I’ve got two sons and I don’t think they feel left behind or marginalized by society in the way that is described in this article. They both lean progressive and not conservative. Growing up they were both successful academically and were conventional learners so we didn’t have some of the struggles that boys can have in our education system, which is not always set up in a way that makes it easy for boys to be successful. As a parent I always tried to limit the devices and encourage reading and outdoor activities instead. While I don’t think you can blame technology for all the challenges faced by young people, I do think they are an overall negative in terms of self-esteem and socializing (this is also true for girls). I think the biggest challenge for them will be carving out meaningful careers in a rapidly changing world.
Can you elaborate on what types of structure and expectations boys aren’t getting now but that they used to?
I totally agree with this.
I’m not sure, but I suspect there may be addictive traits that are activated by gaming (which are designed to keep people wanting to continue/return to the game). Just as there are some people can have a drink or two and have no problem stopping while others can’t stop after their first drink, I suspect the same type of situation is likely for people with video games. I think that many people have been much more proactive about talking to kids about addiction to alcohol or drugs, but that video game addiction hasn’t really been thought about nearly as much over the years.
In doing a quick internet search, this peer-reviewed Prevalence of the Addictions: A Problem of the Majority or the Minority popped up, and below is its abstract. Whether the 47% that the authors asserted is correct, it seems that a plethora of studies are showing 15-61% with an addiction prevalence, that is still a sizable number of young adults who may be dealing with a video game addiction.
An increasing number of research studies over the last three decades suggest that a wide range of substance and process addictions may serve similar functions. The current article considers 11 such potential addictions (tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, eating, gambling, Internet, love, sex, exercise, work, and shopping), their prevalence, and co-occurrence, based on a systematic review of the literature. Data from 83 studies (each study n = at least 500 subjects) were presented and supplemented with small-scale data. Depending on which assumptions are made, overall 12-month prevalence of an addiction among U.S. adults varies from 15% to 61%. The authors assert that it is most plausible that 47% of the U.S. adult population suffers from maladaptive signs of an addictive disorder over a 12-month period and that it may be useful to think of addictions as due to problems of lifestyle as well as to person-level factors.
Essentially, I think we have a generation of people with an addiction. Perhaps that means we need to look at addiction recovery protocols to help find some solutions to this part of the problem.
You may be right here, I think you could throw in social media for girls as well. Perhaps we should start by not handing these things to our small children.
I will try. I don’t want to delve too far into politics, but I think the role of fathers is important, I think having a society that supports blue collar careers instead of “everyone should go to college” would be good. I think that having parents that focus more on leading their boys towards adulthood instead of allowing them unfettered access to video games and the internet. (That goes for girls too btw)
And I think an education system that embraces both boys and girls’ is helpful. I’ve told the story many times here about my son getting kicked off his lego robotics team because the school decided it should be only girls, I don’t think that’s a great message for a middle school boy. I think you can encourage both girls and boys without hurting one.
I grew up with 2 brothers (one was a year ahead of me in school and one 2 years ahead - Baby Boom LOL). H grew up with two sisters. In both families both the male and female children were expected to do their best in school and also hold jobs, play sports, or other positive activities (reading, volunteering, etc).
But I noticed whan I was raising my kids (D and S), I constantly heard parents talking about how their D’s were achieving - but making excuses for their S’s. Yes, I am aware that boys mature later (my parents mentioned it) but it was not used as an excuse. I also knew a number of parents who were very vested in their S’s athletic abilities, not so much academic. Both of my brothers and my H were varsity athletes/team captains, but in both households that was no excuse for slacking. No expectations of college scholarships, pro careers, etc. Seemed as if that was the norm back then.
One of my kids (S) attended a competitive magnet HS. There were slightly more boys there than girls and high achievement regardless of gender. A lot of the kids were from cultures which expected both girls and boys to excel. Sports were fine as EC’s and a way to have fun but not looked at for scholarships/pro careers.
