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What's Happening to Boys? [WaPo op-ed column]
Washington Post ^ | 3/30/06 | Leonard Sax

Posted on 03/31/2006 4:35:06 AM PST by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: boys; failuretolaunch; feminism; males; marijuana; masculinity; medicalmarijuana; men; moviereview; wodlist
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To: bondjamesbond

In retrospect, was he right? We didn't kick him out at 18, we did at 19, then he came back, left again, came back, etc until he learned his "date". It worked. We began to pack his bags and he got the message.


61 posted on 03/31/2006 5:41:20 AM PST by bella1
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To: rarestia
I just can't find a place to live

I guess it comes down to:

---what kind of job?
and
---what living accommodations do you require?

Sorry, but there are plenty of lesser expensive places to live. They may not meet your "requirements", but they're out there.

62 posted on 03/31/2006 5:41:32 AM PST by Timeout (I hate MediaCrats!)
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To: Timeout; All

Agree with many who have posted:

Basically it's illegitimacy and girls just giving it away.

With no need for hairy, smelly, dads around, then, you get metrosexuals and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and all other abominations.

Plus, women in the workplace is just plain bad. They are classically man-hating and one's boss used to cut you some slack if you were a male parent, but, no more. Male parents, especially whites, are evil in today's society.

Last thing is the homos and dykes. Employers love them because they have no families and can devote 120 percent to their meaningless atheistic jobs. No troublesome wives, husbands and offspring to interfere with their devotion to the corporation-god. So, these people are more and more promoted over normal people, and heterosexual male fathers take another hit.

Our culture hates manliness, just look at every ad, every TV show, every movie. Weak, sensitive men are on a pedestal, real men are parodied.

Teach your son how to have contempt for the modern world, in all of these things.


63 posted on 03/31/2006 5:42:19 AM PST by caddie
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To: Timeout

Why is there such an issue with kids living at home? I'm living at home with my mother. I help her with house expenses, housekeeping and I help her on her job. Not all kids who stay at home with parents are losers. I rather stay with my mom than live in some apartment by myself.


64 posted on 03/31/2006 5:43:12 AM PST by cyborg (I just love that man.)
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To: stacytec

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



She does have a beautiful voice.


65 posted on 03/31/2006 5:43:12 AM PST by LoudRepublicangirl (loudrepublicangirl)
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To: Timeout

Excellent analysis. It will be interesting to see it addressed.


66 posted on 03/31/2006 5:43:54 AM PST by DouglasKC
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To: Timeout

They are on the Internet, when they should be working...


67 posted on 03/31/2006 5:46:04 AM PST by dakine
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To: Timeout
This is a very good submission. let us know if you get any feedback.

I have a 20 year-old son who doesn't know what to do with his life. He has always been a lot more immature than his sister who is one year older. He does work and pay his own bills, but while he talks about moving out, his current income will not support independent living and it would be the end of our hopes that he goes to school. So we are just marking time for awhile.

68 posted on 03/31/2006 5:46:23 AM PST by Trust but Verify (( ))
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
the world is full of people whose only barrier is that they never made an attempt.

Truer words were never spoken.

Love your tagline, too. :)

69 posted on 03/31/2006 5:49:16 AM PST by TonyInOhio (Apparently, I'm easily amused.)
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To: rarestia
I real man would live in an appartment with 15 other people trying to scrape out an existance in an over-inflated real estate market while going into astronomincal amounts of debt. What are you, some kind of skirt-wearing, limp wristed mamma's boy?

( yes, I'm joking)

70 posted on 03/31/2006 5:50:02 AM PST by stacytec (Nihilism, its whats for dinner)
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To: rbg81
I'm not doing him (or me) any favors when by keeping him in the nest.

I certainly hope, for your son's sake, that you win that argument. Mom's emotional hoohah will prevent him from becoming a man.

I also agree with you about your daughter. It may be an old-fashioned attitude, but it works.

71 posted on 03/31/2006 5:50:06 AM PST by EricT. (CA conservatives only serve to inflate the number of electoral votes won by the Dems.)
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To: Timeout
What's happened to boys? There's an obvious answer you didn't mention: diminished societal expectations.

It's because the father's aren't the man of the house anymore. The mother's are running things in the household more than ever and coddling their sons. Real men are soon to be a thing of the past.

72 posted on 03/31/2006 5:51:28 AM PST by Aquamarine
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To: bella1
In retrospect, was he right?

Absolutely. I wouldn't have had it any other way. Eighteen and out, is the way to go. A child should be aware of this by the time they are five.

Young children plan their lives. My eight-year-old never tires of telling me what she will be doing when she's 20. Unless you tell them how it is going to be, they'll start planning to stay home, because that is where they want to be. Then you have to do all that reprogramming when they're in their late teens, which is a messy business.

Get it right the first time! Let them know their date as early as possible.

73 posted on 03/31/2006 5:52:03 AM PST by bondjamesbond (Rice '08)
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To: Timeout

My 17 year old son and I have lots of discussions about what he expects his life to be like when he is "grown up." He says he wants a good family life like ours and he wants his kids not to go to daycare. I told him what he would need to do to accomplish this: learn responsibility, work hard in college, find work that will be able to support a family someday, be strong in his faith, and find a girl who has the same values as him, who would want to stay home with their kids. He knows what to expect of himself: society certainly doesn't.

As parents of 3 boys (and only boys), my DH and I are constantly having to fight what the culture says about men.


74 posted on 03/31/2006 5:53:50 AM PST by mom3boys
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To: bondjamesbond

You can't be serious!


75 posted on 03/31/2006 5:55:06 AM PST by cyborg (I just love that man.)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

A number of years ago when I was a young man living at home and working full time mind you... I came home one day to find all my stuff packed up in boxes in the garage. At the start of the next month I was in my own apartment.


76 posted on 03/31/2006 5:55:23 AM PST by ran15
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To: Timeout

bttt


77 posted on 03/31/2006 5:56:02 AM PST by aberaussie
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To: summer

I seem to recall recently reading of a similar trend in Italy. Men living at home with their mothers.


You are 100 percent correct and I am hear as we speak. The only difference between men here and men in the movie is that Italian Men cannot afford not to. Unemployment is atrocious here (were talking 20 something percent, plus). The movie Failure to Launch was a very good movie.


78 posted on 03/31/2006 5:56:21 AM PST by napscoordinator
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To: ClaireSolt

I hope these aren't being remembered as "the good old days". :)


79 posted on 03/31/2006 5:57:26 AM PST by linda_22003
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To: proxy_user
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.

What kind of whacked out industry does that? Aside from emergency medicine, only a fool would sign up for a job like with those hours. As important as work is, making it the focus of one's existence is just plain sick. Slavery was banned 140 years ago.

80 posted on 03/31/2006 5:57:49 AM PST by EricT. (CA conservatives only serve to inflate the number of electoral votes won by the Dems.)
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