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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: ClaireSolt
No, it was to set the record straight.

If you had said you could remember a time when middle class mothers routinely did not work out side the home, before the birth control pill and when marriage was promoted as a good thing that you should aspire to then you would have been correct and I would have simply agreed and moved on because it would have been true.

As it was your statement was the sort of exaggerated hyperbole that a historical revisionist engage in and I don't care for it from either side.

181 posted on 04/01/2006 6:15:21 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Romantics and pessimists are two sides of the same coin. Both will happily lead you over the cliff)
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To: ClaireSolt

And I wonder what kind of control freak wants to deny my first person account of my own memory by citing meaningless historical generalities historical generalities? You don't really have any idea who I am or what I remember, but first person accounts are the primary sources of history.


182 posted on 04/01/2006 6:17:35 AM PST by ClaireSolt (.)
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To: bella1

I agree it probably has as much or more to do with rapidly aging 'boomer' parents whose biggest fear is growing old. They try to keep their children locked in an infantile dependency mode that somehow makes them feel like they're still in the Spring of their lives. This phenomenon has manifested itself in my wife's mid-40-year-old sister who's been after my wife and I to have more babies because it will somehow slow the advance of time. To be able to say she has an infant niece or nephew will turn back the clock, I guess.


183 posted on 04/01/2006 6:28:27 AM PST by wally-balls
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bump


184 posted on 04/01/2006 6:54:22 AM PST by Drew68
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
In other companies the situation has been reversed but, in the under thirty crowd, marriage is not very useful as a indicator of reliability. Maybe it was different before.

I made the assumption that all else was equal. A family would be the scale tipper. In the case you mentioned it does not sound like the married guy is anything like the single man and the choice was a no brainer.

185 posted on 04/01/2006 7:30:45 AM PST by magslinger (Pray for your enemies, It's like taking a B52 to a gun fight.)
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To: Melas; webstersII

I never overestimated how easy white collar folks have it. I fully understand that when one is starting out, one must work hard and to make a name for himself. Hard work is what makes America great, and I've worked several jobs at the same time when I had to. I just never understood why anyone would work himself to death for "more stuff". Time with family and friends cannot have a price tag attached, and nobody's tombstone mentions what a tireless and valuable employee they were. Making a career the number one focus in life is what brings broken homes, alcoholism, child delinquency, stress-related diseases, depression, exhaustion, and a multitude of other problems.


186 posted on 04/01/2006 1:13:15 PM PST by EricT. (CA conservatives only serve to inflate the number of electoral votes won by the Dems.)
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To: rarestia
And on the issue at hand: boys are not growing up to be men anymore. Why should they? Women are all independent and want to be the breadwinners... why shouldn't the man stay at home, take care of the kids and play video games? I'm a traditionalist when it comes to men. I want to be the breadwinner. Problem is that women are stubborn and don't like that I push back. I've railed on plenty of male vs. female issues as of late. I don't need to get into it here.

You've really hit on something here. I'm a couple of months away from finishing my first year of medical school and it is really interesting to observe the choices of the 20something ladies in my class when it comes to dating/marriage.

You can count the number of people in the class who are dating each other on one hand. However, it is not as if these women are bypassing future doctors to date intelligent or successful from other fields. I'd say about half of their spouses/boyfriends have a four year college degree in a nontechnical field and push pencils in lower management. I'm guessing the other half haven't even finished college and work on road crews, do landscaping, work at rental car counters, etc.
187 posted on 04/01/2006 1:45:00 PM PST by Old_Mil (http://www.constitutionparty.org - Forging a Rebirth of Freedom.)
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To: Old_Mil
You can count the number of people in the class who are dating each other on one hand. However, it is not as if these women are bypassing future doctors to date intelligent or successful from other fields. I'd say about half of their spouses/boyfriends have a four year college degree in a nontechnical field and push pencils in lower management. I'm guessing the other half haven't even finished college and work on road crews, do landscaping, work at rental car counters, etc.

