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The answer in the past was easy. War. The young men went off to fight and destroy, keeping them busy and maturing them.

Or they went off to hunt. Or they went off to farm.

Physical labor. Very important responsibilities. The man's duty was to provide, and fight, and labor.

This generation, the children of Vietnam vets, are among the first for whom there is no war (unless they volunteer, which very few did even in years past), there is no expected physical labor. Society has become the expression of what in the past was limited to the highest classes. Lots of leisure, little physical effort.

If there was a war, these folks would step up again and do their duty. Or if technology failed, they'd get their focus together.

Meanwhile, women have sought for more rights, and thus gained more work. They've stepped up their societal responsibilities as men have seen their's lessen. The women want to work, the men say, "okay".

There's really no change in men at all. It's the world that's gotten easier. And the answers, are well, worse than the problem I would guess.

I just turned 30 a couple of weekends ago, and hosted a girls getaway weekend to celebrate it. As conversations of single Christian women of our age often do, we talked about the dearth of men willing to commit to a relationship that might possibly result in marriage. (Notice the use of might) The men of our age group in our local area are still in the SYM stage referenced above or just leaving it. Those men older than us are choosing younger women. And, here's the kicker. All of the talented women there would drop their career in a moment to marry and have a family with one, two, three or four children. Yet, biologically, those dreams are increasingly fading. The SYM, on the other hand, can wait until he matures (whenever that may be) and marry a woman at a younger age who could provide the amount of children they desire. Marriage is certainly not a duty to procreate. Yet, in terms of fertility, this SYM lifestyle is harmful to men, women and the future generation in the church.

The widespread acceptance and availability of birth control is one of the primary reasons that men have been allowed to extend their adolescence and be irresponsible. Before birth control, guys felt pressure to marry a woman if they wanted sex. Today, sex had been de-linked from procreation and is viewed merely as recreation. While many feminists saw birth control as a means to liberate women and to give them the same (misguided) liberties as men, this freedom has ended up hurting women. Birth control has meant that one of the primary incentives for marriage has been stripped away. Delinking sex from procreation so that sex is only for selfish purposes (for the satisfaction of the people having sex) tends to destroy family. Sex was intended to be an embrace of the mystery of the creation of new life. The Catholic church has recognized this, and now we evangelicals are realizing (I hope not too late) that our acceptance of artificial contraception is against the created order and tends to destroy the family, which is the building block of society. The question is -- are we too addicted to our way of life to change our ways and save ourselves?

I think there are many factors feeding this phenomenon. Yes, it's very easy now to graduate from college and continue living like a college freshman with an income now, and there is not any pressure from society to grow up. I can attest to that. I'm 26, single, and have never had anyone suggest to me that I ought to be married or headed that way. But to explain it in a word, narcissism. Our culture, and in western European culture where I gather the problem is even worse, is narcissistic from top to bottom. Maybe women are less inherently narcissistic in that they seem to have an innate desire for a family. Who knows. I think the narcissism makes our entire culture more socially inept, which means that even when men decide they do want to be married, they don't know how to go about doing it. I for one don't know what to make of things when I hear or read Christian women venting their frustrations about Christian men when my friends and I are equally frustrated with things.

"The Catholic church has recognized this, and now we evangelicals are realizing (I hope not too late) that our acceptance of artificial contraception is against the created order and tends to destroy the family, which is the building block of society."

Darrin seems to be from the barefoot and pregnant school. I'm not sure he would be any bargain either.

It may be that we are slipping back into the mode of older men marrying younger women (as went on for many years). Unfortunately some women are caught in the resulting gap.

This is true, but society has developed a system of forced adolescence where we don't let our children grow up and assume any real responsibility for themselves. I do believe this is the entire cause of the problem. I am not one who admires 'the good old days' by any means. But I don't think that it is working to keep our young people from getting jobs at 15 and starting to take care of themselves.

