Editorial: Beware the Child-Man?
By Shawn on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 10:21 AM PST In Editorials, Features
Recently NPR (National Public Radio) featured a segment during its Talk of the Nation program with Kay Hymowitz, a writer and lecturer regarding her recent Op Ed piece from City Journal that was cut down and run in a recent Dallas Morning News Sunday Editorial space. Hymowitz espoused her view that something had changed in our society with young men. Something had allowed them to become less driven to fulfill the traditionally defined role of a male adult – namely marriage and procreation – instead she claimed young men in the 20s and 30s were delaying true adulthood and commitment favoring instead the proliferation of media like Maxim magazine, 24 hour cartoon channels and video games.
Hymowitz dubbed this new generation of young men with the derogatory title “Child-men”, saying that because of their attraction to these entertainment forms and their seeming lack of strong commitment skills that we had a maturity gap emerging within society. Young men were no longer rushing to the altar or marrying childhood sweethearts and she seems to place the cause of this on games for one. These “Child-men” came to light because she had spoken with a number of young women and these ladies had decried the lack of good candidates for marriage on the traditional timescale.
Now I won’t refute that there has been a change in our society. I won’t argue that people (male and female) seem to be entering into traditional adulthood later with the average of married men aged 30 dropping 27% in the last 30 years, but I think she is examining the results not the causes and placing blame in the wrong place.
Do young men spend 2-3 hours an evening playing video games? Statistically yes, the rise in game play has said as much. Are they doing this in addition to the other “traditional” activities like watching sports or network television? The numbers say they are not. So instead of being the great catalyst of the man-slacker as she infers, I think we’re seeing a transition in the leisure activities and their content.
Hymmowitz writes:
Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood’s milestones—high school degree, financial independence, marriage, and children. These days, he lingers—happily—in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. Decades in unfolding, this limbo may not seem like news to many, but in fact it is to the early twenty-first century what adolescence was to the early twentieth: a momentous sociological development of profound economic and cultural import.
Why is it bad to entertain aspects of childhood in adults? Must becoming an adult be all about responsibility and social pressure and nothing of fun? It seems to me she is judging the behaviors of a generation beyond her with the standards that no longer apply or are in flux. She says to put down the toys and accept your role but why is there no discussion of accepting your role and enjoying the toys along with that? She seems to indicate that these are unrelated possibilities.. that to be a full member of the community you must marry and have children because men do not engage in or become useful to society otherwise.. which seems a narrow view to me and one I see broken in my friends and acquaintances all the time.
I can speak from personal experience here about the changes in society toward marriage and adulthood. I was married at 18, I had my first child by 21. I was a social pariah for many years and both my wife and I suffered social backlash because we had taken a more traditional route to adulthood. Many of our friends waited until their 30s to even begin dating and having children. Sometimes merely because they felt societal pressure to be successful instead of happy. They placed the drive to be professionals and career focused on the top of the pile before becoming family oriented. In fact it often feels like in this day and age there is a stigma against those who marry young. The change in society is often attributed to the ’80s generation and their career obsession. This has become accepted to a large extent – especially when you consider that those same career obsessed yuppies waited until their mid-30s and beyond to procreate and “embrace adulthood” by Hymowitz’s definition.
Single Young Males, or SYMs, by contrast, often seem to hang out in a playground of drinking, hooking up, playing Halo 3, and, in many cases, underachieving. With them, adulthood looks as though it’s receding.
We see her proclaim that young men needed to put down the controller and grow up. Why is the controller the catalyst here? Isn’t it a good thing that men in society are stepping back from the burden of responsibility that drove many of our forefathers to an early grave and enjoying the fruits of our labor while we labor? Doesn’t this lead to happier men with longer lives because they are not resentful and angry at the responsibilities thrust upon them artificially by a society driving them to reproduce and become cogs in the social wheel?
Why is her ire so squarely focused on men and not women as well? Are these trends any different from the activities of young women who are often unwilling to surrender personal freedoms to be “shackled” by motherhood? The Sex and the City generation who see marriage as an anchor and drag on their personal lives, who embrace disposable relationships and are obsessed with designer clothing?
