An interesting post because this issue became a hot topic in my extended family just a few years ago.
A good friend came out for a visit with her boyfriend, a 50 year old, never married man who she’d had a relationship with for several years.
I liked “Bill” (not his real name), but noted some unusually immature behavior on his part–a great deal of concern for “his stuff” and an alarming self-centeredness. About a week after they left, my brother-in-law and I were our recreating and Bill came up in the conversation, and my B-I-L remarked the same things that I had observed. It occured to us, simultaneously that our shock was less about who he is than about who we are and why. Both of us have been married a long time and raised families of several children. We’ve had the self-centeredness beaten out of us by our kids. Somewhere along the line we transformed from being guys like Bill to the people we are today. I became to observe my married friends with kids and we’re all the same–we think of our families before ourselves. We don’t sweat it when things get broken or lost because “its normal”. We’ve become “civilized”, and its as a result of our marriages and families. Notably, something similar has occurred with our wives. They were just as self-centered as we were in the beginning, but the same dynamics were in force and had similar results.
I don’t think marriage alone civilizes men, but children certainly do.
Another observations: Having a family forces you to live up to your potential. I visited a friend a while back who directed me to a bed & breakfast he was staying at while working on a project that was too far away from home to consider a daily commute. I couldn’t help but note how spartan the place was, but the reality was that he had everything he personally needed there–his clothes, a car, a television, a computer, some exercise equipment, a phone and some books. That led to a discussion about how much money we would actually have to earn to support ourselves in a manner we’re accustomed to. The answer surprised us. I could be a manager at McDonalds and be quite happy with my material comforts, yet both of us have made ridiculous amounts of money most of our adult lives–because we had to. For me personally, I went from making just over 20K to making 80K in a single year–after my oldest son was born. All of a sudden I had a focus that I never had before.
I believe that marriage and children is less about economics than it is biological imperative. Men eventually crave the emotional support that marriage provides. Its lonely being single and one-night stands aren’t a substitute. There is also a hole in one sense of manhood when he isn’t “protecting” someone.
That sense of manhood is also why young men don’t get married. Boys going through adolescence fear women and how easily they can emasculate them with rejection. Its really little different that it is for girls, who dread the prospect of being proven unattractive. Socialization helps to smooth out the rough edges, but every man knows that ultimately, a good part of a man’s sense of “manliness” comes from a woman’s approval, another part from his peers and yet another part from his children.
I have to agree with Kay Hymowitz that prolonged adolescence is the problem here. Boys don’t get married, men do, and men do what they ought to. The rising generation are simply not men and I say this having two adult sons whom I love dearly but am deeply frustrated with. Its not a measure of utility, to use the economic term, but raw fear.
I got married quite young and the rewards have been very gratifying, but I’ll tell you–I was scared at the altar, scared silly when my oldest was born, scared, scared, scared at every challenge. I’m not scared anymore, just a little nervous on occasion. I think the culture makes it a lot easier for men to give into their fear–unemployed, uneducated, videoplaying losers have enormous support networks to enable their prolonged adolesence. Indulgent and prosperous parents let them live at home, use their automobiles, eat their food. Fellow slackers provide a sense of normalcy to their situations. Sex is like cheetos–available everywhere. Yet underneath this apparent idyllic existence is a deep dissatisfaction, a depression (often untreated) and profound regret that is dealt with through more video games, more online poker and more pornography.
In a very real way, we’ve created a kind of gender welfare state, a vicious cycle of dependency, self-doubt and unworthiness.
Final note. Its remarkable how quickly things can be turned around. My oldest son was a wreck two years ago, but he met a girl, fell in love and in no small part because of the dominant culture where we live–got married last year. In a single year, my boy became a man. He not only got a job, he quit that job because he found a better one. He does what he ought to do, taking the initiative to move his life forward and he is observably much, much happier.
