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”
@nyred
Chief Giant Brain: The big brain am winning again! I am the greetest! Mwa-ha-ha-ha! Now I am leaving Earth for no raisin!
Name it and I’ll give you a cupcake.
I am 38, married at 23, 4 kids, and I play video games as well as supporting my family through my career. Video games are simply a form of recreation like television, movies, books etc. There is no difference. Any of these can take over your life if you are not careful, it is all about balance.
That said I think there are a number of other reasons why people are not getting married early. One big one is the common nature of pre-marital sexual relations. I am not judging anyone, but a BIG reason people used to get married young was because society frowned on relations outside of marriage. Now there is little pressure in that regard.
Another big reason is that careers are far less secure than they were in the past. 40 years ago you would get hired in a company and work there the rest of your life, with all the security that brings. It was not necessarily efficient for society, but it did mean that people felt secure enough to get married and start a family younger.
I think the last reason this is happening is because of a change in dating behavior. People don’t “date” anymore, they hang out and hook up. Formal dating as it used to be is far more rare.
There are lots of reasons why men aren’t starting a career and settling down with a wife and kids early in life anymore. Blaming it on video games is ridiculous.
There are a lot of men who believe women are equal to men right now, which is not the case, especially when it comes to earnings – men still make more money than women even if they are doing the same work! There are also men who have a problem with women in the work force (OMG! taking jobs that belong to men – give me a break). What this amounts to is a backlash against having to become responsible fathers when women are making money and working. Women often have to take care of the children and cook after work, while the man-child sits in front of the TV playing video games. A man who puts off commitment may be doing his partner a favor. Delaying fatherhood and motherhood until maturity and finances are straight is the best plan. But if fatherhood were to land in a man’s lap unexpectedly, it is time to get off of the couch and start being there for your girlfriend/spouse and child. So grow up already!
I am ganna keep this short,…..because you guys hit some good points. isn’t it someones right to choose when they want to pop out a kid and get married? i just graduated college…a very good one at that and what if I wanted to travel around the world for a few years, that does not make me a productive member of society?..anyway….I think some old boyfriend of the writer must of dumped her for halo or something haha…..this article is so subjective it makes me sick
By the way PARKER – go make that sandwich yourself. I hope your gf leaves you. You are clearly a narcissistic piece of trash.
@Claire, my best friend and his special lady had a baby about 16 months ago. as he put it to me when he found out he was having a baby, “it was as unexpected as bird shit” they are doing a wonderful job raising the little tyke. however, they are separating because it is the female that still wants her freedom to sleep with who she wants and party when she wants. because of this, my friend is having to sacrifice time at his job in order to raise the child. There are exceptions to every rule, so fuck off already.
i agree with the general sentiment already expressed. I’m in my late 30s and don’t spend much time playing videogames, but I would if I had the time. They’re definitely the best form of entertainment available.
As for breeding – why bother? I pretty much expect hyper-intelligent robots to wipe us all out within my lifetime, so I think humans will soon be passe’. Even if I’m wrong, the Catholics and Muslims are doing a fine job poppin’ out puppies anyways, so I think they’ve got it covered. Me, I’m busy.
Her argument could be made for sport too, kids play baseball. she just arbitrarily decided that one activity that people do as children is childlike and another is not. you could equally say that continuing to play sport into adulthood makes you a man child. it’s the same old refusal to acknowledge that games have evolved. would watching a film make you childish? or a sports match. What’s the obsession with outer peoples reproduction the world is overpopulated anyway. personally i want to have kids some day but the fewer of us that don’t the more resources for the rest of us.
Some years down the road this will sound like ‘rock and roll is the devils music’ does to the baby-boomers.
Peace!
A kid can’t climb a tree and break his wrist anymore without triggering a lawsuit and having legislation named after him. Teens are treated like little kids by politicians and parents in a very alarming way. I’m 28 now and am finally an adult, but I see how my little cousins are treated in school now, and it’s terrifying. My 16yo cousin will start crying over anything. If you think this generation is bad, wait 10 years and see what you get. Oh well, I’m sick of this, I’m going to my room.
