<p>Does this article really describe a significant percentage of young men? I know a lot of them who are well-launched, and I don’t see marrying later as a drawback. I’m skeptical whenever a well-orchestrated book campaign sounds the alarm about a new social problem.</p>
<p>Where have all the “good men gone”?</p>
<p>Check Sweden.</p>
<p>Mini, I think you are talking about Berns, not Burns, a neurophysicist at Emory. He was mentioned recently in this NYT article. </p>
<p>I later read this New Yorker article (much more interesting) about groups, which is also what the NYT article is about.</p>
<p><a href=“Opinion | The Rise of the New Groupthink - The New York Times”>Opinion | The Rise of the New Groupthink - The New York Times;
<p>[Brainstorming</a> Doesnt Really Work : The New Yorker](<a href=“Groupthink | The New Yorker”>Groupthink | The New Yorker)</p>
<p>Berns also has a book. I’ve read his theory as stated by Mini elsewhere recently, but can’t remember where. It is the most current writing on the mature brain at 25 and risk taking behavior (that I have read). </p>
<p>The New Yorker article is really interesting.</p>
<p>this is similar to what they calll “laddism” in England.</p>
<p>I don’t think the issue is marrying later or working on a career and then settling down. I don’t think that’s the issue of concern.</p>
<p>I think the issue is that some (many??) aren’t working towards success and are too immature to ever settle down.</p>
<p>Zoosermom wrote,
</p>
<p>Indeed!</p>
<p>The book sounds dreadful.</p>
<p>^ kate, I agree the book sounds awful. Trashing young men and blaming the young women. Not for me.</p>
<p>I would say the problem is that it is so easy nowadays for young guys today to hook up with attractive women. They figure, why get married, when they can have so much fun playing the field.</p>
<p>This can be frustrating to girls who are looking to get married. I recently read an article in The New York Times about dating at the University of North Carolina, where there is an “over-supply” of women. The article talked about how a guy would invite a girl out for a slice of pizza as his first date, and then, after they had the pizza, the guy would basically say “well I bought you the obligatory pizza, are you ready to have sex with me now?” Not exactly the romance some girls are looking for.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I think that when a young guy today does decide to marry a girl, that it is a much more informed decision than back in the 1940’s, where you might marry a girl just because you wanted to have sex with her. Today, if a young guy marries a girl after playing the field, it is more likely that the girl is truly something special to him. Or that he is at least entering into marriage at a time when he is truly ready.</p>
<p>“I would say the problem is that it is so easy nowadays for young guys today to hook up with attractive women”</p>
<p>That is a joke. The girls of today are much more sexually aggressive than the boys. Any mother of boys will know this.</p>
<p>I would say the problem is that it is so easy nowadays for young guys today to hook up with attractive women. They figure, why get married, when they can have so much fun playing the field.</p>
<p>========</p>
<p>Actually, Rutgers U’s “The Marriage Project” came to that conclusion. They interviewed many, many, many men (don’t remember the number) and the clear message was that they felt no need to settle down while they could “sample” all the women out there. They clearly viewed the situation as being a kid in a candy store and they worried that if they committed to one gal, that they’d become upset when they saw other sexy women around that they couldn’t sleep with.</p>
<p>When asked, these guys stated that they didn’t give a rat’s patootie that the women in their age group had biological clocks and needed to marry by the time they were in their 30s so they could have babies. These guys said that they didn’t care because they (the men) didn’t have bio-clocks…and that it was the “women’s problem, not theirs.” Ugh.</p>
<p>[What’s</a> Wrong With The Work Of The National Marriage Project?](<a href=“http://www.unmarried.org/10-problems.html]What’s”>http://www.unmarried.org/10-problems.html)</p>
<p>The Rutger’s Marriage Project had a pro-marriage agenda.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>While I agree that I found this somewhat true when the kids were in high school, by college, the situation was the reverse. Not sure why that would be.</p>
<p>It’s always hard to generalize, however. Right now I have a 27 year old single daughter who doesn’t want to “date” guys that she couldn’t get serious about. She mostly goes out with groups of friends. My 23 year old son, on the other hand, has been with his high school sweetheart all through college and two years after. No interest in “sampling” the women out there, apparently.</p>
<p>Not long ago, most girls didn’t go on to college and if they did they went to “business school”. If you were 20 and were not married or close to getting married, as a female, something was wrong with you. It was also common not to live much past 70.</p>
<p>Today, that same thing is said, but not until you are 30-35 and people are living well into their 90’s.</p>
<p>I still think there are lots of good men out there. Atleast I have hope for my three dds.</p>
<p>I aslo know for a fact not all guys are looking to hook-up at college. Some still respect themselves.</p>
<p>Looking around at the kids in high school with our younger kids, there are plenty of great guys (and gals) out there. I’m not worried.</p>
<p>I also believe there are a lot of good men out there. I just worry about what the difficulty in finding employment will do to so many.</p>
<p>parent1986 post:</p>
<h2>What’s Wrong With The Work Of The National Marriage Project?</h2>
<p>The Rutger’s Marriage Project had a pro-marriage agenda.</p>
<p>=========</p>
<p>Yes, it may have. But that doesn’t change the answers that the interviewed men gave nor does it change their opinions. One aspect of the research was why men weren’t marrying their long-time live-in girlfriends when the women really wanted to marry (for children and/or other reasons…heck, some even had given birth and the men still wouldn’t marry them). The common denominator was that these men wanted to keep their options open and not be tied down sexually to any one woman…since there virtually is a smorgasbord of sexually-willing women out there for the taking (their attitude, not mine).</p>
<p>I don’t think the issue is really whether there are any good men out there…surely there are millions…we all know some personally and many post here on CC. I think the problem may be that there is a growing number (maybe still far less than 25%) of men who are immature, self-centered, angry, abusive, jerky, unstable, nacissistic, lazy, etc, etc. </p>
<p>One has to realize, that even if the number of “not good men” has grown to - say - 10%…that’s going to have a serious impact on women, children, jobs, family stability, crime rates, etc.</p>
<p>Gee, I thought I’d raised one. A good man, I mean.</p>
<p>He’s 25, he has a master’s degree, and he has a full-time job with a decent salary and good benefits. What more is he supposed to have at his age?</p>
<p>My 22-year-old daughter’s male friends from college are good men, too. Less than a year after graduation, all are either earning a living or going to graduate school – just like their female counterparts.</p>
<p>Maybe there is a problem, but I don’t see it among the well-educated young people I know.</p>
<p>Good men and marriageable men are very different to many women.</p>
<p>There have always been men, and women, who are “of men who are immature, self-centered, angry, abusive, jerky, unstable, nacissistic, lazy, etc, etc.”</p>
<p>I really think this is just the standard “the next generation is not nearly as good/hard-working/moral, etc. as my generation” arguement that has been being made since the beginning of, well, generations!</p>
<p>There have always been men, and women, who are “of men who are immature, self-centered, angry, abusive, jerky, unstable, nacissistic, lazy, etc, etc.”</p>
<p>==========</p>
<p>Of course…but either the number is growing, or people are becoming less tolerant of such behavior. </p>
<p>That said, the breakdown of the family - which has increased substantially in the last 50 years - does lend itself to creating more and more of these kinds of people. You can’t have the experts saying things like “children raised without a dad are more likely to…” without also accepting that increasing these situations will result in more “messed up” people.</p>