I think she is only looking at half the equation and drawing erroneous conclusions. She mentions that underachieving is a mark of these “Child-men” but I wonder if she’s using the same scale of achievement as the people she’s analyzing. Maybe we’re seeing a backlash in this generation after living with parents who were so focused on money and personal accomplishment that children were often a check in the box rather than the center of the family’s focus.
Hymowitz also equates the stunted Child-man growth with the emergence and popularity of Maxim and social comedies featuring immature male characters in the vein of The Forty-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, but it is her focus on video games that of course is relevant to this editorial.
Nothing attests more to the SYM’s growing economic and cultural might than video games do. Once upon a time, video games were for little boys and girls—well, mostly little boys—who loved their Nintendos so much, the lament went, that they no longer played ball outside. Those boys have grown up to become child-man gamers, turning a niche industry into a $12 billion powerhouse. Men between the ages of 18 and 34 are now the biggest gamers; according to Nielsen Media, almost half—48.2 percent—of American males in that age bracket had used a console during the last quarter of 2006, and did so, on average, two hours and 43 minutes per day. (That’s 13 minutes longer than 12- to 17-year-olds, who evidently have more responsibilities than today’s twentysomethings.) Gaming—online games, as well as news and information about games—often registers as the top category in monthly surveys of Internet usage.
Unfortunately it is with statements like this that Hymowitz shows her cultural bias. She is of a generation before the proliferation and acceptance of gaming as an adult recreation. She admits that in her world view games are a child’s play activity. But the same considerations be said of the Television and its impact on children who grew up during the “Wonder Days” generations of the 50s and 60s.
We see entertainment forms change between generations and society adapts. Today most people would laugh if you tried to claim that it was silly for an adult to stop listening to the news on the radio and move over to the television set. We are simply seeing the transition of recreation and the acceptance of video games as a medium for recreation for all ages – just as we accept that fact when we examine television viewing.
Ironically, Hymowitz concludes her editorial with something that bothers me more than it likely should. She claims that Child-men are unable to form long term commitments… but isn’t that a long standing cultural stereotype? The man afraid to commit? How is it related to this latest social crisis? Responsibility is not generally something that comes without pressure and expectations. Then she wraps it all up in broad generalities that honestly apply to both men and women in modern society:
The SYM doesn’t read much, remember, and he certainly doesn’t read anything prescribing personal transformation. The child-man may be into self-mockery; self-reflection is something else entirely.
That’s too bad. Men are “more unfinished as people,” Kunkel has neatly observed. Young men especially need a culture that can help them define worthy aspirations. Adults don’t emerge. They’re made.
Unfortunately, there is some truth in this – literature is not the common entertainment form of this generation – video games, television and the Internet are. However, I don’t think the lack of “Less than Zero” being a cultural icon of the generation’s culture reflects a lack of self-reflection.
Men and women in the 20s and 30s all face the same harsh realization and reflection regarding their role in society, their personal goals, hopes and dreams – they just are not happening on the old timescale. We are healthy and prosperous as a society. Men and women are living much longer than even two generations ago because of healthcare advances and societal changes, isn’t it natural that these stages of growth would expand?
I don’t think any generation can sit in judgment on the former or the later with a fair eye. Our society is evolving exponentially as we deal with technological changes at an accelerating rate and it is pressures like that which force us to adapt on a scale unseen at any other point in human history.
Is there really a “Child-man” problem or is this more broad than Hymowitz suggests?
sources: NPR: “Young Men Stuck in Adolescent-Adult Limbo?” ,City Journal: “Child-Man in the Promised Land”
As a 30 year-old male and member of Generation X, I’d have to say that video games have nothing to do with our apparent lack of early success. As a generation, I truly believe that when we turned 18, there simply weren’t the options of old.
Back in the old days, to be a success, you would go to college when you were 18, get a good job when you were 22 and things would roll from there. I know college grads now who work as clerks at 7-11.
The real problems lie with the fact that we were basically handed a society that had already used up most of it’s resources through greedy actions. For the most part, young men today don’t even know what their roles in society should be.
Economics has a lot to do with the current issues with young men not “achieving”. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but women in the workplace is a big factor. There are more women working these days, which means that there are less jobs available for men. I completely support the idea of equality, but there’s a cost to equality.
Unfortunately, her views on the topic are very narrow. There are hundreds of factors that are causing this.