Please… I get stuck on every wrong “20’s”, “30’s”, and “80’s” in the article –
Write “in their 20s” – just add and s to the end. Plural=s
The ’80s, are just the ’80s. The apostrophe goes where the 19 was dropped, then add an s to the end.
Nothing you are writing is possessive, please stop the typos.
MRK, Michael, and Dave got it right…
Thanks.
How much more culturally illiterate can this woman be?
You say I’m immature and I say you’re needy.
Of course you’re going to label free men as immature, childlike, directionless. You need them to believe in crap like loftier goals, commitment and maturity so they’ll settle down with you and help you raise the kids you’re biologically driven to have.
Just as there was a backlash against women who choose to live their lives outside of gender norms now there’s one against men who choose to defy their gender norm as bread-winners and actually enjoy their lives and income. At the center of this is the idea that there are loftier aspirations to aspire to, that if these men would just drop this juvenile behavior and start acting like adults there would be rich rewards for all the ensuing sacrifice and responsibility.
That just isn’t the case. I’m statistically unlikely to change the world and it already has 6,000,000,000 people so it doesn’t need my offspring. Long term commitments like marriage are actually long term about half the time. I’m not immature Ms. Hymowitz, I’ve just evaluated your loftier goals and found them lacking. Do you still begrudge me my choices when you see the obvious logic behind them?
Home consoles were a new thing to the current generation. Just like our grandparents probably criticized our parents for getting those “dadblaned VCRs,” so, too, our elders complain about video games. And what’s odd is that Ronald Reagan said, about video games, “I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.”
It’s not the games, systems, and such, that are the problems. The problem is that EVERYTHING has become so fast paced that the Pay-Off of a real hard day’s work and the older methods of rearing children have become second banana. Leisure itself is the main thing marketed today. And at least with the advent of the Wii, games are more and more keeping kids from being couch potatoes. Anyone who looks at Wii sports and Wii Fit will likely tell you the same.
Lastly, guys who don’t want to marry and have children would do so with or without video games. Again, it’s the leisure of having everything simplified (I guess in a futile attempt to get back to some garden of Eden, Utopian existence) that’s made people lazy. If you really want this problem solved, shut down more than half of the companies that sell us stuff we don’t need at all. And as time goes on, forms of digital entertainment, becoming more and more real things of art, are not amongst things we don’t really need, but rather things that we want and for all the right reasons, like good cinema. Some of us, anyways.
Maybe she should address the change in modern women, I’ll call them Bitch-Women, that makes them think from the age of 13 that they are God’s gift to all and that it’s OK to be selfish and bitchy and annoying. These Bitch-Women are driving smart, rational, grown men into a reverted state where they used to not care about girls.
I’m a 35 yo gwm. I have a JD and an MBA and I work about 50 hours a week. I read about a novel (usually a trashy one) a week. I spend time with my family and friends a couple of evenings a week, and on the weekends. I participate in politics and progressive causes. I also like to be able to go home and log on to WoW and raid for a few hours a couple of times a week, and some time on the weekend. When I worked in a coffee shop while I was in law school, people called me a “slacker.” Now when I administer the IT infrastructure for a $1 billion company, I’m called a “child-man” because I love to get my game on.
With all due respect, Ms. Hymowitz, bite me.
I’m reminded of the movie Idiocracy, where the intelligent, successful couple continues to delay procreation, citing this logical reason and that logical reason, while the idiot masses pump out idiot children left and right… WE ARE DOOMED!
I think it sounds like more of a Kay Hymowitz problem.
Though, admittedly I have never heard of Kay.
Being a women myself, I must indicate how enraging it is to read articles that make absurd and sexist claims against society. The feminists have made my situation more difficult with their hypocritical claims for equality which are nothing more than self serving. Women in my generation (or at least the ones intelligent enough to possess original thought)are becoming increasingly aware of the pressures placed on men to be contributing members of society while supporting a family. My generation expects both men and women to be successful, yet Hymowitz focuses on the seeming “failure” of a single sex.
Since i’m a 21 year old college student who hasn’t gotten pregnant, i feel pretty successful. This statement should shed light on the shift in my generation’s concepts of success. What would have been, 20 years ago, a joyful proclamation of pregnancy would be a shameful embarrassment today. I’am expected to make something of myself, despite the fact that i’am female, before i bring a child into this world. Since men are biologically capable of procreation well beyond middle age, i don’t see why Hymowitz finds it so imperative that men should settle down before they’re 30.
