Boys write during a Boys to Men Hip Hop Workshop

Violence Essay

Aaron, Age 16

 

                My dad has had two wives, one being my mother. My mom and dad got divorced when I was three. They got divorced because my dad cheated and physically abused her. He just recently got divorced from his second wife who he has also cheated on. Although my dad has had only two wives he has had a lot more relationships with other girls than them two. When my dad first got separated from his second wife he started burning and breaking some of her things. He had me and my cousin help him burn and break her things. The reason she left is because she was also cheating on him with one of his friends. Since it was one of his friends it kinda pushed him over the edge. So I think that's what triggered his acts of violence. I think he also started using drugs. I'm not sure how long that lasted but he did do cocaine on Christmas Eve of 2009. Also, all my life my dad has been an alcoholic. He has been abusing alcohol since before he started going out with my mom when he was seventeen. When he gets drunk or drinks too much he turns into a dickhead and gets mad at everyone. I've never seen him be violent except for when he gets really aggravated with my brothers. The reason why I think he did drugs is because I did at one time. I pulled weed out of my pocket by accident and he asked me if I was going to share it with him. Although all this has happened I'm able to look past it and see the good in him and I still love him and always will no matter what.

 

Violence Essay

Chase, Age 17

 

                So about a year ago my family lost our house and we were desperately looking for a new home. It was during the summer and obviously, we weren't going to go live on the streets. So we camped out at Apache's Campground for about 2 weeks before we found a new house.

                Well my whole family which consisted of me, my brother, sister, mom, and her boyfriend were all very stressed out. So therefore a lot of fighting and arguments took place. Well one night my brother and sister went to their dad's house for the night and me my mom and her boyfriend stayed behind. My mom got into an argument with her boyfriend and left to go visit her friend.

                Me and her boyfriend were having an all right time. We stayed and made a fire and cooked some hot dogs and stuff. Well around 9:00 p.m. my mom came back trashed and picked a fight with her boyfriend. She started punching him over and over. She knocked him into the tent and the tent got taken out. He started getting very mad and like wrestled her to the ground. She started screaming "hit me again you fat fuck!" People started looking out of their tents to see what was going on. He got into his car and left. My mom started puking everywhere and passed out and went to sleep.

                I who had sort of grown used to these sort of things was scared. No matter how many times I saw a fight I was scared. That summer was probably my worst summer ever. I was feeling so many emotions at this time in my life. I lived a life when I was sad all the time and depressed.

                Well anyways I stayed up a little later. I always noticed after her and her bf got into a fight I started chain smoking really bad. Her boyfriend came back about an hour later. We sat the tent back up and went to sleep.

                I want to stress the fact that this sort of thing happened a lot this summer but now that my mom is situated it rarely happens. I on the other hand now live with my biological father.

Violence Essay

Mark, Age 17

 

                It all started when me and my family moved to Waterboro. My mom, her boyfriend, and me were painting the walls and such trying to fix the house up. We also had my friend over to help. After the long day of work me and my friend went upstairs to go to sleep. Later on that night we were awoken by a large crash and yelling. My mom ran downstairs and started smashing an air conditioner around the front steps. Me and my friend were just like "what is going on?"

                My mom and her boyfriend got into a big fight, he slept for the remainder of the night downstairs. Early the next morning we awoke to more screaming and yelling. I went downstairs with my friend. My mom was crying and her boyfriend looked mad, so he left and went to work and left with my friend to bring him home along the way. Well they left and I stayed behind.

                As soon as they left she started yelling at me and stuff for no reason, so I got a little mad. My dad bought me a new phone three weeks prior to this so I said "I'm gonna call my dad and go over to his house." She got really mad, ripped my phone out of my hand, broke it in half and ripped the sim card out, put it in her mouth, chewed it to little pieces and spit it out. Then she leered at me and just smiled.

                I lost it and got really mad because I couldn't call my dad now. So I called her a bunch of names and said "well at least let me use your phone." She said no, so I just took it from her. She then tackled me to the ground and we were wrestling for a little bit at the top of the stairs. Then she turned to me and said "get in the car!" So I did and she brought me to my dad's.

                So since that day I have lived with my dad, which is a way better environment.

 

 

Violence Essay

Bradley, Age 17

 

                This is a completely true story...

