“The opposite of patriarchy isn’t matriarchy—it’s partnership.”
— Gloria Steinem
The Coffee Shop Confession That Echoes Everywhere
“I look at my girls and they are flourishing, but my son is struggling.”
These were the words of a dear friend I recently caught up with. She has four adult children, three girls and one boy, and coffee in hand, she quietly confessed the weight on her heart—her son, in his early twenties, was stuck in a space that felt like quicksand. He had no job, no partner, no passion, no hobbies, no friends, no clear path forward, and no ambition to seek one out.
Their relationship, too, had grown strained. She felt lost and frustrated, torn between tough love and support. “Do I cut him off and let him fend for himself, or do I keep trying to help him? I don’t know what to do,” she said, looking at me as if I had the answer, which of course I didn’t.
Later that same week, another mother in a WhatsApp group shared a heart-wrenching confession. Her son, now 18, had been diagnosed with Autism and ADHD years earlier, something she hadn’t shared before. But now, feeling fear and uncertainty, she reached out. Her son was increasingly isolated, struggling at school, and showed no interest in anything beyond playing video games alone in his bedroom.
“I can’t force him to see a therapist. I can’t force him to do anything,” she said. “I just want him to be happy, to have a path. I don’t care if it’s one class at community college or a trade.” Her words were laced with a mother’s love and fear, this was the first time she had let the weight of it all out.
Maybe these conversations have long been happening in other circles, but they’re just emerging in mine now—perhaps because, as Millennial parents, many of us are entering the chapter of parenting young adults.
We will spend more years parenting our children as adults than we ever did while they were kids—yet this stage still hasn’t gotten the shelf space it deserves in parenting sections or advice columns. The most extended phase of parenting remains one of the least discussed.
Every stage of parenting is hard; I haven’t found an easy one yet. But there’s something uniquely painful about watching a young man drift through early adulthood like a plastic bag caught in the wind. Maybe it’s because in every other stage of parenting, we feel our influence and authority has more impact. Or maybe it’s because by the time our children become twenty-three or twenty-five and are struggling, our parental empathy has been worn thin, or maybe our expectations of men are harsher and unrealistic?
But what struck me most in both conversations wasn’t just the parents’ turmoil. It was the quiet, aching crisis of the boys themselves.
In recent months, I’ve heard this story repeatedly- young men who feel stuck, invisible, confused, unmotivated. Boys who once had promise are now floating in the margins of a society that doesn’t know how to support them.
A Generational Drift
I’m not here to wade into the gender wars. That’s not my goal. Instead, I want to make a personal admission, one I’m actually embarrassed to share.
The truth is, I’ve known for a long time that boys were struggling.
The first time I confronted that truth was back in 2008 after the birth of my first son. As a new “boy mom,” I wanted to be an informed parent and among the many books I picked up was the book The Trouble with Boys by Peg Tyre. Peg is an investigative journalist who interviewed hundreds of teachers, parents, and experts to learn what was happening with boys. The book was a wake-up call, laying out a troubling picture:
Boys are expelled from preschool nearly five times more than girls
Elementary-aged boys are diagnosed with a learning disorder four times as often as girls
By eighth grade, a widening achievement gap in reading and writing emerges
At the time, boys made up only 43% of college enrollment
And this wasn’t just an American issue. Globally, boys were falling behind. In the UK, as early as 1998, the British government launched a national boys’ initiative. Stephen Bryers, then the school standards minister, warned:
“Failure to raise the educational achievement of boys will mean that thousands of young men will face a bleak future in which a lack of qualifications and basic skills will mean unemployment and little hope of finding work.”
We are now watching Stephen Bryer’s warning and Peg Tyre’s predictions come to life.
Now Hear Me Out
Yes, it’s true that young men today are being drawn into the darker corners of the internet, the manosphere, extremist ideologies, and influencers selling distorted visions of masculinity. But we have to ask ourselves: how did we get here?
Most forms of radicalization aren’t born from ideology but from unmet needs. From a hunger to be seen. To matter. To belong.
The Netflix documentary Adolescence illustrated just how easily a seemingly “normal” teen can get swept into these currents.