I’m also not sure how she considers a “high-school degree” as a milestone. lol
I recently spoke with Bruce Shankle (Previous Red Storm Developer and now Senior Software Development Engineer on the DirectX team at Microsoft) at a game convention and we just chit chatted on the subject of college and entering the work force.
He basically gave me this scenario. Going to college is not a guarantee to big money and success. Having a college degree just tells an employer that if they give you instructions on how to do something, that you can comply and complete the task. He said that it’s people who know what they want and are unique in doing something. Most people that make these huge sums of money were likely college dropouts.
If you are good at something and you put your passion to the grinding stone and don’t let anyone stand in your way then your possibilities are endless.
I am 23, I work as a graphic designer and I live comfortably in my home. I have nice stuff and a lovely wife. I like to play video games yes, but it does not consume the entirety of my life. Even before I left my parents home when I was 20 I still played a lot of video games. But I did also go to college for a 2 year degree so it would be easier to get my first real job.
I think it all comes down to responsibility and how you manage your life. So to close my long winded rant… lol. I would completely say that it’s ok to be a “child-man” if that’s what society wants to call us. But just don’t let the child take over completely
@Jose: I like how you say it’s ok to be a “child-man”. I was thinking more on this and perhaps we just like to stay young and have fun, which may not have been acceptable in the past. I do think the younger people in this country are more open-minded than in the past and we tend to be more accepting of what people do. I never care what other people do when they enjoy it as long as they aren’t hurting me.
@William – I completely agree. You could write a book or two about why our society has changed, but this woman has chosen to ignore most of these factors or even that societal expectations have changed at all. I would say her position is very antiquated.
Young men and women are competing for the small handful of decent jobs available. It also usually takes more than one income to comfortably raise a family.
Divorce rates show the wisdom of waiting to marry and have children. Those who marry young have a very high divorce rate, while the statistics are much lower for those who wait until at least 28 to make the commitment. There are always exceptions, but the average here shows that it’s better for young people to put off marriage.
Sex and the City should have a subtitle called “Even when it is obviously my fault it is my man’s fault”. How about we call this what it, blatant sexism. If as a woman you defend this paper (the child-man paper) you don’t have a leg to stand on.
Like the reviewer, I do agree changes have been made in society, but the writer fails to acknowledge that men are less interested in marriage a for a number of reasons, including the fact that if it does not work out, divorce laws are unjustly skewed towards women (a result, I assume of when divorces started to sky rocket in the 70’s and a lot of women didn’t have a means to provide for themselves, which is not the case anymore). As well, what about the tons of couples who live together but don’t get married and finally don’t forget that just as many women are not very interested in marriage.
Another point is, who is the author to tell me or other men what our role is? Is this not what women have railed against for years? When you are so full of BS its hard to bother with a response, but I thought I had to say something.
Maybe we should marry by the age of fourteen like some other countries. Then she could call me a child-man. I’m just a man that enjoys life. Sorry that seems to have her unmarried, but I married anyways, when we were both ready, and divorce doesn’t seem to be in our future because of it.
I’m 30, after 8 years being together, I married my high-school sweetheart when I was 25. I’m still happily married with two beautiful kids. Oh yeah and I happen to be quite into video games. I also graduated from a four year college in 2000 with a degree in Management Information Systems and I am currently the Senior Systems Consultant for an IT company in the Atlanta area. WTF is up with this Child-man thing again?
Kay, you are an idiot.
gross assumption on my part? hrm. just like your entire article, based entirely on gross assumptions and stereotypes. good job
I agree with William, and ManofTeal makes a good point.
On another note: TV Land called me, they we’re asking for Hymowitz.
I told them they had the wrong number.
My point is that it is a new age…..Um, I wonder if that has to do with something….
I am def. a man-child and proud of it. I graduated from a top tier college. I make a very nice salary. I live w/ my girlfriend and play video games for about 3-4 hours a night. If I bust my a$$ all day at work, I can do whatever the F&* I want to at night. If she thinks we should be taking on more traditional roles, then she should shut-up and make me a sandwich woman. Seen not heard.
When growing up, I’ve seen various advertisements that said “Stay in school” combined with many other sources that said that school was the key to success. This was not correct for the following:
- School is fixed rate because it needs to cater to various people based on the same age group. If I wanted to learn more advanced math, I had to do it as an extracurricular activity – cutting into the amount of time doing homework or leisure (depending on which path I take.) A direct result of this is that I generally was already familiar enough with the subject at hand that I never needed to study.
