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22 Stats That Prove That There Is Something Seriously Wrong With Young Men In America
TEC ^ | 12-18-2012 | Michael Snyder

Posted on 12/18/2012 10:50:49 AM PST by blam

22 Stats That Prove That There Is Something Seriously Wrong With Young Men In America

By Michael Snyder
December 17th, 2012

When are we finally going to admit that we have a very serious problem with this generation of young men in America? We have failed them so dramatically that it is hard to put it into words. We have raised an entire generation of young males that don't know how to be men, and many of them feel completely lost. Sometimes they feel so lost that they "snap" in very destructive ways. Adam Lanza and James Holmes are two names that come to mind. Why is it that mass murderers are almost always young men? Why don't young women behave the same way? Sadly, Adam Lanza and James Holmes are just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem in our society. Our young women vastly outperform our young men in almost every important statistical category. Young men are much more likely to perform poorly in school, they are much more likely to have disciplinary problems and they are much more likely to commit suicide.
In the old days, our young men would gather in the streets or in the parks to play with one another after school, but today most of them are content to spend countless hours feeding their addictions to video games, movies and other forms of entertainment. When our young men grow up, many of them are extremely averse to taking on responsibility. They want to have lots of sex, but they aren't interested in marriage. They enjoy the comforts of living at home, but they don't want to go out and pursue career goals so that they can provide those things for themselves. Our young men are supposed to be "the leaders of tomorrow", but instead many of them are a major burden on society. When are we finally going to admit that something has gone horribly wrong?

There is even a name for this generation of young men that does not want to grow up. It is called the "Peter Pan generation". They want to enjoy the benefits of being grown up without ever taking on the responsibilities. A member of this "Peter Pan generation" recent wrote an article for the Daily Mail in which he discussed what he and his friends are going through...

I haven’t yet had to grow up so, well, I haven’t.

Reckless, irresponsible and immature? Yes. But at least I can take comfort in the fact I am not alone.

Last week, I read that there is even a name for people such as me. We are the ‘Peter Pan generation’; a sizeable group of 25 to 40-year-olds who exist in a state of extended adolescence, avoiding the trappings of responsibility — marriage, mortgage, children — for as long as possible.

‘Our society is full of lost boys and girls hanging out at the edge of adulthood,’ says Professor Frank Furedi, a sociologist who has been studying this phenomenon, at the University of Kent.

‘Another word sometimes used to describe these people is “adultescent” — generally defined as someone who refuses to settle down and make commitments, and who would rather go on partying into middle age.’ Young men in America didn't always behave this way. Several decades ago, men in America moved away from home, got married and had children much earlier than they do now. But the young men of today seem to want to put off the "markers of adulthood" for as long as possible. The following is from an outstanding article by Sandy Hingston...

Sociologists cite five “markers” or “milestones” that have traditionally defined our notion of adulthood: finishing school, moving away from the parental home, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having a child. In 1960, 65 percent of men had ticked off all five by age 30; by 2000, only a third had. The experts have plenty of explanations for what’s come to be called “extended adolescence” or “emerging adulthood”—or what New York Times columnist David Brooks calls the “Odyssey Years.” They blame helicopter parents, the burden of student loan debt, much higher poverty rates among young people (nearly half of all Americans ages 25 to 34 live below the national level), and a dearth of vo-tech training and manufacturing jobs. Almost 60 percent of parents are now giving money to their grown kids—an average of $38,340 per child in the years between ages 18 and 34. Whatever happened to the son looking after his mom? So why is all of this happening?

Well, there are a whole host of reasons. But certainly parents and our education system have to bear much of the blame. In the old days, young men were taught what it means to "be a man", and morality was taught to young men both by their parents and in the schools. But today, most young men have very little understanding of what "manhood" is, and our society has taught them that morality doesn't really matter. Instead, television and movies constantly portray young men as sex-obsessed slackers that just want to party all the time, so that is what many of our young men have become.

How much better off would our society be if we had trained this generation of young men to love, honor, protect and take care of others?

How much better off would our society be if we had nurtured the manhood of our young men instead of teaching them to be ashamed of it?

How much better off would our society be if we had disciplined our young men and taught them morality when they were getting off track instead of just letting them do whatever they wanted?