But that’s the extreme end of a much wider and quieter crisis.
We’re watching a generation of boys grow up amidst economic instability, shifting social norms, and fractured communities. They are facing this terrain without a roadmap and without enough adults offering them an alternative vision of what healthy masculinity, purpose, and belonging can look like.
And here’s what hasn’t left me: I let this slide off my radar.
I saw the signs back in 2008. I read the stats, felt the nudge of awareness, but filed it away. Life was moving fast. There were bigger, louder inequities to confront: the gender pay gap, the underrepresentation of women in leadership, the systemic lack of safety for women, the exhaustion of proving ourselves in spaces never designed for us—especially for racialized women.
That fight was urgent. It was personal. And it was everywhere.
So no, it’s not that I didn’t know boys were struggling. I just didn’t hear the alarm bells loud enough.
When Equity Work Needs a Wider Lens
And here’s the question I’ve had to ask myself lately:
In all my years of advocating for equality, how often have I created space to listen to men explicitly?
How many times have I asked about their lived experiences?
How often have I researched or reflected on what is happening to boys and young men and dug into the social, emotional, and systemic issues that explain their struggles?
Yes, I know that men are more likely to die by suicide than women, but what did I do with that knowledge?
Yes, I know that young men enroll in and graduate from college at lower rates, but how did I consider that?
Maybe I believed men didn’t need advocacy. Maybe I assumed the sea of male faces at the top meant they were all doing fine. Maybe I thought they’d figure it out.
But leaving that coffee shop and that WhatsApp chat, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’ve been trying to fix one half of a broken system while ignoring the other.
And neither half can truly thrive without the other.
True inclusion doesn’t ask us to pick sides.
It asks us to hold the whole picture, even when it’s complicated.
Especially when it’s complicated.
Why Extremes Are Filling the Silence
And now? It’s clear things are breaking down across the board.
Women are still battling for respect, safety, fair pay, and representation.
Men are falling behind in education, emotional health, and economic participation.
Into this vacuum step the extremes.
Loud voices. Simplistic answers. Influencers are selling toxic masculinity disguised as strength. They promise certainty in a time of chaos, belonging in a world of fragmentation, power in a place of powerlessness.
We see it in the backlash against DEI. In nostalgic calls for “the good old days.”
In the rise of “masculine energy” rhetoric in leadership forums.
And we see it in the parallel erosion of women’s safety and rights—rising femicide, declining respect, and attacks on women’s autonomy.
This isn’t a pendulum swing. It’s a collective unraveling.
The Future Demands a New Framework
Parents are struggling.
Boys are confused.
Girls are, too.
And none of us have been handed a playbook for raising emotionally intelligent, mentally resilient, and spiritually grounded men in this current world.
What we need is a both/and approach.
Not the erasure of women’s fight for equity, it’s real and far from over, but the expansion of our lens.
One that lets us hold multiple truths at once:
That women deserve safety, representation, and choice. And that both men and women need help navigating identity, purpose, and belonging in a rapidly shifting world.
If we don’t make room for that, we risk letting the gaps grow between genders, generations, between reality and illusion.
We don’t need to debate or decide whose struggling the most. We need to recognize that everyone is searching for their place. And we can only get there if we walk toward the future together.
I, for one, know I need to do more.
I should have been doing more all along.
As Always. Take Care of yourself and those around you.
In Partnership,
Nabeela
An Additional Note:
Advocating for others shouldn’t hinge on our own personal revelations, it should begin with listening deeply to the lived experiences of those most affected.
I share my realization in this article not to center myself, but in the hope that it might unlock a similar “ah-ha” moment for someone else. Still, awareness is just the starting point. What matters most is what we do with it.
So, in that spirit, I want to turn the spotlight toward someone whose work is already making a difference—a powerful male voice who is putting men’s mental health front and center:
I met Samir last summer when he moderated a panel I was on, and I have learned more about him and his work since then. Samir’s podcast is regularly ranked among the Top 10 self-help / mental health podcasts in North America and in the Top 5% globally on Spotify in 2024.
Check out the podcast!
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