The date was July 4, 2009. It all started at a party down the road in the trailer park I once lived in.  Me, my mom, and my mom's boyfriend all attended this party.

                There was a lot of stress and tension in my family. We were losing the house and other stress factors, and I think the way my mother coped with these problems was by turning to alcohol, preferably Mike's Hard Lemonade. It wasn't long before I noticed there was a problem whenever she would go into an establishment such as the doctor's. She would bring a coffee cup with her filled with alcohol.

                Well anyway we showed up at this party around 6:00 p.m. My mother told me to stay out as long as I wanted and have fun. So I hung out with my three friends at the party while the adults were all outside drinking and whatever. When 10:00 p.m. came around my mom got mad at her boyfriend and walked back to the house. She was heavily drunk at this point. My mom and her boyfriend got into it on a regular basis, so I didn't think much of it and stayed with my friends. 

                When 12:00 a.m. came around I heard my mom. She told me to get home. Not wanting to get into it with her I walked back with her to our house. As I approached our house her boyfriends pillow and blanket was laying in the driveway. She told me to go to my room for the night and I went to sleep.

                Hours later I was awakened by a large crash. I went to go see what was going on. Her bf was trying to get in and she locked the door so he pulled out of the driveway and I saw her open the door, run out, and throw a Mike's bottle at his truck. Then she ran up to his truck and started punching the passenger window. In three punches she destroyed the glass. My heart fell to the bottom of my stomach. I was so scared. She came back into the house and wrapped her arm up in a towel. There was blood everywhere in the house. They were both drunk and could not drive to the hospital so I called an ambulance to come get her. In like 10 minutes there were like seven cruisers and an ambulance in front of our house. They took her to the hospital then arrested her. So my mom's bf left and I stayed home by myself cleaning blood and getting drunk.

 

 

Hurting Inside

Stephen, Age 15

 

                I've known violence for so many years. I've seen violence in action when I see people trying to kill or hurt each other. I know how it's going to end. It's always the guy in a coma or dead. The battle could be about anything: a girlfriend, who's stronger, who has the better car, but when those battles get out of hand, he's hurt. I know this because I've seen real fights in my life. Nobody wins the fight, it goes on and on. When someone says something very rude to you, you become very tense. That can be when the violence kicks in because you're trying to defend yourself emotionally from this person. Violence is defense physically. When the person fights with others he's not thinking at all. He doesn't know that he's risking his life. When you look at maturity in men and women, women grow up faster. That is why men don't think before they fight. Then suddenly it hits them, women try their best to stop his fight. If you look at the Most Wanted list, most of the wanted are men. When you look at political situations, most of them are dealt with by men. Each or both genders could use a role model because the each think differently. The number one thing that men are arrested for is violence. Looking at how the men react to problems, some react differently. When men share their problems there are different morals to each problem. Females also do the same. Each gender thinks differently, reactions of each gender are not the same.

 Violence affects me weirdly because the aftermath of the battle could change the lives and moods of us all. In real life I think that violence makes me feel sad and annoyed. Sometimes I think people will never change. I'd like to see people work out the problem without physical and/or verbal harm.

 

As A Man I Struggle With Violence

By Jeff Morrill

I am a BOY with nowhere to go

With no options to choose in the heat of a row

I sometimes lash out and do others wrong

As a BOY I struggle with VIOLENCE

 

Now I am a YOUNG MAN, they just keep on coming

Sometimes I attack, sometimes I try running

Sometimes I go down in the oncoming wave

A YOUNG MAN alone with my violence

 

It's only been worse in these last couple years

"Never surrender, never cry tears."

It hurts when their boots kick my guts and my ears

Sixteen years I've lived with the VIOLENCE

 

So much work to get done to get on a new trail

Worked it out on a mountain with a friend without fail

Now I've put it behind me so long and farewell

Adieu to my struggle with VIOLENCE

 

I sit in the sunshine alone with the breeze

One Boy in the woods with a friend in the trees

The other with Mom and some pals on a roll

I'm at PEACE with no trace of the VIOLENCE

 

It seems so long past when all the damage was done

Rarely finds a way in when exposed to the sun

Sometimes I hold vigils till just before dawn

In silence the last thread of VIOLENCE

 

Yet still I continue but now I speak out

Stand up to a culture where violence is clout

Won't you join me and stand by the side

Of  this MAN as I struggle with VIOLENCE

 

Since January, I have had the pleasure of coordinating the Boys to Men Budding Filmmakers Program. This program allows eight middle school and high school boys from an underserved community the opportunity to learn the necessary skills and techniques to create a film. With the help of three service learning students from the University of Southern Maine, the boys are creating a short documentary on their lives, their interests, their mentors and their experiences with learning how to create a film. The boys meet weekly in a fun, safe, workshop environment to learn the various aspects of filmmaking. The skills they develop range from camera operation, set design, lighting and sound, to interview techniques, continuity issues, set management and creative editing.