The following are 22 stats that prove that there is something seriously wrong with young men in America today...

#1 Males account for approximately 70 percent of all Ds and Fs in U.S. public schools.

#2 About two-thirds of all students in "special education programs" are boys.

#3 The average American girl spends 5 hours a week playing video games. The average American boy spends 13 hours a week playing video games.

#4 The average young American will spend 10,000 hours playing video games before the age of 21.

#5 One study discovered that 88 percent of all Americans between the ages of 8 and 18 play video games, and that video game addiction is approximately four times as common among boys as it is among girls.

#6 At this point, 15-year-olds that attend U.S. public schools do not even rank in the top half of all industrialized nations when it comes to math or science literacy.

#7 In 2011, SAT scores for young men were the worst that they had been in 40 years.

#8 According to a survey conducted by the National Geographic Society, only 37 percent of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can find the nation of Iraq on a map.

#9 According to the New York Times, approximately 57 percent of all young people enrolled at U.S. colleges are women.

#10 It is being projected that women will earn 60 percent of all Bachelor's degrees from U.S. universities by the year 2016.

#11 Even if they do graduate from college, most of our young men still can't find a decent job. An astounding 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor's degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed during 2011.

#12 Pornography addiction is a major problem among our young men. An astounding 30 percent of all Internet traffic now goes to pornography websites, and one survey found that 25 percent of all employees that have Internet access in the United States even visit sex websites while they are at work.

#13 In the United States today, 47 percent of all high school students have had sex.

#14 The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate on the entire planet. If our young men behaved differently this would not be happening.

#15 In the United States today, one out of every four teen girls has at least one sexually transmitted disease. If our young men were not sex-obsessed idiots running around constantly looking to "score" these diseases would not be spreading like this.

#16 Right now, approximately 53 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 24 year old age bracket are living at home with their parents.

#17 According to one survey, 29 percent of all Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket are still living with their parents.

#18 Young men are nearly twice as likely to live with their parents as young women the same age are.

#19 Overall, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents in the United States right now according to Time Magazine.

#20 Today, an all-time low 44.2% of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 are married.

#21 Back in 1950, 78 percent of all households in the United States contained a married couple. Today, that number has declined to 48 percent.

#22 Young men are about four times more likely to commit suicide as young women are.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: boys; discrimination; fail; liberalism; newnormal; obamaville; violence; whitemen
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To: blam

I think a big problem is the extremely low percentage of male teachers in our schools, especially the lower grades, and the fact that teachers just are not held in very high esteem.


41 posted on 12/18/2012 11:57:19 AM PST by stuartcr ("Everything happens as God wants it to, otherwise, things would be different.")
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To: OKRA2012

Maybe it’s because American males are supposed to kick everyone’s ass?


42 posted on 12/18/2012 11:59:33 AM PST by stuartcr ("Everything happens as God wants it to, otherwise, things would be different.")
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To: blam
I Need a Hero by Bonnie Tyler

Where have all the good men gone And where are all the gods

You killed them.

Where's the street-wise Hercules To fight the rising odds

You all decided you wanted Alan Alda instead.

Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed

I'm sorry your daddy didn't buy you a pony, but you are not a princess and life is not a Barbara Cartland novel.

Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need

A malleable male with disposable income? Envy of your friends? Satisfaction of your relatives? Someone to boost your esteem, take the blame?

I need a hero

We left a message for George Clooney, but he's out getting his nails done. /s

43 posted on 12/18/2012 12:01:18 PM PST by fattigermaster
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To: skeeter
I give you one of the most influential brain-washers of today's(hollywood programmed)society....Joss Whedon.

From the hollywood re-education dept. of puppet Obama's..."fundamentally transforming America".

44 posted on 12/18/2012 12:03:27 PM PST by RckyRaCoCo (I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery, IXNAY THE TSA!)
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To: stuartcr

Yourself excepted, obviously.


45 posted on 12/18/2012 12:03:37 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: I want the USA back
Feminazis have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Boys are the subject of open discrimination in job applications, and college admissions. Whites especially get this unjust treatment. Boys need a father. Feminazis have succeeded in doing away with fathers.
It’s not video games, it’s not Hollywood movies, it’s not music, it’s not the availability of weapons, it’s not that these white kids like to speak Ebonics.