Hymowitz attacks the young men of my generation for being video game obsessed children who are failing to live up to her subjective and archaic ideals of the role men should fulfill. Personally, i believe Hymowitz should have asked herself why these men were prolonging their so called “adolescence”, and write about that. The guarantee of finding a job immediately after college is no longer present. Finding a wife is the ultimate challenge todays young men face, and i think it should have been the issue Hymowitz focused on.
I attend a reputable university and everyday i end up wondering how some of my female class mates were granted acceptance into an establishment of higher education. If i were Hymowitz, i’d be way more concerned with what modern day society is doing to young girls. Women in my generation seem to think love=being showered with material possessions, and believe the only thing they are required to offer is their physical appearance and sexuality.
Maybe if the women in my generation placed more emphasis on liberating themselves intellectually, they would give their male counter parts some sort of incentive to get married. At the moment men view marriage as an obligation, one that takes away freedom and involves handing over money to an unappreciative bitch who doesn’t feel obligated to contribute herself. Attitudes would change if marriage was truly an equal partnership. Men have lost confidence in the female sex, and i myself have too. There needs to be more incentive for a man to obtain a career and a family then the promise of hard work, bratty kids, and a materialistic wife who’s only positive qualities fade after her first pregnancy.
So, keep playing those video games boys. We all need an escape from the harsh realities of life, and i think it’s a good thing.
Hymowitz
nothing new here. the term ‘hobby’ comes from medieval or earlier english women, who were making fun of their hubbie’s ‘hobby’ of paying more attention to their horses (hobby-horse) than to their spouses. in context, a horse WAS the most efficient long range transportation available in those days, and horses ARE more maintenance intensive than the means that followed. moreover the horse or herd went a long way toward proving the worth of a man. in turn, different male oriented activities have been scorned by wimminfolk (with varying accuracy) ever since,from guns and golf, to hot-rods and stereo equipment.
playing video games has NEVER been a consistent means of acquiring real property or even the bare neccessities of life, so i’m mostly on the same page as the girls on this one.
The article that this blog was based on made me pretty angry and the blog itself missed, in my view, a major factor contributing to the delay in marriage and family or as the author puts it, adulthood. It’s economics. I am a 32 year old man who works full time in a professional tech field and have since I was 22 years of age. The cost of living is so high where I live that I am basically surviving month to month with little money set aside to protect me from financial calamity. I rent, not because I want to, but because it’s the only thing economically available to me.
That being said, I am the picture of what this woman rails against in her article. I am generally adverse to commitment, although I do live with my girlfriend, and I am a habitual game player. Why do I play games so much? Because it’s one of the few affordable entertainment options available to me. Gas prices and airline fares make regular travel out of the question. Even a dinner and a movie for 2 people is going to cost $100. Going to the bar with your sweetheart, 200 bucks easily. So I game, and I game A LOT, not because I am HAPPY like the author surmises but because I don’t have many alternatives. Sure I go on a hike or down to the beach once in awhile, but it’s not like I can do that everyday when I work fulltime.
As far as commitment goes, I look at marriage and relationships in pessimistic economic terms. I am busting my butt just to make ends meet to take care of myself and the idea of being responsible for the economic needs of a wife and children is extremely unattractive. Gone are the days of good paying paternalistic corporations where you work hard and gradually get ahead. The reality for many of us is that the cost of living outpaces wages and layoffs due to downsizing and outsourcing are frequent. It used to be in the 1960’s that you could get a decent paying middle class job with a high school degree, now the same earning power requires a masters degree or more. Of course getting those advanced degrees puts an individual often deep in debt which of course offsets that earning power.
In summation, likening the choices of our parents generation to our current one in terms of maturity without addressing the underlying economic factors is absolutely asinine and yet another indication of how out of touch the baby boomer generation has become.
