30-year-olds: 'drop the pad and grow up'

January 30th, 2008, 15:55 Posted By: Shrygue

via Computer and Video Games


Men in their mid 20s and 30s need to put down the Xbox controller and grow up, says writer Kay Hymowitz in an opinion piece published in the Dallas Morning News.

Thanks to the emergence of pop culture such as television and gaming today's mid-20-something male "lingers happily, in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance," argues the article.

In fact compared to the last generation of young men today's 20 to 30-year-old blokes can't be considered adults, she says. "Adolescence appears to be the young man's default state," a phase which the writer with the funny name has chosen to call "child-man", encouraged, she says, by gaming.

As a 21st Century, 26-year-old bloke, reads the article, "you live in an apartment with a few single guy friends. In your spare time, you play basketball with your buddies, download the latest indie songs from iTunes, have some fun with the Xbox 360, take a leisurely shower, massage some product into your hair and face - and then it's off to bars and parties, where you meet, and often bed, girls of widely varied hues and sizes." So far, so good then.

Does this typical modern young man have a wife, kids or house though, she asks: "Are you kidding?"

Back in the 60s, says the opinion piece, the average man in his 20s had achieved most of life's milestones such as a good job, marriage, a house and even a few kids in the bank.

These days, argues the Dallas Morning News piece, the vast majority of 25 year old men have neither a house, wife nor children, says Hymowitz, which is definitely nothing to do with the invention of either the pill or Ayia Napa.

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