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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: RGSpincich

LOL!!!


121 posted on 03/31/2006 6:39:54 AM PST by bella1
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To: cyborg

I lived on my own from college until I was married at 31. It's not unsafe unless you live in a terrible neighborhood, and women need to learn independence just as much as men do.


122 posted on 03/31/2006 6:40:11 AM PST by linda_22003
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To: cyborg

Tough Love is not a culture. It is a strategy that sometimes works in extreme cases. Hopefully you will not have one, but if you do, don't rule it out.


123 posted on 03/31/2006 6:41:22 AM PST by ClaireSolt (.)
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To: cyborg

I love my kids. I treasure every day they are in my house. I treasure them all the more because I know there is a finite number of them.

When they are adults, I will still love them. But to continue to treat them as children would serve my needs, not theirs.


124 posted on 03/31/2006 6:42:00 AM PST by bondjamesbond (Rice '08)
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To: cyborg
I'm a girl. I also know guys who don't bring chicks over because they're christian men and wouldn't disrespect themselves that way. One of the young men who is past eighteen was just accepted into medical school.

well good for them. My point was about freedom, living on your own make you learn to budget your time, money and balance decisions between job and family.

If you can't live on your own, I'm sorry. My girls are getting an education, a weapon and a job. I'll be available to help, but I'm sorry to tell you this... life is "not fair" and sometimes it's "hard". The sooner you face those facts the better.

If you go from living at home under you father's protection and into another man's home (husband) without living on your own, I suspect when you're 35-40 you'll be a bit curious about "what I missed". Maybe not, I've been wrong before.

125 posted on 03/31/2006 6:42:47 AM PST by Dick Vomer (liberals suck......... but it depends on what your definition of the word "suck" is.)
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To: cyborg
Are you a young single girl or are you married. Believe me if you are single, you do not want to marry a man who is in his late 20s living at home with mommy and daddy (and more than likely living "off" mommy and daddy) unless he had done so because he was either a full-time college student looking to save money, or he was helping at home because his mother was ill. Trust me, run for the hills.
126 posted on 03/31/2006 6:42:57 AM PST by bella1
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
it's mommy.

Actually it's both. Daddy is giving his power up to mommy so the problem really lies there. These days the way that women have been indoctrinated to believe that they should be in charge it would be an ongoing battle between the parents, guess most men aren't up to the fight.

I feel bad for the boys, living an independent life has many rewards and the boys are being cheated out of that. Have seen it for myself with my own acquaintances, am watching lots of young men that should have had full lives being sheltered and spoiled.

127 posted on 03/31/2006 6:43:15 AM PST by Aquamarine
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To: Dick Vomer

thanks for your answers


128 posted on 03/31/2006 6:43:51 AM PST by cyborg (I just love that man.)
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To: EricT.

80 hour weeks are typical for most graduate professions during the first few years. Some entry level lawyers (called associates) are even called upon to put in in excess of 80 hours. The salaried world is vastly different from the hourly world. Blue collar folks vastly overestimate how easy their white collar counterparts have it.


129 posted on 03/31/2006 6:44:19 AM PST by Melas (What!? Read or learn something? Why would anyone do that, when they can just go on being stupid)
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To: bondjamesbond
"Nothing is quite so disruptive as "extra men"."

Disruptive and dangerous. The current situation in China and some ME countries, where girl babies are murdered, will bring big trouble in the future. Men are going to get women somehow, somewhere. They will be motivated warriors.
130 posted on 03/31/2006 6:44:41 AM PST by pepperdog
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To: Timeout
“...or other factors we haven't yet identified.”

Or, the one they won't talk about...

Marijuana is the perfect chemical warfare for the feminization of males!

131 posted on 03/31/2006 6:45:03 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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To: Timeout

Someone on one board once mentioned too much soy is in everything these days.


132 posted on 03/31/2006 6:45:25 AM PST by HungarianGypsy (I'm writing a post to a message board. I don't care if it's not grammatically perfect.)
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To: Timeout

Timeout,

Very timely. The same exact words I wished to use. I'm so glad you did.

