I wrote about this on Friday, but somehow lost the post before I got around to actually, you know, posting it. The original version was better, I think.

According to Dr. Leonard Sax, in the Washington Post, young men are living at home at higher rates now than ever. Dr. Sax is the author of Boys Adrift: What’s Really Behind the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys, which is due to be published next year, so, conceivably, he’s done some significant research on this subject.

I think it’s a fairly interesting topic, not least because I’m one of the young men who is living with family. My situation isn’t quite the same as the one described (part of my motivation for moving home a couple of years ago was that my dad, who was suddenly a single parent with a young teenager living at home, was working twelve (or more) hour days at a job that made him sometimes difficult to reach), but since I’m still there, it’s not far off, so I have a personal interest in this subject.

The main article doesn’t really get into any real reasons, but there’s a related discussion on the article that’s interesting, but not in the way that I’d hoped.

Dr. Sax’s main two scapegoats for this problem? Video games (because what social ill isn’t caused by Pac-Man) and plastic:

To rephrase the question: Could video games be at least partly responsible for the phenomenon of ‘boys adrift’? I think the answer is YES. Video games create a compelling alternative world. Success, victory, conquest in that world may compensate — in the psyche of the boy/man — for a lack of achievement in the real world.

…

That’s one reason I have begun to pay serious attention to the hypotheses regarding environmental toxins, in particular those toxins derived from plastics. We’re all exposed to foods in plastic containers, regardless of our economic status. The possibility that these toxins may play a role in this phenomenon should at least be explored.

What’s interesting is that Dr. Sax is willing to entertain video games and plastics (maybe, specifically, it’s video game plastic (every gamer I know is familiar with the distinctive smell of a new console) causing the problem) two things as possibilities, but he dismisses several things out of hand that I think are at least interesting enough to warrant a long look. We’ve emphasized for years (I’ve heard it on a regular basis my entire life) that women can do everything men can do (Note that society doesn’t preach the reverse — how often do we see men in television shows or movies (or commercials and songs) trying to do housework or child care and utterly humiliating themselves?), and I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone try to explain what the role of men is if women can do our roles. Does that sort of thing have an effect on the desire of young men to get out into the “real world”? (Wouldn’t it be better to say that gender has an effect on your natural aptitudes, but everyone has the same legal rights to work at being successful at whatever you attempt? And that, yes, women can be successful outside of a marriage, and so can men, but that we tend to do better when partnered than alone?)

Also, I think he’s just rewording the problem when he says that virtual success has replaced real-life success for many men. Okay, fine. I love gaming, but real-life successes are infinitely more rewarding than virtual ones. So, why would men turn to virtual successes instead? Do they think real-life success is growing increasingly hard to come by?

A great job, in and of itself, has no appeal for me whatsoever. I work so that I can afford to do the things I enjoy doing. I like my job well enough, but if I won the lottery, you can bet your life that I’d be gone in a heartbeat. I haven’t got any great desire to have a huge salary or a powerful position just for the sake of having those things, because, in the end, they don’t amount to anything. I’d much rather be poor and have a family around me that loved me than rich and alone.

But there’s a perception (whether it’s true or not) that marriage is increasingly a short-term proposition, and that divorce, especially when custody issues are involved, almost always punishes the ex-husband to an unfair degree. Steve, talking about some of his recent CLE courses, mentioned something about alimony and the law that, quite honestly, would probably make any man at least a little afraid of marriage:

You should have been at my CLE today. Some weasel was up there talking about strategies for getting more alimony from men. He got all excited when he pointed out that the law makes it possible to demand more money than a man actually EARNS. What on earth is WRONG with an asshole like that? And don’t you think ex-wives don’t make him do it.

The other theory that sprang to mind within just a few seconds of my reading the article is that modern attitudes toward sex influence this sort of behavior. I suspect that one of the major reasons that men were driven to get out on their own and get a good job is that they wanted to impress women. I hate to be the one to say this, but they wanted to impress women because they wanted sex. Many men (and this can be seen in some of the reader submissions to the discussion at the Washingto Post) in this age group consider having lots of sex to be an indicator of success and accomplishment, and if there’s no societal impetus for them to get out of the house, they won’t do it. Sure, these men aren’t being looked at as marriage material because of their home lives, but they aren’t concerned with marriage, by and large.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m insane. Maybe my theories are useless. I wouldn’t be surprised. My degree is in computer engineering, not psychology. It frustrates me, though, that Dr. Sax seems to dismiss these types of explanations and instead embraces some environmentalist mumbo-jumbo about toxins that only have an effect on one gender.

Finally, am I the only one who’s curious as to why young men living at home are “boys”, but young women in the same situation are “young women”?