This was an interesting article by Kay Hymowitz, called "The child-man" (containing some PG-13 content) that I read in Sunday's paper:
For whatever reason, adolescence appears to be the young man's default state, proving what anthropologists have discovered in cultures everywhere: It is marriage and children that turn boys into men. Now that the SYM can put off family into the hazily distant future, he can – and will – try to stay a child-man. Not only is no one asking that today's twenty- or thirtysomething become a responsible husband and father – that is, grow up – but a freewheeling marketplace gives him everything he needs to settle down in pig's heaven indefinitely.
and
Adults don't emerge. They're made.
1 comment:
I've been tracking response to Hymowitz's commentary, and so I came across your blog.
I'm a married father who spent all of my 20s as a bachelor, and carefully thought through whether or not I wanted to marry and have children.
That being said...
The child-man is largely a reaction. It is impossible to change "the rules" and environment around men and still expect all men to stay "old-school". Feminism gave women more choices. Great. But that also changed things for men, too. The sexual revolution also changed things. Men can now get sexual gratification from many different women with little effort and without having a relationship. Why? Because there are women who shamelessly do these things. And men aren't being told by anyone - not by the law, not by the media, not by academia, and sadly, in so many cases not by their clergy that fornication is wrong. Instead, they buy into the lie that as long as they don't get an STD or get a woman who won't have an abortion pregnant, then everything is okay.
More men these days have been raised in a home without a father who is happily married to their mother. Men have also lost most "male-only" institutions. Masculinity has been mocked in the media, and attacked in academia. And thus, they do not have a model of a happy, lasting marriage and are not socialized to be marriage and family-minded AND masculine in the traditional sense.
These men see their fathers, uncles, brothers, co-workers, and friends who are either miserably married or have been emotionally and financially devestated by divorce and the loss of access to their children.
Looks like you are on the right track for raising a real man. A boy is more likely to grow into a real man if he has a good church to be a part of; has a strong, masculine, loving father who is respected by his wife and is happily married; and has a mother who shows him that there are marriage-and-family minded women in the world who aren't letting the "nice guys" pay for the dinner and concert tickets and then hopping into bed with a bad-boy.
I will teach any daughter of mine to avoid the bad boys, and I will teach any son of mine to avoid the bad girls, and I will teach them all to choose their spouse wisely, and treat them kindly.
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