Parents Talk Back

Watching a scrawny 13-year-old boy snatched out of his bed during a police raid, during which he wets himself out of terror, immediately creates sympathy for him.

That sympathy serves to heighten the gut punch when we learn this unassuming teen repeatedly stabbed his female classmate to death.

The boy, a character named Jamie Miller, is the protagonist of the Netflix series “Adolescence.” The four-part British drama delves into the question of why Jamie would commit such a brutal murder. The answers reveal how susceptible boys are to the insidious role of social media and to the online radicalization of the “manosphere.”

Wait -- the man-o-what?

Gender-equality nonprofit Equimundo defines the manosphere as "a broad collection of websites, forums and other online spaces characterized by their misogynistic and anti-feminist content."

"The manosphere successfully leveraged male pain points and digital spaces using strategic messaging that speaks to young men’s lived challenges," states an informational page on Equimundo.org.

Parents watching “Adolescence” may be shocked to learn about the many ways young boys and men are exposed to extreme misogyny online. There are influencers like Andrew Tate, as well as groups like Men Going Their Own Way, which encourage men to disengage from women. There are so-called pickup artists, looking to seduce women through manipulation; Involuntary Celibates (incels), who hate women for rejecting them; and "red pill" communities encouraging men to see society as stacked against them.

Adolescence is a turbulent time when many young people feel isolated and are struggling to figure out who they are and what they believe. Boys who are searching for a sense of belonging become vulnerable to algorithms that feed them manosphere content -- blaming girls and women for their feelings of alienation and rejection.

In the series, Jamie’s parents, who love their son and are devastated by his arrest, are clueless about what’s been happening when he is in his room for hours, looking at a screen. This taps into parental fears about the technology that has become so pervasive in our children’s lives, even invading the parts of their inner lives we have no access to.

This compelling series does a brilliant job of showing us how a family is torn apart by their son’s online radicalization. But male violence against girls and women is a phenomenon as old as time, and the roots of toxic masculinity and the manosphere go further than the advent of social media.

For digital-native generations, these roots appear in the fundamental changes in how they experience childhood: the amount of time they spend alone with their screens, the ways they digitally interact with their peers and how they are influenced online by strangers -- a number of whom hate, degrade and blame women -- along with the pressure they feel to compete and perform in society.

There’s another significant societal change that has contributed to the lure of toxic masculinity: Younger generations have been exposed to graphic, sexualized content much earlier than previous generations. Most children are first exposed to porn in their early adolescent years, and that content is far more graphic and interactive than what previous generations had ever seen.

Today's ubiquitous, easily accessible, free pornographic content -- which 70% of male teens report regularly consuming -- often reinforces the idea of women as replaceable, sexualized objects. For those who are already susceptible to loneliness and frustration, it can contribute to a sense of entitlement to women’s bodies.

It’s vital for parents to know if their children or teens are watching violent or degrading content online, which influencers or online personalities they admire, and what types of interactions they are experiencing. Given the lack of tech regulations and governmental protections for children, parents have an even bigger responsibility to ask questions, monitor usage and be aware of their kids’ struggles.

Obviously, a small percentage of the boys who spend hours in the manosphere will act out in violent ways. But there are other societal impacts of the rising influence of misogynist content on adolescent boys. The fallout will affect their interpersonal relationships, social interactions, and economic and social policies.

Like Jamie’s blindsided parents, we ignore the manosphere at our own peril.

Sherry Brown, a retired housekeeping manager, ran out of food after tornadoes swept through the St. Louis area earlier this month.

She and her husband, a 69-year-old retired truck driver, take multiple medications daily for chronic health conditions, including diabetes and high blood pressure. They get by on $1,600 a month in Social Security, once their health insurance costs are deducted. That covers rent, bills, car expenses and health care costs, with not much left over for food.

Brown, 65, used to receive $250 a month in food benefits, but that was slashed to $49 this year.

She’s not sure why her benefits were cut. She now relies on the food provided at the Bread of Life Pentecostal Apostolic Church -- one of nearly 600 pantries that receives food from the St. Louis Area Foodbank.

“When we ran out, this was our help,” said Brown, who also volunteers at the food pantry to help others. A long line starts to form outside on Wednesdays, when the pantry is open. The patrons include working parents, grandparents, the disabled, veterans and those without stable housing. In 2023, 13.5% of Americans struggled at some point to secure enough food. That’s the highest rate in nearly a decade, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

President Donald Trump’s federal funding cuts are hitting food banks when the need for food assistance is surging. The administration has cut more than $1 billion from the USDA for two programs that help local farmers, schools and food banks. The Trump administration also wants to cut the agency’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which gives low-income families debit cards to purchase food.

In Missouri, more than 666,800 people received SNAP benefits in 2022. The number of people who rely on food banks is even higher. The Feeding Missouri network of food banks helps more than 1 million Missourians annually through a network of more than 1,500 community feeding programs.

Beyond families and individuals who need help with food, the cuts will also hit farmers.

