Why Do Liberal Parents Worry More About Their Sons Than Their Daughters?

As the traditional provider role fades, what replaces it is murky

According to Richard Reeves and Ember Smith at the Brookings Institute, gender equality has been a major focus to equal the playing field between men and women, especially in issues like reproductive health, getting more women in STEM, harassment in the workplace, and the gender pay gap.

This is unquestionably a good thing given the long-standing treatment of women.

But a 2020 American Family Survey found that parents in America worry more about their sons than their daughters. Among all respondents to the study, 40% of respondents said they worried about their sons becoming successful adults, but 34% of respondents said they worried about their daughters becoming adults.

You would think conservative parents account for a heavy part of this disparity, but that’s not the case — it’s liberal parents who worry much more about their sons than their daughters. 48% of liberal parent respondents said they worried about their sons being successful while only 40% of those liberal respondents worried about their daughters being successful.

This contradicted what these liberal parents said they worried about on a society-wide level — 44% of liberal parents said they worried about girls in the United States becoming successful, while only 41% of liberal parents said the same about boys. Also, only 36% of conservative parents worried about their own sons becoming successful, while 32% worried about their daughters becoming successful, so there was less of a divide for conservative parents worrying about their sons versus their daughters.

This contradiction is telling, because while liberal parents are more likely than conservative parents about the gender pay gap and equalizing the paying field for women, on average those same liberal parents worry more about their sons’ success than their daughters.

Are men really struggling?

Reeves and Smith conclude by saying all parents have good reason to worry about their sons. Boys and men are at an all-time low in terms of academic success and seeing declines in employment success. Again, this pales in comparison to what women have faced throughout history and in the present with unprecedented challenges to reproductive health, but the challenges faced by men versus women are just different.

Reeves cites a lot of very interesting statistics in his popular book, Of Boys And Men: Why The Modern Male Is Struggling. But the most surprising statistic, given the impact of systemic racism in America, is from the National Center for Education Statistics, showing that for 18 to 24-year-olds, a higher proportion of Black women are enrolled in college than White men. There is still a racial gap between a greater proportion of White students than Black students going to college, but much of that comes from 31% of Black men aged 18 to 24 going to postsecondary education compared to 42% of Black women.

Across all racial groups, college enrollment rates of women were much higher than those of men. The implication is that while race obviously matters a lot in determining college enrollment rates, gender matters more.

If I had twins and one was a boy and the other was a girl, I would worry about the boy more. As an educator, I haven’t necessarily observed a difference in how male students perform versus how female students perform academically, but I have seen significantly more male students drop out than female students. Statistically more girls graduate high school than boys in America (88% to 82%).

So why do parents all across the political spectrum worry more about boys? First, the future for girls is broadening, while the future for boys is narrowing as they fall behind girls in school, among many places. First, Reeves mentions that traditionally male jobs in fields of manufacturing are getting outsourced due to free trade and automation, but that’s not the most satisfying answer to me because in 2023, unfortunately, a lot of liberal men and sons of liberal parents don’t typically work in manufacturing.

Reeves proposes a lot of solutions to the struggles of boys, including having boys start school a year later, getting more men in HEAL professions (health, education, administration, and literacy). And he also says we have good reason to worry about men and boys (not that we shouldn’t still worry about girls and women) because men are lagging behind in education and are also more likely to die by suicide. Men are also less likely to have close friends than women and a sense that men are less likely to be vulnerable about their feelings and have each other’s backs and look out for each other than women.

As a very liberal man who grew up with very liberal leanings, I can say there were a lot of confusing messages we received — especially among peers. And I think a lot of boys are given the same messages to be tough, strong, and not complain by some people, while simultaneously being told to be compassionate and sensitive by others.

Everyone has a very different perception of what it means to be a man in 2023.

What do conservative parents see?

I can see conservative parents worrying about how much the world is changing in terms of tipping the balance of gender equality. I recall the conservative backlash to the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, with Donald Trump saying “It is a very scary time for young men in America, where you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of” at the time of the Kavanaugh hearings, and conservative parents feeling like the same could happen to their sons, brothers, and husbands.