Gosh! Videogames aren’t the problem! As a man-child myself, I’m 38, my inability to be a productive member of society arose because I didn’t and still don’t believe in society. I believe we’re all living in a computer simulation so aptly articulated in my favorite movie of all time, you know the one. Ergo, I’d rather spend my time dicking around than being “normal”. Careers are inventions to trap the majority into turning the gears of society. Work harder, spend more, work even harder, spend even more, then you die. I for one, am sick of it.
Having said that I’m not into videogames as much as I was before because I can’t find one that’s good: often I go back to playing the oldies, but goodies like Mario Kart.
But I’m still a slacker. I slack better than any gamer I know.
Ashley N. said it!
Hymowitz is a bane to women everywhere. What about Women like me, in their 30’s who are in no rush to get married or have children? Are we not contributing to society as well? What about the women who would rather play Oblivion, GTA, God of War, and BioShock instead of going out to eat with a bunch of women who only wish to gossip and get into an all out argument on who’s daughter is the most popular in high school, while moaning on and on about the latest trend in navy blue nail polish while they complain that their husbands fish too much or want sex every night? GOD FORBID!
What is wrong with a guy who is self-reliant and who would rather play games than go out carousing every night? Who cares if they don’t want to get married yet, who says that they HAVE to? Who says that what they are doing is wrong? Weird, feminist idealistic airheads like this woman give the rest of us a bad name.
Personally, I will take a bottle of jack, a pack of smokes and the latest shoot em up free for all of a game on any given night than go out in public and deal with idiotic, shallow women (or men) any day of the week and I would prefer a male who felt the same damn way.
To all the girls who bitch and complain that their beaus are playing too much and ignoring them, I am sure eHarmony could find them a boring OBGYN to oblige those tickle brains and their high maintenance ways.
It’s a waste of energy to generalize. Her observations are true. Your point of view has some merit also.
Society seems to be changing, as it always has. As an ambitious 21 year old, I like the fact that there are so many lazy gamers. Less competition for wives, jobs, promotions, etc.
There’s nothing wrong with being a “child-man” and if women want men who have grown up then they are out there. But there are many women who “say” they want someone who is not a child-man but in actuality they like the fun and lack of responsibility. What woman would ever admit to liking random hook-ups and no responsibility?
I play games, sometimes for hours on end, I also make more than the average wage. I’d also like to have children, but my wife, she’s not so sure, she regards them as something that will tie her down and stunt her career. What’s a guy to do eh?
” (That’s 13 minutes longer than 12- to 17-year-olds, who evidently have more responsibilities than today’s twentysomethings.) ”
I wouldn’t be surprised. High-achieving high school students tend to work for at least as long as their parents do every day. I know I (a junior in high school) spend six hours at school and always have at least four hours of homework.
@Claire: Is it really wise to start down that road, which seems to aggregate the societal gender problems instead of fixing them?
Maybe I’ve grossly misread the sentiments, but jobs don’t “belong to men” — instead, they are jobs that, in a more sexist era, men could expect to belong solely to men. Women don’t always earn as much as men (sometimes they do, sometimes they earn more, sometimes they earn less), but the fact is that the jobs that society once expected a man to take are now acquirable by either gender. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that; indeed, I fully support it. But that doesn’t change the fact that there is a lower percentage of jobs for men to hold. So while society progresses towards equality (note: progresses; it’s obvious society isn’t equal, but it is more so than it was), it simultaneously denounces that progression and demands the return of gender stratification.
“What this amounts to is a backlash against having to become responsible fathers when women are making money and working. Women often have to take care of the children and cook after work, while the man-child sits in front of the TV playing video games.”
Not…really. At least, not directly due to changes in the workplace. As a general rule, it’s dependent on the couple. Every sociological case-study I’ve read has had a fairly even spread of couples where the woman is the “homemaker,” even if she has the job, or where the man is the “homemaker,” even if he’s in the same position, or *gasp*, where both of them spend a fairly even amount of time in the role. In practice, I’ve seen it about equivalent to the studies.
Just throwing that out there.
