relations and marketing functions for financial consulting firms and found the job to be precisely as exciting as it sounds. When not tending to his wife or daughter Derek enjoys subjecting the public to his unique take on fatherhood, travel and animal husbandry. He has been published in Scary Mommy, Sammiches and Psych Meds, The Good Men Project, HowToBeADad, Red Tricycle, RAZED, HPP and the Anthology "It's Really Ten Months Special Delivery: A Collection of Stories from Girth to Birth.