Out of curiosity, do you find this problematic? That is to ask if you find this improper in some way or another. Other than personal edification, the biggest mistake that I myself ever made was higher education. I'm just not cut out for medicine or to be a desk jockey.

Luckily, my wife was cut out for medicine, and after 26 years in her field, commands a very attractive salary. I stayed home with my kids for over 13 years, and now I'm doing work that I truly love: I build bicycles. It's my chance to be an advocate for the sport that I've always loved. I couldn't be luckier.

188 posted on 04/02/2006 9:05:41 AM PDT 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: Herodian

In some regions young people don't move out because they can't afford. The cost of housing is prohibitive.


189 posted on 04/02/2006 9:17:14 AM PDT by Natural Law
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To: Natural Law

http://www.joemanthey.com/
On this web site you will find the answers to many of the questions being asked in the Post. The other disturbing question not raised is why are Conservatives so slow to respond the the attacks on Boys in our Schools. It is a fact that 85% of the Ritalin in the world is consumed in the US.

That we are drugging 3.3 million US Males under age 19 is a disaster. Why is this not an issue? Our culture has undergone a profound Anti-Male bias. Men are ridiculed, impugned, hated, demonized in our Network TV shows. Half of our Boys grow up in Single Mother homes with no idea of what a Father is. HALF.

Add to that the neurological differences in the Male brain. The changes in an education system openly hostile towards males, and designed for Females. Now add the American Association of University Women (Rabid Feminists & Lesbians), the Wellsley Women's Center, promoting the Gender Equity Movement. Their answer remake boys into Little Girls, change the Boys not the School.

Conservative Women why are you silent? Why are you allowing your Sons, Nephews, & Grandsons to be drugged into Zombies. Australia issued a warning last week about Ritalin. Deaths in boys as young as 5 from Heart Attacks & Strokes!!!

My challenge to those who claim to embrace Conservatism is simple. The Liberals and their New World Order Social Engineers have wrecked Family Life in the US. Half our Children go to be without their Father in their homes. The Black Family is an oxymoron. The Gender Equity Movement is trying to emasculate and chemically castrate young Males. Why are you silent???? Men are not being heard by our Law Makers. It is the Women's vote that they are after.

When will Conservative Women step forward and do something about the Feminists, the Divorce Culture in America, the outrageous Family Courts system, and Feminization of US Churches??


190 posted on 04/02/2006 9:59:17 AM PDT by Khankrumthebulgar
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To: Melas
Out of curiosity, do you find this problematic? That is to ask if you find this improper in some way or another.

If it has worked for you, good. However, I'd say that most men do not have (and studies have backed this up) the psychological makeup to be happy/good househusbands. What these women seem to be looking for is just that, which is a curious reversal of the way things are supposed to be for most of us.
191 posted on 04/02/2006 10:10:54 AM PDT by Old_Mil (http://www.constitutionparty.org - Forging a Rebirth of Freedom.)
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To: Old_Mil

Which studies and conducted by whom?


192 posted on 04/02/2006 3:01:54 PM PDT 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: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

My kids are 16 and 11. A girl and a boy. They both know that when they graduate from college they are expected to live their own lives. Do they find it scary? Sure. But you know what? So did I when I was 21 and just out of college. They'll survive -- and they'll be better off for it.


193 posted on 04/02/2006 3:13:33 PM PDT by ContraryMary (New Jersey -- Superfund cleanup capital of the U.S.A.)
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To: Khankrumthebulgar

The problem is that many so called conservative women are ready to betray the cause for a feminist advantage.

The oppose feminism but not too much.

It makes you wonder why they call themselves conservatives in the first place.


194 posted on 04/02/2006 3:18:09 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE!)
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To: ContraryMary

Right on.


195 posted on 04/02/2006 6:48:00 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity ("Sharpei diem - Seize the wrinkled dog.")
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