Posted on 03/12/2010 10:43:24 AM PST by Kaslin
We see them on the streets and in the mirror: middle-aged men wearing jeans and baseball caps. Grown men, dressing and -- all too often -- acting like boys.
So where did we, an immature generation, come from?
On a recommendation from George Will, I picked up the book “Men to Boys, The Making of Modern Immaturity” by Gary Cross. Sadly, the book didn’t provide the answer.
Cross provides an in-depth review of American pop culture, which he sees as shaping people’s actions. He observes there were 27 westerns on television in 1959 (and he provides a recap of seemingly each one), and notes that these programs take a far different view of male responsibility than modern programming (think Friends or Family Guy).
Fair enough. But pop culture doesn’t drive our lives so much as it reflects our lives.
Consider one of the examples Cross highlights: The series of movies starring Mickey Rooney as “Andy Hardy.” Andy was a clueless but loveable boy, always ready to listen to and learn from the wise advice of his father, a judge. Rooney’s character was a great role model for boys in the 1940s.
But if pop culture was an effective driver of human actions, wouldn’t the movies have rubbed off on their star? Instead, Mickey Rooney made a hash of his life -- married eight times, addicted to gambling and drugs, etc.
So there has to be a bigger reason that our view of manhood changed, and that change has allowed Hollywood to change what it offers us. It’s a reason Cross doesn’t choose to delve into. It’s that, starting in the 1960s with the Great Society, government got steadily more involved in our lives.
For most of human history, men have been expected to take care of their families. There have always been exceptions, of course. Cross spends many pages describing Hugh Hefner and the Beat Generation poets as examples of men who opted out of generally accepted adult roles.
Still, the overwhelming majority of American men saw themselves as providers. If a man impregnated a woman, he usually married her. A man went to work and provided for his children. A man didn’t want to take any handouts. That was true in the 1950s, it was true during the Depression, it was true before our country was founded.
But the modern welfare state wrecked all that. Federal programs set out to remove stigmas, and ended up encouraging all kinds of bad behavior.
To cite one example, in 1950, only about 4 percent of births were to unwed mothers. That statistic topped 10 percent in the early 1970s, and keeps on climbing. Last year, it hit 40 percent for the first time. A generation of children that grew up without a father in the house raised another generation, which is now raising a third. Small wonder many boys never learn how to be a man.
Bill Cosby writes about growing up in Philadelphia amid working class black families. His parents remained married. Meanwhile, others around the neighborhood kept an eye on things and reported any misbehavior.
Those neighborhoods were replaced in the 60s and 70s with massive federal housing projects, where nobody could keep an eye on anything. The stairwells became drug havens, and most residents cowered in their homes rather than maintaining a watch on the children.
Meanwhile, federal welfare policy changed to encourage out-of-wedlock births. Men no longer needed to support their children; the government would do that. So they didn’t.
Fatherless children are so common that we read about them without even batting an eye.
A recent Sports Illustrated profile, for example, says that University of Texas basketball player Damion James, “didn’t learn the identity of his father until he was 17, when [his mother] pointed out a man named Jerry Bell, whose five other sons Damion had known growing up without realizing they were his half-brothers.” Even the father was clueless. “My father was never there for me, and I had promised myself I would be there for my kids,” Bell told the magazine. “I just didn’t know Damion was mine.”
It would be a sad story if it was a rare one. The fact that it’s a common story makes it tragic.
This matters, because President Obama and liberals in Congress are working hard to pass a health insurance reform package that would increase our dependence on government. They may have the best of intentions. But as with welfare “reform” and housing “reform,” reform that makes people more reliant on government usually backfires.
Real reform would involve changing the tax treatment of health insurance to create a true market for coverage. People would be expected to behave responsibly and obtain the coverage they wanted.
It’s time for our government to trust us. Don’t worry. We’ll behave like men (and women), even if we don’t always dress the part.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems to be good practice not to alienate such a large portion of your intended audience before you even get started.
It seems that many read no further than that before slamming this article.
Too bad. It really is a good commentary.
Speaking for myself, I read it. It does make some good points, no doubt. However, I've also grown somewhat tired of articles, books, commentaries, etc that lionize & sugarcoat previous generations.
As if everything was hunky dory, Leave it to Beaver land. It wasn't. Those previous generations all have plenty of their own skeletons they have conveniently swept under the rug.
RE: “George Will is twit. I like jeans. I don’t like suits and ties. And, yeah, I’m middled aged.
And, as long they wear them correctly, what the hell is wrong with ball caps?”
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I WISH my Peter Pan of a husband wanted to wear jeans and ball caps! That would be a step up for him.
