What's Happening to Boys? [WaPo op-ed column]

Washington Post ^ | 3/30/06 | Leonard Sax

[Timeout]

What's Happening to Boys?

The romantic comedy "Failure to Launch," which opened as the No. 1 movie in the nation this month, has substantially exceeded pre-launch predictions, taking in more than $64 million in its first three weeks.
[snip]

...a young man who is affable, intelligent, good-looking -- and completely unmotivated. He's still living at home and seems to have no ambitions beyond playing video games, hanging out with his buddies (two young men who are also still living with their parents) and having sex.
[snip]

...According to the Census Bureau, fully one-third of young men ages 22 to 34 are still living at home with their parents -- a roughly 100 percent increase in the past 20 years. No such change has occurred with regard to young women. Why?
[snip]

...We've batted around lots of ideas. Maybe the problem has to do with the way the school curriculum has changed. Maybe it has to do with environmental toxins that affect boys differently than girls (not as crazy an idea as it sounds). Maybe it has to do with changes in the workforce, with fewer blue-collar jobs and more emphasis on the service industry. Maybe it's some combination of all of the above, or other factors we haven't yet identified.

[Huck]

Now they prefer single guys, because we can show up for work at 9 in the morning, stay until 9 at night, and work some more on weekends. Married guys can't do that, especially if they have kids.

I don't agree with that at all. They've got the married guys by the gonads. Single guys can walk. Married guys have kids to take care of. That's been my observation.

[bella1]

I have a 22 year old son who understands that living with mommy and daddy is not an option. I will relate a story that opened my eyes:

My sister-in-law is a teacher. One of her students (male, high school), was getting into trouble, unmotivated, uncooperative etc, etc. The parents and teacher (sister in law) called a meeting with the school social worker and the student. The social worker (who by the way was an African-American male) after listening to the parents and teacher looked at the parents and asked "does your son know the date?", upon which they collective said "huh?". Again he asked "does your son know the date"?. Again, "huh" and he said "the date in which you will no longer be supporting him, feeding him, doing his laundry, letting him use your car and living at home". He went on to say "my children all knew their "dates" by the time they were done with high school and have gone on to be educated productive members of society". And to that I said "amen". Our son has since learned of his "date" at age 21 when he thought he could perpetually come and go from our house depending upon whether he could support himself. After he quit his third job because it was "white trash work", we gave him his date. He has since moved to Colorado and worked and now is in Mississippi working construction after the hurricane. He is moving back to Michigan this May and has a job lined up and a place to live. It works.

[stacytec]

I'm glad those days are gone, in my world you either produce or get stepped on by someone willing to do the job better/faster/longer. Our upper management is under seige by people willing to work a 15 hour day. Only one of those people has kids, and she had to hire a nanny.

[bella1]

see post #42

[bella1]

see post #42

[Huck]

I left home at age 19 because it just didn't seem right to be living the way I was living under my mother's roof. I was filling up trash cans with brown glass all on my own. lol.

[bondjamesbond]

Certainly the break down of the family particularly the lack of a father...

You may be onto something. I know when I was 18, there was definitely the feeling that there was one too many men living in the house. It wasn't my house, so I left and Dad stayed! If he had not been there, I don't think it would have been a problem at all being home with Mom.

The natural -- I wouldn't quite call it hostility, but, shall we say, "rivalry" -- between fathers and sons is a powerful factor pushing young men out the door.

I note that the author uses the term "boys", while referring to men in their 20s! LOL!

[theBuckwheat]

Clueless WaPo writer laments that boys are not men, yet works for the top tier of media advocates supporting ideologies and policies that helped to feminine males over decades of trying to make women equal to men.

Will the WaPo now look to "undocumented workers" (code for illegal Mexican immigrants) to move into male roles that "Americans won't do"?

We have long since passed the point where most college graduates are female.

Liberals go around trashing and destroying the things from which our power and prosperity come from and then are clueless when things turn out exactly opposite to the desired outcome.