 

Aside from creating a short documentary, the boys are developing valuable teamwork and leadership skills that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives. Throughout the program, each participant assumes the role of 'Director' and leads the rest of the group in their individual roles while shooting a scene. Part of the film chronicles the lives of the individual participants. Each boy is given the chance to talk about the events and people that impact their lives and their hopes for the future, as well as how the program has affected them. The program will run until mid-April.

 

Look for finished film in an upcoming newsletter!

 

Annotated Bibliography

By Brooke Hubner

The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women, and How All Men Can Help by Jackson Katz

 

There are statistics that tell us that today in America between 1 in 4 and 1 in 6 women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in their lifetime, and one prominent study found that at least 20% of adolescent girls have been physically or sexually abused by a date or a boyfriend. In The Macho Paradox, author Jackson Katz asserts that violence against women is a mens issue by taking the reader inside male culture to examine why so many men physically and sexually abuse women and children, including those closest to them. The Macho Paradox is not just a book for men, however: Katz provides women with original and creative ways of thinking about how to reverse this ongoing national problem. He also urges men that the only way to end the abuse and mistreatment of women is for many more self-identified "good guys" to make these issues their own.

 

Ghosts from the Nursury: Tracing the Roots of Violence by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley

 

Cutting to the heart of the alarming trend of violence committed by children, Ghosts from the Nursery gives startling new evidence that violent behavior is fundamentally linked to abuse and neglect in the first two years of life. In absorbing and accessible prose, Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley present case histories of "children who kill," focusing specifically on Jeffrey, a nineteen-year-old who sits on death row for a murder committed at age sixteen, along with recent research that shows how infancy is the stage during which the foundations for trust, empathy, conscience, and lifelong learning are laid down-or the predisposition to violent behavior is "hardwired" into the brain. Ghosts from the Nursery makes a convincing case for the revolution in our beliefs about the care of babies.

 

Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men by Michael Kimmel

 

Michael Kimmel uses research to explore the myths and mysteries of the American male in this book. He interviewed over 400 young men ages 16-26 over four years, and these interviews show that the guys who live in Guyland are mostly white, middle-class, confused, and cannot commit to their relationships, work or lives. The Guy Code, where locker-room behaviors, sexual conquests, bullying, violence and assuming a cocky jock pose can rule over the sacrifice and conformity of marriage and family and can shape their point of view. This group of guys, which is 22 million strong, doesn't want to grow up. They crave video games, sports and depersonalized sexual relationships. In this book, Kimmel offers a highly practical guide to male youth.

 

Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood by William Pollack

 

Based on William Pollack's groundbreaking research at Harvard Medical School over two decades, Real Boys explores why many boys are sad, lonely, and confused although they may appear tough, cheerful, and confident. Pollack challenges conventional expectations about manhood and masculinity that encourage parents to treat boys as little men, raising them through a toughening process that drives their true emotions underground. Only when we understand what boys are really like, says Pollack, can we help them develop more self-confidence and the emotional savvy they need to deal with issues such as depression, love and sexuality, drugs and alcohol, divorce, and violence.

 

The Men They Will Become: The Nature and Nurture of the Male Character by Eli Newberger

 

How do boys develop character? And what can parents, teachers, and society do, from birth to late adolescence, to help nurture admirable qualities in young men? Eli Newberger brings decades of experience and insight to these vital questions. In a series of riveting stories, he shows boys facing the harsh challenges that forge or break character: cheating, bullying, drugs, alcohol, and competition. The Men They Will Become delves to the deepest roots of male character and to the sources of attachment, honesty, self-control, sportsmanship, generosity, and courage. Rather than looking for flaws and vulnerabilities, Dr. Newberger celebrates all the wonderful qualities that make boys boys.