- Likewise, if you are behind in a topic (e.g. art), the school isn’t able to boost your performance. The result of this is that you put less effort into that topic since you know you aren’t going to get anything worthwhile.
- If you have something like a more permanent writer’s block, there’s nothing you can do. There were plenty of poetry-writing assignments in English class, and aside from claiming that prose met the requirements, I never received any information on how to work around these problems.
When it comes to the work place, I have one question – where do I find an entry-level programming position? Many of the positions on the market insist on having five years of experience in whatever field, usually with some software package that individuals aren’t likely to install on their computer unless they expect to be working with that product.
I am 31yo male, and my parents are still married… pretty rare among people my age. Perhaps the reason we aren’t in such a hurry to “settle down” and get married is because we’ve seen so many marriages fall apart, and many of us are in fact the children of broken homes, and we’re not really in a hurry to put ourselves through that same heartache.
By the same token, we are basically the first generation that is absolutely going to have less in material wealth than our parents. It is inescapable, given the global economic and environmental pressures on us now. So most of us simply don’t care. We’re learning to do more with less, enjoy ourselves and not put ourselves in the grave by overworking.
What right does she have to complain, anyway? Is she looking for some man to marry her daughter off to who will bring home the bacon every night? Ridiculous.
It seems many people here can’t read, or just read the headline.
She writes about young, single men who don’t want to grow up, whose lives revolve around video games.
This obviously does not apply to me, a married video game playing 29 year old with a second kid on the way.
The “Child-man” report is nothing more than conjecture. I’m sure there are people that fall into the category of being a “Child-man” as Hymowitz describes, but all of my friends that play video games are a happy lot.
I agree with many of the comments here and with the editorial piece here. I think Hymowitz needs to take a step back and examine her thoughts more closely. Many of the people I graduated high school with got married and had kids by the ages of 19. Many of them are divorced now and have never been to college. I don’t see anyone from my graduating class anymore. I moved away as soon as I could. I’ve been in and out of college(taken jobs here and there just to see whats out there). Now, at 33 I’m back in school and finishing my degree, not married(never have been, no kids(not sure if I want them yet), and happy.
Note, Hymowitz, I’m Happy
! See the smiley face? I think it is silly to expect someone to marry and have kids just because that’s what was expected of people in the past. I’ll be damned if I’m going to do something just because everyone else does. That just doesn’t make sense.
Personal Attack: Hymowitz….are you jealous that you aren’t having fun?
“Young men were no longer rushing to the alter or marrying childhood sweethearts and she seems to place the cause of this on games for one.”
Well, it could be that…or maybe it’s the fact that garbage like Sex and the City has turned at least 75% of girls in our age bracket into semi-psychotic materialistic airheads with a single thought process (”affection = handbags/jewelry”) that make relatively normal guys like myself shudder at the thought of settling down with one. No thanks, I’ll keep playing Mass Effect and dating around until I find one that doesn’t make me want to gnaw on broken glass.
@Sigma 7
The sad fact is, if you want an entry level programming job, you must get an internship while in college. If you do not get one, odds are you will be working as a manager at kinkos. These days there is no difference between a recent college grad and the guy from India. Just take solace in the fact that engineering interns are paid a living wage. In another 10 years, they will be unpaid (or not enough to live on), much like other professions.
The older generation always views the younger generation as lazy. For a good laugh, dig out old newspapers from the 1930s at your local library. The editorial sections complain how jazz music and dime store novels are ruining America’s youth.
Hymowitz makes an interesting point, but as you stated in the article, fails to point the ‘finger’ at the true cause. There are many different factors that contribute to the postponement of ‘adulthood’ and the slowing of the transition.
A major contributing factor might be the prosperity that older generations have given us. With so much wealth being passed around, many people simply have the time to relax longer. By no means is there an epidemic of slacking off, but men and women are realizing what true happiness means. Whether or not their happiness includes children and corporate ’success’ is relative.
Technology has also streamlined the corporate process. Communication is infinitely faster than two decades ago, which leads to increased productivity. Mechanical automation has replaced slow, error-prone, manual labor with efficient, robotic systems. Why should a modern worker toil for an equivalent amount of time as a worker from 20 years ago, if the same amount of work can be completed in half the time?