The cuts to the USDA include about $421 million for the Local Food Purchase Assistance program (LFPA), and about $660 million for Local Food for Schools, a program that allows states to buy food and distribute it to schools and child care facilities. St. Louis Area Foodbank says it has purchased over 600,000 pounds of food from Illinois farmers, providing approximately 500,000 meals to Illinois families through LFPA.

Brown said the fresh produce, bread and canned goods she gets from Bread of Life food pantry make “a very big difference” for her and her husband. She recently had to visit an urgent care facility due to chest pains. The copay for that visit will cut into their tight monthly budget.

“We have to work it the best way we can,” she said.

Pastor David Battle, whose congregation runs the food pantry, said they rely on distributions from the St. Louis Area Foodbank and other partners to keep their shelves stocked. When he heard about the federal cuts, he wondered how many people would lose the food benefits they need to feed their children.

“That’s going to impact us,” he said.

Reading about cuts to food pantries and SNAP during Ramadan, the Islamic month of daily fasting, hits close to home. When you allow yourself to feel sustained hunger, you recognize what it does to your body. There are days while I am fasting when my head pounds and I can feel acid burning in my stomach. It’s harder to concentrate, and fatigue sets in more easily. Thankfully, we have food to break our fast in the evenings during Ramadan. But far too many people in our country lack these basic necessities to live without the pain and fear of hunger.

The fact that these cuts for hungry adults and children are happening while these same political leaders want to give permanent tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals in the country is obscene. A morally bankrupt society tells its neediest citizens to go hungry while giving the richest more cake.

Would you rather have your tax dollars help the Brown household or billionaire Elon Musk?

I know who I would pick, hands down.

Late afternoon was receding into early evening, and my dinner plans were starting to feel a little desperate.

Dinner is a highly anticipated meal during Ramadan, when we fast from dawn to sunset. My energy level dips significantly midway through the month, and I start running out of ideas of what to make.

On this particular day, we had a packet of ground beef in the fridge and few other ingredients. No tortillas or shells, so tacos were out. No buns, so forget burgers. I had made keema with peas last week and didn’t feel like anything heavily spiced. My husband suggested spaghetti, but it sounded uninspired.

I turned to the internet and searched for easy ground beef recipes with limited ingredients. The first result -- Salisbury steak -- took me straight back to elementary school. My mother, who is an exceptional cook, prepared delicious Pakistani meals for us nearly every night. While I enjoyed everything she made, my siblings and I looked forward to the special nights when we got TV dinners.

Looking back, I can imagine how my mother must have felt about our excitement when she pulled those aluminum-covered trays from the oven. This was the only time we had "authentic" American food at home for dinner -- that sectioned meal of meat with gravy, steamed peas and carrots, mashed potatoes and a little square for dessert.

Dr. James H. Salisbury promoted this faux steak dish, which is a pan-fried hamburger patty covered in gravy, in 1888 as part of a meat-centric diet he was pushing. I had no idea of its history, but it sounded exotic in our home. In the TV dinner version, the meat patty was adorned with fake grill markings on top, making it look like a steak’s poorer relation.

Deep in childhood nostalgia, I announced that I would be making Salisbury steaks for dinner. My husband looked confused by the selection but didn’t argue. When you are hungry, any food cooked for you sounds good. I combined two recipes, one from Pioneer Woman and another that declared this was not your childhood Salisbury steak. Both recipes called for ground beef seasoned with an array of condiments and mild spices. They also included recipes for mushroom gravy, but we didn’t have any mushrooms.

The last time I went grocery shopping while I was fasting, I ended up with two bags of chips, popcorn, a pint of ice cream and sugar cones. I decided we could make do with the jar of thin, store-made gravy I had on hand. I made mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables for the full TV dinner effect.

The Salisbury steak was certainly edible. It helped that I was starving by the time we broke our fast on this dinner.

Some foods taste better in your memories.

I went back to the internet to find photos of the exact brand we ate in the 1980s and read a description that made me gasp. All those processed Salisbury steak TV dinners were made of beef and PORK.

Muslims do not eat anything that comes from a pig. I couldn’t believe it. I guess we didn’t have the wherewithal or experience back then to suspect there was pork lurking in something that looked so beeflike on the container.

My mother, who is a deeply religious woman, has only ever eaten meat that is Islamically butchered (similar to kosher). She never once touched a TV dinner and would have been devastated to know that her children devoured those meat patties spiked with swine.

“Don’t tell her,” my husband advised.

This was not the Ramadan news I wished to share with her, but I couldn’t keep the Salisbury steak secret to myself. I alerted my siblings in our group chat, who were also horrified. This bumpy trip down memory lane taught me that we should have been more grateful for our mom’s cooking.

Neither of the contemporary recipes I found online included pork in the ingredients. I think the gravy might have made the difference in my first attempt. My husband ended up buying a pound of sliced mushrooms the next time he went grocery shopping.

I’m giving the leftover Salisbury steaks another chance.