[Vision]

Forty years ago parents, teachers, coaches and society aligned in various ways to instruct young men that they would carry a heavy future burden: supporting a family

I just think that's male instinct

[July 4th]

What about discrimination at every turn? I am a male in my mid-20s, and am a lawyer. Firm politics are biased towards women, because the firm is in deep $h!t if the women attorneys complain about anything.

So, I want to leave and start my own business. You'd think I wouldn't have any problem with discrimination then, right? Wrong. I had considered producing/selling a product that would be right at home on the shelves of Wal-Mart/Walgreens. But even their purchasing departments want to know whether you have a minority or woman-owned business, since they have internal preferences. Can't a guy catch a break?

[Huck]

Exactly.

[dennisw]

Is that a guy who won American idiol or is is that KD Lang?

[Timeout]

My father had 4 girls. He sat us down in 9th grade and laid down the law: "I'll pay for you to go to college, Grad school, Med school...whatever you want. BUT. You've got to stick with it. If you drop out or don't make the grade, you're on your own. No moving back in, no support from Mom & Dad."

I didn't "make the grade". College dropped me after my frosh year, so I worked as a bank teller, sharing an apartment with two other girls. It wasn't long before I saw the light and told my Dad I wanted to finish college. He offered a deal: "Save up the tuition money and then we'll talk about my helping you".

It took me 4 years. I saved enough to pay my tuition, car payments and insurance---if I continued working while going to school. Dad then let me move back home. I majored in accounting and got a job in the accounting lab. I got an exemption to take 24 hours/quarter...the money would only last so long. I graduated with straight A's in under 2 years. I moved out the week before graduation and went on to have a fabulous career (I'm now retired early and doing odd-job accounting).

My Dad was a wise man.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Now they prefer single guys, because we can show up for work at 9 in the morning, stay until 9 at night, and work some more on weekends. Married guys can't do that, especially if they have kids.

Exactly. It's turned around completely, because most larger companies, at least, have no intention of making long-term committments to employees in these times, so they prefer the guys who they can get much more work value out of than they have to put salary and benefit dollars into. That means a strong preference for recent college graduates (even those lacking experience) with a lot of mental energy and no taxing outside commitments. Married people generally have much of their attention focused on issues other than work.

And if they really need an experienced candidate, they still don't have to pay full price - that's what the H1B program is for. ;)

Being married was almost a requirement for hiring and/or promotion in the Fifties. Now it's considered a detriment.

[stacytec]

LOL - although you dissed Lang in the process. Motivation for me to pop in my Shadowland CD....

[rarestia]

I'm 26 and have to move back in with my mother. It sucks, but it has to happen. I work a white collar job, making a very good living, but I'm a single white male. The job market in the Tampa Bay area is atrocious, and I just can't find a place to live. This article is bunk, because it paints people like me as being lazy and unmotivated compared to my female counterparts.

[bondjamesbond]

The social worker (who by the way was an African-American male) after listening to the parents and teacher looked at the parents and asked "does your son know the date?"

I was the youngest child in my family. As long as I could remember, on my birthday, Dad would announce "Only X more years, and you're outta here!", with X = 18 - My Age. On my eighteenth birthday, my bag was packed, and I was outta there!

I would not be surprised if he said that at my first birthday party. He certainly said it at every one from three to seventeen!

[LoudRepublicangirl]

Your Dad sounds exactly like mine. Thanks to the way he raised me I am raising my daughter the same way. Unlike a lot of her friends she is not given everything she wants when she wants it. I always tell her that I'm not going to live forever so she will have to make her own way with little assistance from me.

[sergeantdave]

If I had a son past 21 years of age still living at home, his bed would be moved to the old coal bin, meals would be $10 a pop, showers $5 and parking $3.50 an hour.

[kitkat]

***The reasons are complex, but the educational system must take a lot of the blame along with...***

Actually, while I agree with you, there's one reason that's very simple. When a young man wanted sex, he was expected to get married and to be able to support a family. That was a strong incentive for him to get a job and work hard.

When women's lib told the women to give it away for free, the incentive disappeared.