My kids were both handling chronic health issues and did a lot of learning on their own, often in bed. They both ended up at same competitive U and were with other males & females that they are still close to. My folks expected all of us, males and females to do our best, graduate HS & college and find careers. We all did our best to do so. most of us also got professional degrees that my folks supported. The one person among my sibs who didn’t get a profession degree is my sister. She has a job and a spouse and a son and they are all pretty content.
Women seem far less interested in getting married than in my generation. One 28-year-old female friend of mine says getting married is not a, “goal,” of hers. She seems perfectly happy to work, travel, and do things with friends and family with no interest in dating at all. I don’t think this is unusual. Getting married was absolutely something I wanted to do. I am not sure young women see the need now.
My ds is successful in any objective metric other than in his search to find a meaningful relationship (which he very much wants). I don’t get much info from him, but one of his buddies shares about his own dating life. He, too, wants to find someone. It’s just not happening for either one of them. It makes me very sad.
I also see young women in my D’s friend group not thinking about marriage but, almost all of them are in long term relationships.
I know several young women and about half of them really want to get married. in large part because they want to have kids. Two of my good friends have D’s in their 30’s who have gone through breakups lately b/c the young men did not want to commit. These were relationships that had gone on for awhile.
OTOH the young women I know who really aren’t interested in having kids don’t seem to be interested in marriage.
We have many friends with kids in their 30s. Our S and one other have married. Some are in serious relationships. Some have had serious relationships that broke off. One has a S that has been engaged for maybe a decade? He and fiancé have bought real estate together, live together and generally seem pretty satisfied with their situation. His sister got engaged much later but already had her wedding and has been married for several years. She has also bought real estate with her partner.
D has attended four weddings among her friend group and another one is scheduled for 3/2025. She still has a significant number of single friends, male and female. Some are in relationships and others aren’t. She stays in touch with them via zoom calls, phone, text, and in-person visits from time to time. All seem fairly content with their lives. Only one of her friend group has a child and that toddler has multiple special needs and is worrying her friend and the dad a great deal.
S has several friends with kids and DIL has expressed to me an interest in a large family. She’s in her mid to late 30s but no sign of any kids yet. S and DIL seem happy. We shall see. They have friends and relatives that are single and others that are married, some have kids and many don’t.
While I know that boys mature more slowly than girls, it seems like a lot of men never fully catch up. While some of this may truly be developmental, I think some parents use this as an excuse to expect less from their sons. I believe there is some learned helplessness going on. One of the big red flags my D had about her HS boyfriend was that his mom “waited on him hand and foot” and he didn’t have any chores. Sure enough, his mom later told me that he and his housemates paid their college female friends to clean and do their laundry (when they weren’t demanding of it new fraternity pledges). She shared this in a boys-will-be-boys tone, not with the alarm that I’d like to think I would have had if my son told me he was paying his female friends to do what he should be doing himself.
I think it goes without saying that I’m glad he and my D didn’t last.
If a young woman is working and trying to build a career, she doesn’t need an albatross, she needs a partner. I think a lot of women are doing the cost-benefit analysis and concluding that an immature man is a net-negative and she’d rather be single. I can’t blame her.
Interesting. I wonder if this is regional or something. It isn’t the case with the teens and young adults I know around here (Upper Midwest.) Even a generation ago, when I was dating, we always took turns treating the other person. I would be seriously weirded out if some guy insisted on paying for my drink; I would not continue to date an overbearing guy like that.
My S learned how to wash his own laundry in grade school. He even learned how to pre-spot stains (red dirt is the devil to get out) to prevent them from becoming permanent. He was doing it before he was 11. He would lapse when he got busy or too exhausted and “let” me do it if he put the clothing in the bathroom hamper, but otherwise preferred his way of doing it. He has always been the neatest room in the house and his college places and since have always been immaculate.