As for having children, many people realize the responsibility that is required to raise them. It is more important that a parent is capable and prepared to raise their child than it is for that same person to ‘fulfill their roll’ before they are ready. Pressuring a young person to have children before they’re ready does nothing to help society and can have a devastating impact on the child.
One might look back on Kay Hymowitz’s generation and ask the question, what influence did rushing into marriage have on the current 50% divorce rates? If they had waited longer to get married, would their relationships have lasted?
I think the younger generation is looking at Hymowitz’s generation and taking note of what worked(made people happy) and what didn’t(made people miserable). Maybe the subsequent generations reflect on those past, and improve on the human experience.
Wow, you little child-men are proving her right.
WAHHHH…I wont have as much as my parents because of Global Warming, racism, homophobia, George Bush…
It is obvious most of you were emasculated by the feminist movement and pampered by hippie 60’s generation parents.
You whiners have a lot of nerve crying about how “bad” you have it when the hardest descision most of you have to make is do I super size or not.
As far as the female side of things I am writing a book on the insecure female phenomena where men are expected to totally capitulate to whims and desires of any wife/girlfriend. Just notice the number of posters on here that have apparently married the first woman who let them get to second base.
Like some of the previous posters mentioned College merely offers a benchmark of knowledge and does not predict success. There is no substitution for experience. Many hiring managers, if faced to choose between a fresh college graduate with a four year degree in the IT field and someone with 4 years of hard experience, they’d more often than not choose the person with the experience. Just because you can study the books and ace the tests doesn’t mean you can do the actual work.
I realized this right out of High School and choose to enlist in my local Air Force Reserve unit. 4 years and several deployments later I may not have a college degree yet but I’ve got solid years of proven success working in a high-stress environment. At the average IT/Telecom company a ‘high stress situation’ would be fixing the server or the company looses several customers and a lot of profit. For me, a ‘high-stress situation’ means theres a group of stranded Rangers depending on you to fix that fried Satellite dish. Bearing profit loss on your shoulders pales in comparison to lost lives.
Do I plan on getting a 4-year degree? Of course. But I wanted the experience to get me in the door first. Proven experience speaks louder than paper degrees.
And, yes at age 23 I still play video games
Her editorial is filled with inconsistent logic, un-cited “facts” and a fixation with “milestones of achievement” that were appropriate 50 years ago when a decent trade skill could land a person a wage that a whole family could live on.
However the thing that got me the most is that she describes the man-child as living “happily”. If there is this giant group of people that is happily living and not endangering anyone, why would you want them to stop? Why is this woman set on ruining someone else’s happiness?
You know who else did stuff like that? They gave out mandatory pieces of flair.
This is a classic Baby-Boomer response to video games. “Oh the kids these days!”. I wonder if she remembers when her parent’s generation decried the imminent collapse of society being brought on by Rock-N-Roll.
Just for the record, I’m a woman.
I don’t see any issues with men playing video games. I think it’s perfectly fine to have a healthy balance of work and fun in your life. Just because a man chooses to play his favorite game every now and then also does not constitute irresponsibility. There are equally irresponsible men who do other things.
I think that games are just an outlet, something for the media and general population to blame for problems that have existed long before the rise of modern video games.
I say, play on, my friends.
A man who assumes all responsibility with no fun, in the end, is a bitter man.
Also, pass the controller sometimes, it’s about time the girl gamers get some light.
I don’t see the difference between what our fathers did – Spend 3 hours watching a Football game, versus we gamers who spend 3 hours with Madden Football. Different, yes. But as far as time spent relaxing, no difference at all.
Also, 30+ years ago, women in the workplace was a fairly new concept. Now women are as prevalent in the workplace as men. Women used to clean the house, care for the kids, and make dinner. Now, they don’t. As such, we men don’t do what we used to either.
Kay needs to read the book Rejuvenile.
http://www.amazon.com/Rejuvenile-Kickball-Cartoons-Cupcakes-Reinvention/dp/1400080894/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201726631&sr=8-1
That book basically goes more in-depth than she did, with more insight, empathy, research and understanding. And came to the conclusion that the (adult) kids are alright.
