(Note to parents: You might want to share this good news story with your teenage boys. After all, when was the last time they heard the media say something positive about them?)
“Boys today look pretty good compared with their dads and older cousins,” writes David Von Drehle in “The Myth About Boys" (Time, July 26, 2007). “By some measures, our boys are doing better than ever.” In fact, Justice Department statistics show that the juvenile crime rate is down by two-thirds from its peak in 1993 and the juvenile male prison population is only half its historical high.
“My favorite statistic seemed to sum up all the others,” writes Von Drehle, “fewer boys today are deadbeats. The percentage of young men between 16 and 19 who neither work nor attend school has fallen by about a quarter since 1984.”
Von Drehle, father of a 10-year-old son himself, gives us a lot of good news regarding the state of our boys and offers some wise advice about where we can go from here. He points out that perhaps boys are doing better in part simply because we’re paying more attention to them. In particular, he sites a University of Michigan sociological study that indicates that there has been a sharp increase since the 1970s in the amount of time men spend with their children.
Click here to read the full, encouraging Time article, which includes interesting stats and a photo essay, "The Boys are All Right," by David Burnett. (It’s in the August 6, 2007 print issue.)
(Note to parents: You might want to share this good news story with your teenage boys. After all, when was the last time they heard the media say something positive about them?) 