No, what he wants to wear, year-round (though it’s too cold here much of the time for it) is shorts, flip flops and tank tops. He is so insistent on dressing this way that we have to waste more money on heating the house because he won’t dress appropriately and then is cold.
He wants to wear this getup everywhere, all the time, and he is 56 years old!!! I make him keep a regular tee-shirt in the car at all times in case we want to stop at a coffee shop or something — tank tops? Really? He looks good for his age but I think tank tops on men over 40 are pretty unseemly.
I ‘get’ what George Will is trying to say but it’s surely about a lot more than baseball caps and jeans. He came up with a poor example of immaturity with that one.
Reminds me of the observation:
Millionaires wear very expensive & impressive attire.
Billionaires wear jeans & flannel.
Well...
The article goes on lamenting how irresponsible adults have become - then begs the gov’t to “let us be adults”. Rather a non sequitur at the end.
I have to confess that I like cargo shorts - but only during the summer. But I wear button down shirts with them.
And I don’t wear tank tops except when I’m in the gym. I’m too old and fat...
The author should grow up himself. A man is defined by what he is, and how he conducts himself.- not by what he wears. I’m a retired prosecutor, and except for weddings and funerals, I haven’t worn a suit and tie since I hung ‘em up. And I don’t intend to.
Respect.
I’m a 33 year old guy. I grew up with both parents - In nursing (With uniform) and a firefighter (With obvious uniform, but also dress blues and casual blues). I was taught a very important lesson:
I can work in tee shirt and jeans. I’m an IT pro - people trust me from the work that I do. I wear a suit to my client’s sites as a matter of respect. I’m not respecting them personally, I am respecting their process.
I worked at Yale for a time, and those guys wore sandals and torn jeans. They also smelled like a dead porpoise. But on interview day (When they were interviewing candidates) they would wear a suit, and clean themselves up. They did it as “Respect to the process”. If a candidate is taking things seriously, then you should too.
I also wear my hair in pigtails, have 1 inch long spikes poking out of my ears (I have 6 pretty large bore piercings) and I’m goth. I don’t wear this when I’m at my doctor clients, because I respect their process. It’s important to cover / remove the spikes, and not wear pigtails.
I think that is the deficiency in the way men (And everyone, really) dress. No one pays any respect or even attention to the image of those around them, and those they serve (We ALL serve someone, come on now !)
And what does that have to do with growing up?
So, I see men in their 70s and 80s wearing baseball caps and jeans. Personally I'll listen to rock music until I'm dead because it's what I've grown up with and like. Rich Tucker needs to get a life no matter how right he might be about liberals.
Nor anyone else. They sound like snobs to me.
Grown men, dressing and — all too often — acting like boys.
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I can’t even get past the first line.
The author should be condemned to attending every Jimmy Buffet concert in the upcoming season. :-)
Get a life!
Average American height: Men 5’ 9.6”; Women 5’ 4.3”
In the movies -the Reverse!
Are men getting shorter?
What's worse, many of their professors—my colleagues—weren't dressed much better.
I was reminded of a wedding we attended a few years ago. The bride and groom were dressed appropriately for the occasion, as were their parents and a few fuddy-duddies. But the rest of the congregation looked as if they had just awakened in the gutter after a hard night of partying. I thought they showed great disrespect for the couple.
If you cannot afford a nice suit for your friend's wedding (or to teach your class), at least make sure your clothing is clean and mended. (A shower and a shave are usually a good idea too.)
I wear jeans and baseball caps when that style of dress is appropriate to the setting. I do not dress that way when lecturing, or when attending church, weddings, or funerals.
He's the one who needs to grow up, and man up...
the infowarrior
Well put.
Your manner of dress expresses both your feelings about yourself and the occasion or setting.
They have been sissyfied.
I agree...however, being the sole breadwinner, noble idea that it is, is almost impossible nowadays with the onerous taxation and increased cost of living.
As far as the sissification, I can't tell you how many of my "peers" (I loathe calling many of them that...) are such sissies. They all have the spray-on tans, manicured nails, and work out in the gym several hours a day. While staying healthy isn't a bad thing, doing it for vanity's sake is...ah, hell, lemme put it this way - they're all a bunch of pussies...
Perhaps the author of this piece focused too much on what people wear rather than on the main point of his story.
However, don’t discount the factor of dressing appropriately for various occasions and, I believe, ‘studies’ have shown that being dressed properly affects the way one acts as well as the perception others have of you.
Only men that seek to be famous. There’s a lot of short guys throughout the performing world, music, acting, politics. Apparently nothing makes somebody want to be big quite so much as being small.
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