I feel that these two comments contain a heavy amount of truth. I too was raised in the 50's and 60's and see my formative years replete with things unavailable today.

A short list:
Boy Scouts - once noble, now reviled and chased from many venues.
Sports, both intramural and inter school - such opportunities to burn off male energy and aggressiveness, even in target shooting (rifle club,) are drastically diminished today.
...as a subset, Title IX. - removing so many sport opportunities for young men, for the benefit of a few, mostly lesbian women, is weird.
Multiculturalism
Elevation of Black Culture to the point of emulation.
Ritilin for ADD/ADHD males.

These are a few of my least favorite social changes, but there are many more. Most of these are with us until the bitter end, not to be changed, and held sacred until the barbarians are storming the walls after having razed the fields and pillaged the villages.

46 posted on 12/18/2012 12:05:19 PM PST by Thommas (The snout of the camel is in the tent..)
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To: I want the USA back

“Boys are the subject of open discrimination in ... college admissions.”

I think that just the opposite is true. Colleges are desperate to bring into closer equality the numbers of males and females who enroll. There is an unsettling group pathology that emerges when the sex ratio in any “community” becomes too unbalanced. At most US colleges, the sex ratio now is approximately 40/60 (males to females).


47 posted on 12/18/2012 12:05:33 PM PST by riverdawg
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To: OKRA2012; Truth is a Weapon
I have come to believe that violent visual media - games, movies, etc - are a MAJOR part of the problem. Just as with pornography, they set up an addiction, desensitize, feed fantasies and train in technique.

The greatest harm to the public in both is when the simulation isn't enough anymore and they move to act it out. Hence the epidemic of grade school kids engaging in shocking sexual acts, 'sexting' and other problems that have engulfed our youth.

Through these media, our kids are taught and stimualted to kill. They seek to rack up the highest scores and receive enough simulator training to effectively point and shoot with devastating results. Years ago I attended a seminar from LTC Dave Grossman (On Killing). I was sceptical of many of his claims, and certainly the media aren't the only factor involved, but over the years and after much study and reflection on the problem, the link is undeniable. These attacks become increasingly costly and the death tolls higher and higher in direct proportion to the increasing sophistication and realism of violent visual media.

Sorry, Mr. Tarantino, but you and your ilk have MUCH blood on your hands, and it isn't colored corn syrup.

48 posted on 12/18/2012 12:06:31 PM PST by SargeK
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To: blam
While only one aspect of the effects from the pursuit of the insanity of Egalitarianism, what you delineate is certainly one of the most significant. Feminism, of course, is an extreme form of Egalitarianism--the make-believe world that all people are somehow interchangeable. Nothing could be more ludicrous than the deliberate efforts to suppress traditional sex-roles, which used to heighten, greatly, a sense of real purpose in both sexes.

In my opinion the loss of a sense of purpose is behind the abysmal situation, that you chronicle. It was also, in my opinion, a major factor in some of the massacres in public schools. (For instance, see "Something of Value".)

Certainly if young boys were still raised with the chivalric ideal, we would have a much healthier society. Youth steeped in the idea that the real measure of a man, is to protect the women & children of a society--even the harridans who denounced such ethos--are less disposed to shoot children of any age. Those denied the self-respect that traditional sex roles evoked, may well vent a rage that they do not really even understand, in sociopathic ways. (In the recent instance, there were probably other factors involved also. But the question is, had the individual involved been raised to chivalric purpose, would whatever other anger he had, have been vented in so terrible a form?)

William Flax

49 posted on 12/18/2012 12:07:02 PM PST by Ohioan
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts

“At one time we put the badly behaved into reform schools. We put crazy people into insane asylums. Now we put them all into the same schools as healthy people in the name of justice and immersion.”

This misguided “mainstreaming” is certainly one of society’s major, but little discussed, problems.


50 posted on 12/18/2012 12:09:02 PM PST by riverdawg
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To: oh8eleven

There are some freepers who ignorantly hate Baby Boomers. On another thread today, someone wrote that we are all a bunch of welfare queens (!!). They don’t understand that most of us grew up in very ordinary circumstances, went to work early and have paid into entitlements for over 40 years. And many men served honorably in the armed forces and many died.