I work in a very progressive workplace, but I also work in education. And although none of the people I work with voted for Trump, I have heard a lot of men I work with give cautionary advice of a similar nature. A hall monitor told me he never breaks up fights between girls because he doesn’t want to be accused of doing something he didn’t do. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard “never be in a room alone with a female student” — from male and female teachers alike.

Many young male teachers I’ve spoken with have a story where they panicked the first time a female student called them attractive or tried to hit on them. There is some validity to the advice — it’s not about the fear of an allegation but the exposure to liability and the perception of impropriety, even if there is none. About two years ago, a female student who I didn’t teach, didn’t know and didn’t want to know started pointing at me in the hallway and calling me her husband, repeatedly and in front of a lot of people. I’m progressive, but I’m not a fool, or at least I wasn’t in handling this dilemma: I instantly informed my administrator, in writing, and told another teacher to speak to the student to shut it down and tell the student why those comments were inappropriate.

In education, it’s a bit different, but that fear is especially amplified for male early childhood educators. There’s a particular stigma male teachers face when teaching Kindergarten or other young kids of being seen as or labeled a pedophile. That’s one reason, among many, that only 2% of Kindergarten or preschool teachers are male.

But what do liberal parents see?

I mention all this to say that liberal parents, in particular, have reason to fear for their sons’ success because as the world is changing and rapidly equalizing for women (even if it should equalize faster), liberal parents, in particular, are aware of how certain spaces are hostile to men, including early childhood education.

Another interesting question in the American Family Survey is whether parents thought their kids weren’t discouraged by setbacks. Both liberal and conservative parents agreed their daughters had more grit and were discouraged less easily than their sons.

Across the board, liberal and conservative parents see increased opportunity and equality for their girls. They see shrinking opportunity for their boys, and they also see girls are more resilient and able to handle adversity better because girls always have had to handle adversity and setback better in a very unfair world.

But I don’t think it’s that boys are coddled and given every advantage that makes parents think daughters are more resilient than their sons. That’s how it’s certainly perceived, but that’s a surface-level image. I think at the core of that resilience imbalance are messages like “toughen up” and “man up” that don’t encourage seeking help when struggling or seeking social support. The lone wolf and DIY pressures men face make asking for help in that capacity a lot tougher, which in turn leads to less resilience through less healthy coping mechanisms and more isolation.

The struggles for men and boys are just different, not any worse than they are for women and girls. And since men have had long-standing social pressures to not talk about it and suck it up, and because there’s the added social pressure in the sentiment that men (and especially White men) have nothing to complain about in conversations around gender, there’s much less language to describe the struggles of men than there is for women.

Still, I am confused and grasping for straws as to why liberal parents worry more about their sons than their daughters on such a disproportionate level. I can see Black parents worrying more about their sons for the super obvious reasons of police violence, racist societal perceptions, and America’s systemic racism. But what about White, Asian, or Hispanic parents?

I think the answer is a lot more complicated than daughters simply having more grit than sons. Even though opportunity between boys and girls isn’t a zero-sum game just like opportunity between racial groups isn’t a zero-sum game, I know a lot of parents perceive it that way between genders.

I think a huge part of why Americans worry more about their sons, particularly liberal parents who are in tune and at the forefront of a changing world with changing gender norms, is that the traditional view of what it means to be a man is fading. The provider who pays the bills and goes to war when needed is a previous generation’s view of manhood, particularly on the left.

And there really is not a satisfying perception of what is going to replace that view on the left — while the right wants to maintain those traditional roles. While we have focused heavily on more access for women in the workplace, society is struggling to determine what the role of a man should be. Yes, men should take a bigger role in childcare and in housework. But you can’t say with a straight face we’re at the point where a stay-at-home dad doesn’t face significant stigma from all sides.

The answer, of course, is to hear from liberal parents with sons and daughters. Why do you worry about your sons? And if you worry about your sons or daughters more, why?