Some good responses here. It is a problem. Young men a solution in search of a problem. As a single, American male in his mid twenties, I share a lot of the concerns that the women in this article expressed -- only reversed! I have found exactly one woman of my age who I have considered marrying. Most of the girls my age are talentless, vapid, shallow and small-minded, and wish to remain so. It's absolutely painful. They know how to dress well and have a degree in pop-psychology or "communications" and live off their parents dime. (Then again, most of the guys my age do too) The American culture of our day does not celebrate or encourage true independence and wisdom, but rather a lifetime of ever increasing consumption and riskless living.

When I find a smart, adventurous Christian woman, I'll let you know. ;)

I appreciate this posted comment by Brad: "but society has developed a system of forced adolescence where we don't let our children grow up and assume any real responsibility for themselves"

I'd like to take it a bit further and suggest that parenting in this generation must bear a large part of the responsibility. 60 minutes featured this issue back in the fall and Dr. Phil has also featured this subject on his show. I've talked with seasoned college professors who say that parents call them to complain or try and negotiate the results of the student's auditions or grades. They've told me that in their 30 year career of teaching at the university level, it has only been in this decade that this much parental involvement or interference has occurred. Employers are reporting that parents accompany their adult college graduate sons to their job interviews and then try to negotiate the compensation package with the employer. In earlier generations, you might have consulted your parents on how to handle a negotiation or a situation, but it would have been unheard of for the parent to take over that role. The love and protection of a parent must be balanced with helping a child mature to develop independence, decision-making skills, responsibility, confidence and dignity. It isn't unusual to find that a young male, college graduate lands a good paying job, only to remain living at home, rent free with no responsibility for helping maintain the home and with his Mother still cooking his meals and doing his laundry. She may find some fulfillment in that role, but it doesn't serve the best interests of the young man. The shift away from personal responsibility has grown exponentially in one generation. It isn't a simple solution since absence of parenting can contribute as much as over-parenting. We can't be too hard on the young men, because many of them were raised by caring and well-meaning parents who failed to require much responsibility from their children or allow them to fight their own battles and endure the consequences of their decisions/actions. Nevertheless, as a society, we have to pull together to help bring understanding and guidance...this is an area where the Church could lead if it also takes corrective measures. Let me finish by saying that I've met many outstanding young men in the 30 years I've served in ministry (campus ministry, youth ministry, pastoral/education roles). I'm still meeting outstanding, responsible, young men in and outside the church. However, there is no question there is a major problem, and to avoid stating the real reason behind some of it won't bring solutions. Getting to the root and changing the thinking is essential...simply treating the symptom won't bring healthy change.

Tim nails it: narcissism. If you don't believe me just look in the mirror.

That increasingly "girl-friendly" school and workplace is increasing "boy-unfriendly". Why do we expect the males to excel where they feel clearly unwanted and disrespected?

I agree with Joe here:

"Most of the girls my age are talentless, vapid, shallow and small-minded, and wish to remain so."

I think Miss Hymowitz needs to spend as much time deriding Cosmo and Sex and the City as she does Maxim and Halo 3.

I thought the Census said the median age for women at first marriage was about 25 and for men about 27? I grew up in Ohio, where most folks married fairly early. After college, I moved out to DC, where everyone seemed to be in their 30s and single, and I couldn't find friends in their 20s (maybe they were at the bars? or playing Ultimate Frisbee? or working late on Capitol Hill?). By the standards of my hometown but primarily of my family, I was gittin' old to be single. (I used to tell myself, well, I'm just skipping my first marriage and going straight to the keeper! ;) I'm a statistic geek.) I struggled and then found content & happiness in God. Then my husband and I met through a Friday-night house church/party for 20somethings that was born after a few people met a megachurch service for people in their 20s and 30s and decided to hang out regularly. God specifically brought us together. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm skeptical this is a widespread problem. Maybe it's more of a problem in coastal areas or big cities? And I've heard anecdotes about a young woman who wasn't ready to commit, men who hadn't build up enough of a career to feel they could support families, and one man who asserted that our generation is leery of divorce and so taking longer to choose a spouse. (Then again, there seems to a minor trend among Christians of married fast, in less than a year of meeting.) So, there may be a ton of factors at work here, aside from narcissim and premarital cohabitation and other more alarming causes.