The corporteers who manufacture and market the games stole an important part of the child-mens’ hearts when they were young boys. The theft was so subtle that few of us noticed it happening. The theft was so complete that even the child-men now believe in what is left of their own hearts that they play games of their own free will and that they are satisfied doing it. As the young boys grew older, the corporateers made games to match adult interests with control, power, sex, violence, and even meeting the need for adult relationships by building in real-time interaction with other gamers. So, instead of joining the real adult world the child-men are content to buy and play in the market media construct so cleverly devised by the corporateers. It’s an interesting strategy on the part of the corporateers. The child-mens’ absorption in the games keeps the child-men from participating in real-life activities like politics that could limit the corporateers activities and profits; or raising a family and having direct human relationships that can help with the real work of this world. Instead they are satisfied giving away their lives and futures, which the corporateers will take.
Excellent discussion, one where I believe much of the issues stem back to the educational world. Being a recent college grad, it was not too hard to notice that men spent most of their free time playing games, while women always seemed to be busy with something productive. Of course, many colleges have seen proud men’s sports teams be destroyed by Title IX. My college had “Women’s Meet and Eats” and Female only luncheons for the science departments. Basically, there was a support structure in place to help them find themselves and figure out what they want in college. This is a fantastic idea; only problem was there were not always male equivalents.
The message, it seemed, for men was simply “get out there and earn your degree”. College students still need some direction in their lives, and with no one to watch them or prod them, these young men continue to the “boys will be boys” mantra. There is nothing wrong with playing games during college- I know I did- but I don’t know if so many people I know would have dropped out over a WOW addiction or something similar if someone close by at the college gave a shit about them.
It is a tricky debate among many, unfortunately, but right now women are succeeding and surpassing men in the High school and collegiate levels, yet it still seems like the majority of focus is placed on them. Men have been damaged goods in education for a while now, and it is sad to see.
A lot of men are now independent – they learned how to cook, clean, take care of themselves. “You” as a woman have to bring a lot to the table these days to get me to abandon my daily habits and get into the whirlpool or modern day marriage. Thank you, but no thanks. I will rather wait until I am 34-36, ready for commitment and have lesser portion of my life left to spend with a nagging, money-eating wife.
It sounds to me like the author of this article is just bitter that men finally emancipated themselves, learned tricks of the trade and learned to live by themselves.
Kay Hymowitz’s ramblings are exactly why sociology is a soft science. Perhaps she should lay off the man-hating editorials and examine how the evolution of roles for both sexes have changed over the last 30 years. It’s not as if these things happen in a vacuum. As a 31 year old Gen X’er who loves video games and autonomy I am glad I didn’t get married at age 21. I’m positive that many of my female counterparts feel the same way. I wonder if Ms. Hymowitz tells her own kids to get hitched strait out of high school instead of getting an education and building a career. I would bet that the advice she gives her own progeny is less reflective of her editorials than it is the reality of our non-static society.
Also, I love reading.
Waited until later to settle down.. then spent
most of my 30’s with my wife enjoying each
other and our time together without kids.
Now have a couple of boys and am getting to
experience all this stuff with them. There are
so many things for us to explore together, it
keeps you young! Heck, even getting a bit into
video games now. Plus, being more financially
secure means I can buy lots more Legos!
Tired of all those whiny women who want it both
ways.
I was the balding nerdy dude in college, who couldn’t
get a piece of a** to save his life. Thanks to
MJ and a host of other’s bald is cool, and smart
geeks are in. Frankly? women wouldn’t give me the
time of day until my late 20’s early 30’s.
(it wasnt for lack of trying either!)
My only wish now was that I took the advice
of the grandfather in the movie Little Miss
Sunshine while I was younger!
A good friend of mine put it to me this way
Women in their 20’s dont know what they want..
they hit that time and go a bit whacko (early
mid life crises?) Had it happen to me, I’m sure
most of the other guys here have had the same.
What absolute sexist garbage. You can take your marriage and breeding and cram it.
There are many who choose not to support an obsolete oppressive societal institution and produce ungrateful, annoying parasites on society just because it’s the accepted thing to do.