Seriously, I had no idea until I read this how many guys believe that they will have to support their wife, and that she’s basically a moneyhole. Maybe this is the feminism at work, but I totally expected I was going to have to either pay half of the bills or do all of the housework/childcare. I am glad to know that no one actually believes this. This is a fantastic scam for women, and in the name of feminism, we should probably let them go on believing it…
God, now I feel guilty. Seriously, guys? Seriously? Do you not watch Judge Judy, because if you’re not watching this and taking notes on how she tells women to handle their finances in a relationship, this shit might really happen to you, and you’ll end up settling for one of the vacuous airheads everyone seems to dislike so much.
Notes:
1) Pre-nup, no matter what. A fair pre-nup, but a pre-nup.
2) Separate checking accounts, plus a joint household account.
3) Have her cancel any credit cards that she can’t pay herself, because she shouldn’t be living in debt, much less expecting you to pay for it.
Simple. Now there’s no fake barrier against getting married. There’s only the real barrier which is: meeting the right person, and being ready.
I totally agree with you MRK and many others above. This article on one hand focuses and blames man as the sole problem. The author has has not realised just how absolutely psychotic, demanding and sometimes just plain retarded (to put it bluntly) many women have become…. many not all. There are still the jewels and diamonds out there and I’m prepared to wait till I find the special woman for life.
But to be fair and speaking as a young doctor watching marriages fall apart in hospital, prolific cheating and just plain selfish, immature acts of self gratification, it does take two to tango. It’s depressing really. I envy my old 70 year old patients who are still married to their loved one all these years and are able to put up with each others shortcomings by their strength, commitment and realism, through disease and past death. This generation is mostly a jaded and faded generation. Sigh… I’m beginning to sound jaded too! Computer games at the very least provides a temporary mental relief from this sometimes surreal society.
Question for Kristen O. If two people get married and both have car payments from vehicles bought before marriage, do you believe it should be a joint effort to pay for these cars, or should each person have to be responsible for their car? Should someone have to ‘pick up the slack?’
This article has a really interesting position coming from a male perspective, especially because I continue to struggle with trying to understand video game use. I definitely have more insight and appreciation now.
But I think that the misunderstanding between generations and social customs needs more critical consideration. While I identify with generation y and agree that our social norms have changed in what we would consider appropriate recreational activities for our time, it is also important to identify what we consider appropriate marital affairs in relation to other generations’ ideals.
We live in an age where co-habitation is becoming more popular and the idea of marriage is more of an option than a primary goal. Where we stand ideologically as a generation on marital affairs, is still unclear as we continue to develop. However liberal our society transgresses toward, we will continue transitioning between ideals.
While I identify with generation y, my ideals on marital status are still consistent with ideals from my father’s generation, and I look forward to marriage and growing old with my husband. Others in my age group question whether marriage is the answer. There are others who identify with a sexual orientation that currently does not allow them to seek “marriage” as an option, and there are so many other cultural complexities that need to be considered.
For these reasons I think that the problem is not that there are generational differences, but that our generation is still in transition and struggling to develop what we desire out of our lives. I feel it is more of an inner generational struggle to find out what we value than anything else.
Men and women are choosing not to follow the social customs of courtship and early marriage, because our generation’s ideals are changing, not only in what we normalize as social recreation but also in our ideals of marital affairs.
I can understand Hymowitz’s frustrations, because while we, as a generation, are struggling to find what we desire or agree on as “normal,” there are others that still seek to fulfill more traditional ideals of marriage and those people struggle to find someone who desires those same things.
So the frustration for me personally comes from inner generational ambiguity. What do men want at this age? What do women want at this age? Where do I fall on this spectrum? How can I find others like me who desire the same things?
It really is just a matter of culture. Me being a 27 year old male I grew up through the emergence and growth of gaming. Some of my fondest memories are from the nes, snes, genesis, n64, playsation and so forth. It’s what we grew up with as our form of entertainment. I still went out and played with my friends yet I still remeber the times playing contra with my buddy trying to beat the end boss. We loved to do it and still love doing it, it’s what we know and what we have come to be good at.
There’s a reason gaming is a billion dollar industry today, all the people who originally played still love playing. It’s no different from seeing a movie or reading a book. The only difference is males tend to enjoy gaming more than females. The lack of males wanting to “become adults” has more to do with traditional defintions of male roles than what men actually do today. We capably provide for ourselves while enjoying past times of our childhood. We are just lucky enough to have those available.
