Take the job back.
Get the full list of practices for formation on purpose.
the Problem
Everywhere you look, boys are failing. Boys are being formed by The Culture Machine in the digital world and left alone in the real one. They’re being raised by a system with no stake in who they become.
2×
Suspension Rate
A boy and his sister grow up together, yet he’s suspended at twice the rate and more likely to fall behind in reading.
American Economic Journal, 2019Autor, Figlio, Karbownik, Roth & Wasserman. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2019. 301,298 Florida siblings.9 Million
Boys Without Fathers
Nine million boys grow up without a father in the home. That’s more than every child in California, the largest state in the country.
U.S. Census Bureau, 2023U.S. Census Bureau, Living Arrangements of Children Under 18.52%
Turn to Porn
More than half of teenage boys have intentionally sought out pornography. Most of them found it before they were thirteen, and half of what they saw depicted violence.
Common Sense Media, 2023Common Sense Media, “Teens and Pornography,” 2023. 1,300 teens surveyed.56%
of His Feed Becomes Misogynistic
Researchers created accounts that looked like ordinary teenage boys — fitness, self-improvement, masculinity. Within five days, the algorithm increased the misogynistic content in their feeds from 13% to 56%. He didn’t search for it. He just kept scrolling.
Regehr et al., UCL / Kent, 2024Regehr et al., UCL / University of Kent / ASCL, 2024.1 in 9
Out of the Labor Force
In 1960, 1 in 35 men in their prime working years was out of the labor force. Today it’s 1 in 9.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, 2025Bengali, Daly, Duzhak & Zhao, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Working Paper 2025-07.80%
of Suicides Are Men
Men are half the population yet 80% of suicides. In 2024, 38,977 men killed themselves, roughly four times the female rate.
CDC, 2024CDC, National Vital Statistics System, 2024 final data.the Solutions
Six practices for formation on purpose.
01
What he stands for is what he stands on.
A boy without a stated set of values will copy what he sees around him. Write yours down. Teach him why they matter. Then hold him to them.
02
Understand him before you diagnose him.
He was made unique, for a purpose. If you don’t tell him that, he’ll get his identity from a system built for every child and no child. He isn’t broken. He’s unformed. Don’t react to his energy. Find out what makes him tick before you diagnose and medicate what you never tried to understand.
03
"Boys will be boys" is a ceiling, not an excuse.
The culture already expects less of him. Less focus, less discipline, less character. And he can feel it. He’ll reach for the bar you set. Don’t help the culture lower it. Set it where a man would stand and hold him there while he learns to reach it. FORM HIM ON PURPOSE 02 JEREMY BODENHAMER
04
Stop paying for the life he hasn’t built yet.
Make him do chores. Unpaid. Make him contribute to the family. Make him get a job. His grades are his, good or bad. Don’t call the teacher. Don’t argue with the coach. Let him handle it, and let him live with the result. A grown son who never has to fend for himself never has to become a man.
05
Say no. Especially to the algorithm.
The feed is a rival father: patient, always available, built to keep him. Hundreds of videos a day, a few seconds each, at 2 a.m. That’s formation by default. Take the phone. Hold the line through the withdrawal.
06
A screen can hold his attention. It can’t hold him.
Right around the age he gets too big to pick up, the hugging stops. He outgrows your lap. He doesn’t outgrow the need to be held. You get self-conscious about hugging a boy that size, and something else fills the gap. Wrestle him. Scratch his back. Rub his hair. Sit close enough that your shoulders touch. Never stop.
You have six. The rest arrive the moment you ask for them.
the Author
Jeremy Bodenhamer is raising three sons in Santa Barbara with his wife, educator and youth advocate Bethany Bodenhamer.
He came to this work the way most fathers do, by watching something else compete for his boys, and losing ground to it.
He spent the last decade as Co-founder and CEO of ShipHawk, rebuilding the logistics infrastructure volume shippers depend on. That work put him in TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Inc., and made him a regular speaker on innovation and operating through disruption. His bestselling book, Adapt or Die, laid out the thesis he applies everywhere: systems that don’t adapt collapse, and someone has to own the fix.
Boy formation is the same problem at higher stakes. Fathers pulled out of daily formation, the institutions that used to fill the gap gutted, and The Culture Machine doing the job by default. He’s building the evidence-based case for what replaces it, and the framework for doing it deliberately instead of by accident.
the Line