Here is a woman sorely in need of Dick. “I’m not a crook! But I’m still hung”
Let’s take Kay’s article and use some logical word substitutions…
“You’ve finished trade school and work at a desk in a large Chicago textiles firm. You live at the Y. In your spare time, you play stickball with your buddies, go out and take in a show, listen to some of that newfangled radio, take a bath, massage in some pome-ade – and then it’s off to a speakeasy, where you meet, and often bed, girls of widely varied hues and sizes. Wife? Kids? House? Are you kidding?”
Yup. Obviously Xbox 360 is the fall of mankind. Or you could look at it that things have changed. I married at 27 and had my first kid at 33. Yes, I play video games. Oh, and the average age? Yeah, that hasn’t gone up at all – so I’ll die in my late 50s. Right?
Is rushing to have children such a great thing? Overpopulation is major threat in our not too distant future. Lengthening the reproductive cycle of humans is important. I prefer guys playing video games and having fun over money grubbing war mongers consuming precious resources and relying on Jesus to figure the rest out.
@Ned – You know I completely agree that this woman has a biased, uneducated view of the “modern” man, but I have to contrast and say that there are some women out there who would rather play a game -with- you, rather than the sheepish foolery most “nip n tuck” prim princess of today (who WOULD nag you and steal your money)
Men have emancipated themselves, and even as a woman, I think that’s -great-! It should serve to stand that I can support myself without the need to steal any man’s money, just as you should not be forced to settle down with someone who nags you and makes you unhappy. Still, not all women want to take you for granted. I know I’d rather play Halo or Fear or Team Fortress with my best guy friends than go to a spa any day! I think you do make a point though, I hate the way everyone, (men, women, gamers) are stereotyped.
This woman is sexist, plain and simple. “Men are more unfinished as people”? Are you seious?! If a man said that about women in an atricle he’s get his ass fired.
I think with all her ripping on this generation, she should look to where she acquired her statistics, I really doubt she went to the library or to the hall of records to find that info. She probably used a little thing I like to call the ‘internets’. Also, I’m 25, love my PS3 and read every single day on the train.
I think it’s getting easier and easier to get published these days. What a quack. Shame on NPR for running with this nonsense.
Oddly enough, the article cites the movies “Knocked Up” and “40-Year-Old Virgin”, two movie which both stress the idea that men need to grow up and get on with their lives.
I postponed marriage until 30, am in my mid- to late- thirties now, and make a decent living in tech. My wife is not working so she can raise our kids through Kindergarten.
Frankly, as a result of having a family, I no longer have a budget for the things I enjoy. I wouldn’t change my decision to have a family if I could, but society does not support families with single earners.
As they say Kay, correlation does not imply causation. Single men who sense the trap of parenthood are finding fun things to do (video games, movies, bars, sex, supporting Ron Paul, etc.). I say more power to them until we create a society that *really* respects and supports families.
“We are healthy and prosperous as a society. ”
We are not, the fact is the demographic night-mare is coming upon Canada and japan because not enough children will be born to support old age pensions. It’s a complex problem to be sure, but every person that opts out of marriage or having children is contributing to the downfall of their own country and it’s values.
I had this realization realizing that islamics and religious people in general were outbreeding others by a large margin, the world will be worse off if sane people don’t have children.
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
If women didn’t have 100% of the financial leverage in marriage/divorce, men might happily rush right into it like they used to. As for me, I’ll happily build equity while I’m still single so that I’m up a creek without a paddle if I get divorced in the future.
Also, as people live longer and longer, should “age 30″ still be the yardstick for complete adulthood? What about the fact that more people go to college and get advanced degrees? What about the fact that it takes longer for most people to be able to afford to buy a house? I’m not saying “40 is the new 30″ but wouldn’t this “study” look a lot different if the benchmark were even 35?
By the way, I’m 25, I love sports and almost never play video games. Go figure!
edit: so that I’m NOT up a creek without a paddle.
Sorry!
I’m 37 and have played video games since I was 13 or younger. They got me interested in computers and I was programming by the age of 15. I’ve been employed at the same company for 18 years and went to night school for 9 years to get my BS in engineering. So much for her theory about video games and immature men.
As for marriage, I agree with several other posters that the idea of a divorce scares off most men, especially older ones who have worked hard (like me) to get to where they are financially. With the way the laws are written, all it takes is a failed marriage to destroy that instantly. Half of what I’ve earned in my life is NOT yours!