My other thoughts, though, are these,

Men get discouraged very easily, I've noticed. They genuinely have fragile egos. I'm thinking of my husband and his two brothers. They are all wonderful men with a strong father, but the father (in the late 1940's) was out of the house by age 16. He is strongly motivated, and while the boys are doing ok, I notice their attitude is not nearly that of their father's. It's the culture. Whatever I do to build my husband up (and the article this morning prompted me to do so again this morning), there will be a dozen nasty women at his workplace tearing him down and reminding him not to act like a man.


133 posted on 03/31/2006 6:47:08 AM PST by agrarianlady
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To: Dick Vomer
...being bone tired and hot are real motivators to getting a good education.

I didn't get serious about education until I had a really miserable job that did not require one. I was making good money, for a young man, but chucked it all because I did not want to be doing that for the rest of my life, and went back to school. On my own dime, of course.

We used to joke that you could always tell the kids who were paying their own way because they were upset when the Professor was late.

134 posted on 03/31/2006 6:47:36 AM PST by bondjamesbond (Rice '08)
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To: NewJerseyJoe
“...or other factors we haven't yet identified.”

Or, the one they won't talk about...

Marijuana is the perfect chemical warfare for the feminization of males!

135 posted on 03/31/2006 6:48:07 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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To: HungarianGypsy

Yes because the GM soy industry barons have infiltrated every corner of the food production universe, except for organic of course.


136 posted on 03/31/2006 6:48:46 AM PST by cyborg (I just love that man.)
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To: rabidralph

"A few days back, a woman called Rush and told him about the estrogen being injected into cattle to make them beefier is probably playing a part in boys' metrosexuality--combined with daily indoctrination by feminist ideology."

That is not logical if girls are the ones out there in medical, law school, etc. Then the boys should be as well. Or girls should be even more feminine and passive than the "stereotype".


137 posted on 03/31/2006 7:00:27 AM PST by outinyellowdogcountry
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
There was a anti-drug commercial on TV a few years ago, where a couple of cool-looking 20-something guys were hanging out smoking a joint. One say's to the other, "They say that smoking pot makes stuff happen to you, but I've been smoking pot for 15 years, and nothing ever happened to me!". You then year the mother downstairs yelling that he left a mess in the kitchen. The voiceover says, "If you smoke pot, "nothing" will happen to you, too..."

Spot on, IMHO.

138 posted on 03/31/2006 7:02:24 AM PST by bondjamesbond (Rice '08)
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To: ClaireSolt
Raising self-reliant children does not start when they are 18. children should be empowered and required to take care of themselves as much as possible all along. Both of my children learned to do their own laundry when they were about nine and accepted more freedom and responsibility for themselves as they got older.

My daughter is a third generation college grad, and she says she knew that she was expected to go to college when she was in kindergarten.

The current practice of scheduling children and driving them from one organized activity to another is probably not as good as having them go out to play on their own. Schools tend to treat young people as babies right up to graduation. They demand notes from mommy, and this is so out of synch with what I had achieved with my maturing senior that when he was a senior, I gave him a stack of "notes" that corresponded to the number of allowed absenses, so he could judge what he was doing and did not have toi crawl to mommy for permission. In general, I think limiting families to two children has created an enviornment where parents treat their children as if they are precious bone china and must be protected. some are over-protected.

139 posted on 03/31/2006 7:02:34 AM PST by ClaireSolt (.)
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To: Timeout
Let me add one factor that perhaps hasn't been fully discussed here: Kids will live home when they become sick of their parents. In my case I was a sophmore in college and decided that "enough was enough" and I was going to move on campus. It wasn't because my Dad was an abusive figure or especially mean; but he was a PARENT (and thank God he was!) So as I grew older I discovered that I didn't want to be hanging around my parents. I suspect that today's parents want to be their kid's best friend and thus never annoy them sufficiently to have them opt to get the h*** out.
140 posted on 03/31/2006 7:05:20 AM PST by PackerBronco
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