I know of 50yr old men who enjoy gaming that have had kids and have contributed socially and economically over half a century. The problem lies in older generations not wanting to accept change. You can’t expect the values of 50yrs ago to coincide with today’s culture. It won’t happen. You either learn to deal with it and have fun or shut up an die.
Me thinks Claire is the author in disguise. You really need to come down off that high horse.
You sound like one of those entitled nags we all dread getting saddled with.
Having said that, if you agree with the author then by all means get in the kitchen and make a sammich. KNOW YOUR ROLE… since you seem to think you know ours so well.
Fair is fair after all.
Before computer games it was cars
before cars it was horses
before horses it was knives
before knives it was sticks.
Before sticks.. well. I’m sure that women found ways to put down men.
Nothing to see here, move along.
This old chick is out of her tits. She sounds like the Ann Coulter of old people.
A lot of woman and wives are as much addicted to their soap operas as the men are to their games.
There are many factors that she obviously hasn’t taken into consideration. I’m 22 and according to her should be a prime candidate to reproduce. I personally don’t find marriage to be a priority at the moment not because i’m too busy with gaming but because of all the failed marriages I’ve seen through out my life. I’ve hardly encountered couples from my parents generation who can actually consider themselves happily married and their main reason is because they’ve rushed into it . I’ve seen divorces come left and right and I’m not ready to gamble on my child’s life to find out I’ve made the same mistake. My priorty is to 1st get a successful career while enjoying life then settle down when my life is stable.
I am a child-man….and I am proud of it.
In a secular world where we are no longer even sure of the existence of God…everything is up for grabs. Hell! we don’t even have a clear definition of right and wrong anymore?
Words like “commitment” and “maturity” are just used to manipulate us into being more “traditional”….and why is being “traditional” so fantastic?
It certainly didn’t work for the generation before us. They’re a miserable bunch of men. Hen-pecked, emasculated pack-horses. It’s like the original author is telling us to grow up, stop enjoying life and accept you role as a provider. No thanks.
I play games, date, travel the world ….and earn a good living.
I’m enjoying my immaturity.
“Maybe we should marry by the age of fourteen like some other countries.”
@somewhat: If you looked back in history, not more than 500 years ago, it’s quite common for people to marry back then, especially in Eastern country and such.
(DANG!)
At the age of 15 and below, I mean.
Wezz has got it right, marriage isn’t all its cracked up to be and I think the reason things are different for men is that we have choice now with the flood of information (internet) readily available we can see that the archaic pathway’s in life ( high school > college > marriage > kids > mortgage > football on the weekends > mid life crisis > divorce > 45 year old man with a young girlfriend > shallow later life existence pondering where it went wrong > death) is not the only option anymore…
A big problem is women and societies placement of immense importance on marriage and relationships, why cant we take our time, meet someone we actually like and slowly form a solid relationship OR not if you don;t want to.
(rash generalisation coming …) maybe we should be like alot of young “productive” women and spend most our cash on make-up, jewelry, clothing and all that other totally insignificant shiny shit they focus on in life, at least gaming is somewhat mentally challenging, id rather be taking headshots from 100 yards against someone from the other side of the world than buyin’ eye shadow any day of the week…
I reckon Kay needs to ride her horse and cart into the 21st century.
Just my two cents which is all i have left after my last wife!
Oh and one person for your whole life, sort of goes against our natural behaviour and instincts hence the massive divorce rate, but ofcourse marriage is a billion dollar business so we wont focus on reality, seems a few women have a hard time with reality? (disclaimer – again generalising, have some very intelligent and realistic female friends)
Now back to COD4 kaboom…
Hmm an interesting point but I’m not sure if I agree with you.
Jared Lorz
I’m 23, and live with my girlfriend out in a city where we both work and pay all the bills and support each other financially (and otherwise).
I’m just chiming in with a lot of other people here — Marriage and childbirth sound completely awful to me. I genuinely don’t really want either. I hate every wedding I’ve been to.