Bare with my rant here, I’ll circle the wagons: Failed experiments in foreign military adventurism which have stretched America’s armed forces to the breaking point, alienated our friends, empowered our enemies, and left us less, not more, secure against attack or invasion.
In the name of what?
Being able to buy soy milk at 4am from Wal Mart on any given Sunday?
I can only hope that this is merely one example of our current cultural operating system destroying itself. This, “the man is supposed to do this and that or he is not a man business” has sent more people (men, women and children) to an early grave than cigarettes.
Our little cultural operating system allows for a voracious use of resources so that a relatively small group of people sit pretty (play games, get fat, etc) while the rest of our blue ball eats shit. That is a problem… but it’s not of the common man’s design. As the operating system eats itself, things will hopefully begin to change and perhaps the so-called man-child’s gaming will play a relevant role too. After all, all of our problems these days (besides global warming) are mental.. human decisions we have to make as a people to make life better for those that have nothing.
I agree with the general sentiment of the comments here. I am 28, married, and I have degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. I start my PhD in the fall. My wife is a student and has a full-time career. We are both gamers, and we game together. My professors are gamers, my colleagues are gamers, most of the people in my industry and discipline are gamers. I’d say my wife and I average about an hour a night. However, we don’t watch more than a half hour of television a night and we are both heavy readers. However, if you took the author’s word for it, families like mine either do not exist or are somehow less valuable or functional when compared to some ill-defined ideal. But the authors claims are unsourced, speculative, anecdotal and unverifiable. I fail to see that my choice of entertainment defines me as an immature boy-man, when I have achieved as many or more “real adult” milestones as the 28-year-olds of her pet generations. The fact of the matter is that during the 50’s and 60’s, when many of our parents were plunked down in front of Captain Kangaroo, the same was said of them. Only then, the villain was television. Before that, radio, jazz, the Charleston, etc.
The author is simply measuring compliance with a set of social norms or scripts and wailing in alarm when they are violated, without exploring the sources of those change pressures or the broader implications. It is a sermon to the converted. There is nothing inherently better about the lives of men of former generations, but there were socially crippling stigmas about being single into your thirties for any reason other than military service. How is making a such a choice preferable or any more mature if you do it under pressure of being an outcast? How are games leading the charge into immaturity, where television and other forms of media aren’t? Here’s an experiment. Compare a news broadcast from the Cronkite or Murrow era to any random hour from one of the 24-hour news networks. Better yet, compare a game from 1988 to one from 2008. Is spending 9-12 hours watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy really any different from playing Assassin’s Creed for the 12 hours it takes to complete? If not, then why is one the pinnacle of high-brow entertainment and the other a sign of immaturity and poor lifestyle choices?
Why are people so stupid? As a young person in the workplace, I see negative stereotypes directed towards young people, and especially young men.
Im exactly what they expect of me. A Digg reader, internet user, and video game player. I spend hours a night playing videogames. That is after I come home from work, for which I recieve a salary, pay into a 401(k), wear collard shirts and sit in an office. I have been doing this for over 2 years since graduating college (in 4 years). I have not only received good reviews and over $10k in pay increases, I have never had a bad review!
I have a girlfriend, numerous friends who do and dont play videogames with me, manage to read (literature, not Danielle Steele) a book every month or so (9 last year).
As far as I can see it, I spend just as much time playing videogames each night as does any american in front of their TV. Are video games, especially online multiplayer interactive games, where human voice is transmitted over the internet, creating a verbal social network, any worse than the hours and hours of fat people getting skinny, high school kids having sex, and rampant drug use?
Just try to look around before making asinine statements.
Dude, it’s spelled “altar.”
Not only are these child men stuck in adolescence, they can’t spell either.
Kay Hymowit is obviously missing one HUGE point. I know of very few women under 25 that wants to get married right away, let alone have kids. Of the women that did get married to their HS sweetheart , they’re now divorced and view the whole endeavor as a mistake.
Virtually everyone I know wants to have a sound financial footing before starting a family. Furthermore, so many men and women today have seen their parents go through divorces and don’t want to experience that themselves nor put their kids through that. They’re more careful about entering into marriage if they ever get married. It’s not the requirement it used to be.
IF anything I think men and women are more responsible today by not rushing in to marriage and family. By taking things slower, establishing careers, figuring out what they want, they improve their chances of success.