These ignoramuses think everybody is Bill Clinton.

Thank you for your service!


51 posted on 12/18/2012 12:10:17 PM PST by miss marmelstein
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To: stuartcr

Nothing wrong with kicking ass when it’s needed, but it shouldn’t be a cultural norm.


52 posted on 12/18/2012 12:12:43 PM PST by stuartcr ("Everything happens as God wants it to, otherwise, things would be different.")
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To: riverdawg

No one wants to pay for reform schools and insane asylums, or even have them in their neighborhood.


53 posted on 12/18/2012 12:14:41 PM PST by stuartcr ("Everything happens as God wants it to, otherwise, things would be different.")
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To: riverdawg
Colleges are desperate to bring into closer equality the numbers of males and females who enroll.

No offense, but, really? For 40 years, colleges have diligently pushed white males out of higher education. You say the ratio is something like 40/60 men to women. How many of that diminishing set of males are even white?

If what you proffer is true, then in 5 years the ratio should be closer to 42/58. Since I see no change in admission selection from our communist bastions of higher learning, I will herein wager you a nickel that the ratio will be closer to 38/62 than 42/58, provided that the ratio of white men to victim class men remains unchanged.

As a passing thought, I've kept that nickel for quite a long time..

54 posted on 12/18/2012 12:19:27 PM PST by Thommas (The snout of the camel is in the tent..)
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To: blam

Turn off tv and xBox, for you too.

Make sure they respect their mother. AT ALL TIMES.

Get your boys into at least one sport and play with them when possible. Don’t let them quit if it gets hard.

Take them hunting and/or fishing often and teach them difference between needless killing and killing for a reason.

Starting at early age have them help you fix things around house and on cars.

Attend every one of their sporting/school events you can and praise them but also teach them competitiveness and give positive, instructive criticism when they perform poorly. I told all my sons, “second place is the first loser”, but also taught them the reality of you win some you lose some.

Teach them how to handle criticism, they will need it in the work place.

Teach them to be respectful of women and look out for them and the weak.

Do not be afraid to administer hand to behind. If you do it when they are young you don’t have to when they are old. All mine got spankings and after about 6-7 years old never had to again.

Again turn off the tv. Probably the best advise.

I have raised 3 boys, two 3 Afghan tour Marines (one officer and one Sgt, both highly decorated grunts) and one polite, competitive teenager on his way to manhood. My methods work and are proven through time as my parents raised 4 the same way with similar results.


55 posted on 12/18/2012 12:31:06 PM PST by Resolute Conservative
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To: SargeK

Young men in other countries play the same video games and watch the same movies and do not commit as many mass killings as American young men.


56 posted on 12/18/2012 12:34:25 PM PST by OKRA2012
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To: OKRA2012

They probably just don’t want to.


57 posted on 12/18/2012 12:38:51 PM PST by stuartcr ("Everything happens as God wants it to, otherwise, things would be different.")
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To: Resolute Conservative

Forgot main one, teach them to love and respect God, but if for some weak, mumbo jumbo reason you do no, thet other steps will be successful.


58 posted on 12/18/2012 12:39:27 PM PST by Resolute Conservative
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To: Thommas
As a society, we have a real problem with young males, both black and white. These problems are not the making of our colleges, but reflect the deterioration of socializing institutions like the family, the military, and the Boy Scouts, but especially the diminished role of fathers and other male role models in the lives of these young boys.

At every level of schooling, girls are now out-performing boys in the classroom despite having no advantage in ability or aptitude. This performance gap ultimately carries over to the college application process, where girls’ high-school GPAs are, on average, higher than boys’ (even though the very top applicants at most colleges are still disproportionately boys). We also have experienced dramatic changes in the sex ratio in numerous well-paying professions such as pharmacy and vet medicine. Do you believe there is some conspiracy against males in those professions, as well?

59 posted on 12/18/2012 12:44:04 PM PST by riverdawg
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To: blam
One of the most damaging pathologies of American society is the fatherless family. Young women cannot raise a boy to be a man. Instead what they produce is an adult sized child with all the moral restraints of the child and all the dangers of a loose cannon adult.

And until young boys have someone who fulfills the role of a father in their lives then the problems will continue and grow.

60 posted on 12/18/2012 12:47:19 PM PST by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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