That said, I read often. I read good stuff too – biology, philosophy, literature; I miss learning so many things so often during college. It’s very important to keep your mind active. I’ve never understood how someone could come along and decide my video game hobby is a waste of time. Video games are great fun. Someone else already pointed this out: How are they any different than movies and tv (as far as their worth is concerned)? People love to imagine that there is some crisis with the current youth; like they’ve somehow fallen from grace, and just aren’t as good as previous generations. It’s a reoccurring theme: in the 50s they had rock and roll music, in the 60s they had drugs. It’s been said that ‘History is the practice of remembering an idyllic time that never really happened.” Trust me, this generation is pretty much the same as the thousands before it; they just have different interests. A new meaningless occupation (TV, music, sports, religion) isn’t going to make a whole generation immature. People aren’t having children? GREAT. There are too many people. If only everyone had this problem. We’d have fewer environmental problems, fewer issues with starvation, etc. The OLPC (inexpensive laptop made for developing nations as part of a government subsidy program) has just been released to impoverished countries in Africa. Perhaps they too, will use the internet and play games, and lose interest in raising families and having children. Scarcity of clean water and food will be less of an issue as population dwindles. Needless to say, the scourge of AIDS will have less impact as young men stay home to play video games, and get their sexual release through the internet.
Obviously I’m joking about that last part. But, I feel it’s fitting. Like so many sitcom authors it’s obvious that Kay just has something against men. It’s pretty fashionable these days. When I see articles like this it makes me want to steer clear away from marriage. I can’t watch a sitcom or comedian without seeing some joke that basically amounts to “in marriage, women either are always right, or think they’re always right, and men are mostly morons” Every commercial, every TV show, every movie has some little hook where a woman bests a man. With movies it’s more subtle, in sitcoms and commercials, men are fat, pathetic idiots that are constantly trying to win back a girl that they lost due to their own stupidity. Here’s the secret guys, she’s not worth it. Sitcom wives treat their husbands like crap. Wives on commercials are always more intelligent than the men they’re with, and they condescend them to no end. This article is part of a larger anti-male movement. I’m not suggesting a big crazy conspiracy; just that it’s fashionable to degrade men these days. Well, keep it up. I’ll play video games, and work and be happy. Get back to me when you can treat me with respect.
They thought the same thing about films and Nickelodeons at the turn of the 20th Century. Parlors of Sin I tell you!!
Frankly I make a good salary in tech (albeit in an expensive city) and I can’t afford to buy a souped up rig much less the time to play games. Seriously! I don’t know how some of you do it. I’m surprised I have the time to catch a few links on digg. Maybe that’s to do with church commitments and other social commitments taking time and money going into savings, ROTH, 401k, bills, rent and skiing… I’d like to get married but haven’t got the wife yet
… and then there is God, and where I, with God, am going to get in this life is a mystery still to me.
The trouble with “child-man” (or any other term used) is that it is too difficult to define. Am I a child-man if I thoroughly enjoy Finding Neverland, Finding Nemo, and Eminem? Oh, when did we stop blaming rap music for the downfall of my generation? Can I only become a real man by reading the newspaper every morning, investing my life savings on the stock market, and building crude bookcases in my garage? If I do all of those things and still play video games an above average time per day, am I again a child-man? I, and I think others, take this very personally because the term has a negative connotation and doesn’t seem to wash off no matter how good contributors we are to society.
Not that it matters, but I am a cancer researcher in my late 20s. My wife does not want to have children in the next few years because it would ruin her progression towards becoming a partner at her law firm. And I’ve logged more hours into Final Fantasy than any of the other 100+ reply posters here. She tolerates my enjoyment of gaming; and I tolerate her enjoyment of decorating the apartment.
We extend our “child-like” attitude because it’s unfashionable to be men. It’s unfashionable for men to be burly, stand their ground, aruge with valid points about how things “should” be without being told how much of pigs we are. The amount of male bashing that happens is ridiculous. So when you have a generation of men that are nurtured to feel that women should run thing, you all of a sudden men that allow “mommy” to handle things. Thus us acting like children. Women have raised a .5 generation of sissies. I’m lucky enough to have a girl friend that “gets it”, who knows her place in the relationship – and by that she knows that she doesn’t need to be my mother. HA HA HA!! Video games by the way have nothing to do with it, video games barely exsisted a generation ago.