He learns everything very quickly and mostly effortlessly (or it seems to anyone watching). His big struggle was figuring out how long to balance the full-time job that he kept for the benefits and to keep mom & dad happy vs just work for himself, which has been his passion since college. Once he figured that out, life has been very happy for him. He remains friends with several of his former co-workers, who attended his wedding.
I think generally, the “safety nets” that used to exist in prior generations of close knit communities and churches that supported families and communities have eroded and that has made things much more challenging for anyone who is not able to follow a traditional path. There have always been people who don’t follow a straight line to get through their education and to a career. IF they have a strong safety net (family, church, community, whatever), they will be fine and have the extra time to work things out. If they don’t, things can get pretty rough rather quickly.
My D wasn’t comfortable dating in the south when she lived there (in college & for a year after), saying that the young men were just different from guys in the Midwest. She wasn’t saying that there is something wrong with southern guys, just that there are regional differences. She was a lot more comfortable dating once she moved to Chicago. She liked sharing costs, feeling that it kept the relationship more equitable from the start. My S, also a midwesterner, shares costs when dating. I guess it’s the norm here.
Definitely the norm for my D and her bf, and the couples in their friend group to share costs evenly.
This is interesting. I went to college in the south in the 90s and always shared costs. I guess it’s possible times have changed or maybe it’s who I was dating.
I have no idea of how S and DIL deal with costs and incomes. I do know they’re comfortable with us treating them when we are in town but they offer as well. I know DIL asked S a lot of Qs before they net for 1st date after meeting online. She also made sure to only have dates where she knew a lot of the employees until she was pretty sure he was a good person. I suspect she knows of people who dated others who carry a lot of debt and/or don’t have a decent job, etc and wasn’t interested in that scene.
I was a Texan who married a “Yankee” (really a mid-westerner from Wisconsin, but anyone from a Union state is considered a Yankee). The colors for our wedding invitation were blue and gray. 
I have quite a few women friends who let their “boys” in their 20s and 30s live at home. “I’m afraid he’ll end up the street if he doesn’t live here!” was literally what one mother told me (no, the “kid” didn’t have any disabilities). Most of them charge no rent.
One set of parents is financing their son’s fancies as he lives in many different cities - LA (twice), Miami (twice), and Bogota, Colombia. He started an online master’s degree program while in Bogota but quit after a couple of months. Now he wants to come back to Maine and study architecture! I know the mom well enough that I asked who was going to pay for it. She said, “He will pay for the degree, but we’ll pay for his housing and food.” As a structural engineer, I know what a tough field architecture is, so I suggested he shadow an architect and make sure that’s what he wants to do. I just don’t get it. These aren’t wealthy people.
I recall having a conversation with my son when he was in late elementary school. He said he wanted to drop out of school and I asked him why. He said it was because school started too early and that there was too much work. I told him that if he dropped out he would still have to get up early because he would have to go out and work. He looked at me, astonished, and I said that going to school was his current job, but that once he got out of school, he was expected to work and support himself. There were no more mentions of dropping out.
If our son comes back to live at home after school, there might be a certain grace period while he looks for a job. But then, whether it’s the kind of job he wants or not, he will need to get a job and pay “rent.” Now, we would likely secretly save his rent to help him with a down payment or other expenses in establishing a household, but I can’t imagine having a kid who was able to work at home just lazing about and doing virtually nothing to contribute to the household on a daily basis (as is the case of a family we know).
I guess that’s my question as to what is going on with the young adults who are living at home without a job or attending school. Are they basically regressing and just hanging out while their families take care of everything? Or are they contributing to the household by cleaning, cooking, taking care of the yard, etc. The former I think is unhealthy for kids, while the latter shows people that they’re needed and need to contribute.
If they are working and/or contributing to the household, I feel rent is moot if it isn’t a hardship for the home owners. If they aren’t contributing, working or going to school, they need a plan to do so and/or counseling to get them moving if they are “stuck.”