I think there are a lot of factors, but it would plainly help if parents would not continue to support their children after college. Why grow up when you can live at home rent free? I know a mom who intervened with the bank when her 20-something kid was overdrawn. Parents are just too reluctant to cut the apron strings. Then we complain that our grown children are irresponsible.

Mark Galli! I'm surprised at you; where's your knowledge of history--and not ANCIENT history! I quote you: "The answer in the past was easy. War. The young men went off to fight and destroy, keeping them busy and maturing them.Or they went off to hunt. Or they went off to farm. Physical labor. Very important responsibilities. The man's duty was to provide, and fight, and labor." The article here is referring to RECENT history, not 1-200 years ago!

I'm surprised to have had to read several comments before someone gave the one, fairly simple answer: parents!! Yes, narcissism is the problem, but the cause (more the issue here)is the pampering and over-indulging parents who apparently lack the self-confidence and decisiveness to "pull the plug," cut the apron springs, whatever... It's appalling to me, as a 52 year old mother, to witness my peers and friends, PARTICULARILY the Christian ones,facilitate and enable unhealthy co-dependencies with their adult children. It's a shame and a discredit to following generations who, evidently, will be born (by accident) and raised by developmentally challenged adult adolescents.
Really, it is a shame and a huge concern for me, to think of the dysfunction of future generations: the friends and spouses of MY children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Bennett: I stated that the availability and acceptance of artificial birth control enables men to be irresponsible. You responded that I seem "to be from the barefoot and pregnant school. I'm not sure he would be any bargain either."

I don't appreciate the ad hominem attack. I think the availability and acceptance of artificial birth control very clearly does enable men to be irresponsible and to avoid family. This observation is not stated often in public because it is not politically correct, no matter how true it may be.

For the record, I believe each man or woman should seek God's plan for his or her life. I don't believe that every man or women is called to get married young or have a "quiver full." I also don't believe that every person is called to be a professional and postpone marriage or family. So I do not advocate that all women should be "barefoot and pregnant."

I was raised as a progressive evangelical in the Midwest. My friends and I looked down at people who wanted to get married young. When I lived in Los Angeles I discovered that in evangelical circles this was taken one step further - women who wanted to get married and have children young were viewed as a "traitor to their gender."

Now 34, single and with several graduate degrees, I would like to get married. I am a virgin, and have tried incredible hard to be perfect in morals and achievement my entire life. I look back at my life with some regret because I passed by opportunities to date and marry wonderful women, because I bought into our culture's lie that education and achievement are more important than having a family. I would love to tell everyone out there, as St. Paul did, that to marry is a good thing.

I believe everyone is called to be mature young, and that most are called to marry young. Some are called to delay marriage or to never get married, but these are exceptions to the rule. These exceptions, Biblically, must always be accompanied by chastity.

It is exasperatingly common for evangelical young people to disobey Biblical rules concerning chastity. Most young people aren't waiting to have sex, in part because they probably aren't called to wait to get married. It's our fault that we didn't teach them to be mature young and to be open to marriage at a young age. Because we didn't do this, we're all paying the price. We are setting our children up for failure when we tell them they should wait to get married (if they are not specifically called to wait), and instead encouraging them to get involved in a number of short-term failed relationships that prepares them for divorce later on.

This is a difficult lesson to learn. I wish someone would have taught me this so that I wouldn't have had to learn it alone, the hard way.

It's about time that men started acting as though they had choices too. Even in the 70's, when I got out of college, there were expectations. One would graduate, maybe spend some time in the army, and then get married, get a corporate job, and have kids. People did not often ask whether they wanted to do those things; it was expected. Marriage was an institution in which young men were socialized to work hard, pay bills, and do what their wives wanted. Since the 70's women have started to make choices, and now some of the young men have too. It's about time!

