As a guy in his 30s, that doesn’t seem bad at all. I’m making less than that as a tenure-track prof several years out from my PhD. 
My students are undoubtedly much less unruly than theirs, though.
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Have you paid attention to college campuses lately?
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Whereas is in my city, you make $70K after 30 years experience with a PhD - and if you need family health insurance, be prepared to shell out $2000+ a month for a mediocre at best policy.
The problem with state averages is that the salaries can vary widely across the state. We’ve got the NOVA area to balance us out, and we aren’t the lowest in the state either.
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$2000/month for a family sounds low. It would be almost that much for a husband and wife alone. 
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Our state average for STARTING salaries is in the top 20% in the country. But for the average state teacher pay (i.e., for people who decide to continue in the profession), we’re in the bottom 10%. And for professors at our public universities, it’s even worse.
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Usually adding kids isn’t that much more. Taking my kids off but keeping H saved me less than $100/month.
$2000/month is low if your self employed. For employer sponsored health insurance it’s pretty high. Especially for newer teachers with bachelor degrees making $45-50K. That’s half your salary gone before you’re even taxed.
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Yeah, we’re self-employed. It would definitely cost us more if our kids were still on the plan.
Maybe that could be part of why men under 35 are struggling. They get hired as teachers with a decent salary but quickly see a lack of wage growth.
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Suicide rates are now highest for young males, not the middle aged:
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My nephew should be turning 29 today. We lost him when he was 20.
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Gift link to NY Times article that details why boys are struggling:
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Thank you for sharing this!
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Thank you. Very interesting article. I do indeed think our culture is toxic to boys/men though I don’t think the old type of patriarchy is the solution either.
Interestingly many of my S’s closest friends are women. This was not mentioned in the article.
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Exactly. Progressives have plenty of sympathy for the emotional struggles of boys/men except when the solution presented is a variation on the theme of going back to the old ways.
Boys no longer improving their academic performance and now surpassed by girls? Demonizing female teachers as being “too feminizing” and removing girls from classrooms so that boys can be in single sex environments where they can be competitive “like nature intended” is not the answer.
Young men acting immature and aimless? Putting pressure on young women to “civilize” and motivate them is not the answer.
Men lonely? Going back to the old model where a man’s only confidant was his wife (or mistress) and that was seen as normal is not the answer.
Good point. If a guy is a good friend to women, he will have plenty of woman friends and will not be isolated or lonely. The problem is when guys get upset that they can’t have their pick of women for dating and complain about being put in the “friend zone.” Do they want friends or not?
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The traditional patriarchy is definitely not the solution.
I’d have much more sympathy for young men if so many of them could stop blaming women for their problems and expecting women to solve their often self inflicted problems. They often seem to be their own worst enemies.
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Hmmm. Lots of negativity and generalizing about young men in the last two posts.
Not a fan
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I think the issue is that the historic toxic patriarchy that’s been somewhat dismantled is still sending the messages to SOME young men that the issue is they’ve “lost” something, setting up a grievance mindset.
This is not negativity toward young men or any men per se, it is a caution against toxic messaging that is in many ways as harmful to young men as it is to young women.
To some extent, they ARE victims, just not of women or of progress. And plenty of young men do resist this negative unhealthy mindset completely.
I mean, sadly, many white people still have an aggrieved, victim mentality concerning the progress in racial equality we’ve made as a society in the last few decades. But I’m not going to empathize with that misguided feeling of loss either. That isn’t good for anybody. And it’s not good for young men to encourage them to feel victimized either.
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I genuinely would be interested in hearing more about how you perceive what I said. Truthfully, I didn’t mean to be negative, and I didn’t intend to generalize.
I have a 20 year old son who I think is great. He is doing well in school, is engaged in life, has supportive friends both male and female. I think all his friends are terrific. He does have 1 male friend who is struggling with depression, and has asked for and gotten the support he needs. This young man’s parents have always been open to talking about feelings and never pushed a “tough guy” mentality. I think that makes a difference.
There were a few guys from his high school with a real chip on their shoulder. Some who were bullies. Clearly some of them had mental health issues. There was one very sad case where a popular athlete started threatening his mother. Eventually mom called police saying he was in mental health crisis. Police came and shot him dead because he was carrying a BB gun. In retrospect a lot of people said “everyone knew” he had anger issues. A few years before this in our town, a father shot and killed his wife and kids before turning the gun on himself. A few years before that, a middle school boy shot and killed his mother during an argument, and then shot and killed himself. Our community is wealthy and very safe. The only gun deaths we ever have are in the context of suicide or murder-suicide. It’s really sad.
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This was the part that stood out to me as generalizing.
But, I probably misconstrued it. I’m sure you didn’t mean, “all” guys.
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You make a good point; I could have been much more clear with my writing. I think that most guys understand that women don’t owe them a date. Most guys are great friends to both their male and female friends. It is only a small subset who are angry and entitled about dating.
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