We have Video Games, you have Soaps. We have Porn, you have chick flicks. We men have long excepted our roles as men – not too sure about it now but I know I do – and women (most) have lost sight of the true values of feminism are grasping at straws of what their roles are in the world. We know what your roles are, you just refuse to accept it. Now look what this hole says, we are now no longer men if we do not reach a “social status” that isn’t acceptable to them. Good luck trying to communicate it the other way around without being called a macho pig. Wanna know why we play video games? Because you can just be so f-ing annoying that rather than punch you in the face we would rather frag someone in Halo 3. Go away and come back when you get a clue. Go ask any woman why they would vote for hilary and you’ll see some of the dumbest misguided answers ever..
Is that fossil for real?
She really doesn’t know what its like to grow up in the Nintendo/Sega generation..
Our values are culture, freedom of speech, self development.
Video games are way more then a digital toy. They demand skills far beyond her capacities. Try playing deathmatches on Unreal and you will see what mental agility and super reflexes mean.
Some people are so good at it, its mental. Out of this world.
F3ck traditional values, f3ck marriage and job commitment. WE own the world now, we want to live life in a light, happy way. And we want to work less and play more. Because life should be a pleasant journey.
Old people tend to be square, short sighted and inflexible.
Go wipe the dust out of your smelly furniture, and worry about how your wrinkles are making you ugly and decayed.
I’d rather have a young mind and pass as a child man, then become old and shallow like Kay’s generation.
F3cking creationist like preacher.
Don’t pass judgement on the generation that will own the world.
Honestly; being a gamer since a young age has created a amazing drive for me to learn and create, at 12 I learned to program because I wanted to make video games as a career. I’m currently 22 and can program like a champ and have more than enough computer knowledge to fill volumes and volumes; and I am still not finished with College. All of this thanks to video games and the passion it sparked as a child growing up to want to create video games.
True story: I had a high school sweetheart as you would put it and rushing to marry almost happened…We didn’t. We had a child at 19 and didn’t know what exactly to do. I was able to support us for the time being because of a job I got as doing IT support. Today we can’t stand to see each other and the whole relationship is a mess. Today I take care of my 3 year old daughter even thought I’m a hardcore gamer; so much for rushing to get marry at a young age. Relationships are like trial and error with a lot of trial and bunch of errors; but hopefully one day you find someone, very slim chance of happening on the first tried, like getting an epic loot of a low level mob on the first kill.
If you are going to blame someone/something blame society as a whole. I think its difficult for people to live in a dynamic society especially one like ours; often the pressure to comply and adapt is so overwhelming we don’t even realize it.
Kay Hymowitz is a fucking dumb as the articles she writes. Grats!
Kay’s bias wrongly paints men as the losers and women as the gender that has perfectly adapted and as victims. Please. Many men would gladly commit to women that aren’t so jaded already…jaded by society and media. Sure there are some commitment phobes..but on both sides. I’ve seen plenty of women so in love with themselves and their careers and jaded that they need serious counseling before even entering into a relationship.
Sorry Kay, we men are the wise ones here…holding out for a girl not filled with mysogynistic traits like you.
As a woman married to a child-man I found parts of this article true in SOME cases. Video games definitely don’t make a child-man (or woman), but can be a symptom of one. It’s true that a man or woman spending 3 hours in front of the t.v. is the same as one spending 3 in front of the game console, if he/she never speaks to anyone and is completely self-absorbed when watching t.v. Either way, three hours of doing either activity is lazy in my view. I personally don’t know a lot of people (besides my husband) with three hours a day to sit on their a$$. It’s part of the reason so many peopole are so fat nowadays.
My hubby spends most of his day gaming, is unemployed and can’t lift a finger around the house or spend time with our son. I’m the sole provider, working full time, doing all of the bills and paperwork as well as all of the housework and child rearing. So I take exception to the immature chauvenist men who keep commenting on money-grubbing self-obsessed women in my generation. I’m 26, and I’ve been working my butt off in the workforce since I was 15. It’s been my experience among my peers that more and more women are bringing home the bacon and cooking it up while so many young men enjoy the free ride, often without taking on other responsibilities like housework. I know this is NOT the case everywhere, but it is an unhealthy, unjust trend.