Bob,

It's fine that men have choices. Fine that they don't want to get married and have kids. I just won't let my sons do that on my nickel. In other words, they still have to move out once they finish their undergrad degrees. (or before if they decide to take too much extra time) I can't and won't support them after that.

Also, it's all fine and good for men to delay marriage well into their 30's or even 40's, because they can just marry a younger woman if they suddenly decide they want kids. Women don't have that choice.

Has the corporate church looked at what it teaches as godly living lately for 20-somethings? The church always will either reflect society or affect it. If we the "older church" don't TELL the "younger Church" what to do, they will not know what want them to do. Not that it is their 'duty to obey' our wishes as commands, but have we even tried to say "this is right and that is wrong"? When was the last time you heard a sermon or Sunday School lesson TELLING you what your Bible says is right or wrong as far as young adulthood, or even in marriage or child-raising? Believers need information to act on. Likewise, when was the last time you heard,"You can not live a Christian Life without conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit"? The Problem is much deeper than where you are going with this. Neither parents nor 'children' have much of a clue about living like God wants at any age. IMHO, of course. Wouldn't want to sound too authoritative.

It's become quite culturally acceptable to raise kids without any real direction, any long-term goals. On the other hand, those of us with such goals seem downright scary to both teens and adults.

It's very out of fashion to be serious about anything important nowadays. I feel sorry for a lot of folks growing up nowadays, it's so clear they've got virtually no cultural inheritance to give them direction and purpose.

The exceptions are mainly immigrants (legal or not), who mostly seem to understand that you've got to sow in order to keep on reaping. They've got goals in life and are rapidly moving toward the top.

While many of the factors mentioned here contribute to the "child-man" problem...and yes, to the related vapid-woman problem...I personally believe this generation is primarily witnessing the dismaying fruit of our culture's deliberate abandonment of masculinity and femininity.

In simple terms, men are designed by their Creator to occupy distinct roles in society, as protectors, providers, leaders, and representatives of God in their families and communities. Women are designed and assigned to be responders, assisters, nurturers, and appreciators of what their menfolk do. This interaction parallels on a human scale the relationship between the masculine activities of God and the feminine nature of creation.

I realize the above sounds rather foreign to modern ears, but consider this. In spite of the intense confusion about roles that pervades our world, a man still instinctively knows he is not designed to compete with a woman. If he wins, he loses, and if he loses, he loses. As women increasingly occupy those formerly male-only arenas of prestige in our culture, the men are heading (not entirely reluctantly) to those places where women have no interest in being, such as the pseudo-masculine environs of Halo 3.

While I have no illusions that the prevailing currents of culture can be reversed, I do believe the church has an obligation to provide young single Christians with a clear picture of how God designed them to live. You will find my own effort in this direction on my web site, at dyscletter.com.

This article hits close to home for me on several levels. I have no real answers, but want to provide a short story as someone who has been on many sides of this question.

I attended a prestigious university for three semesters and took a break to spend two years in the mission field. But my life fell apart, I never spent that time in missions, and never returned to college. Until only 2-3years ago, while I enjoyed work, I was really only working to support playing computer games, disc golf, and a steady diet of alcohol and hooking up for self-gratification. I spent several years and tens of thousands of dollars essentially entertaining myself.

Now, I'm 28 and a father of three boys who are 6yrs old or younger with another child on the way. I "married in" to two of my children and am adopting them legally and spiritually. I work hard at a fulltime 8-5 job and another overnight (11pm-7am) job 3 nights a week to support my family. But the weight of responsibility is difficult and in weak moments I remember the care-free years I left behind. These weak moments are so easy when almost no one around me can understand why anyone would work hard and when nearly every image in the media says "relax, treat yourself, you deserve it."

In the midst of, and having been a part of, such a narcissistic and lazy culture one of my greatest concerns is how to raise my children to value something outside of themselves and to be willing to work hard. I agree with many of the explanations above, in that they contribute to the culture that 20-somethings now reside in, BUT... changing factors like the availability of birth control and pervasive pop-culture will not help to produce concerned, responsible, unselfish children and young-adults.

It is the role of parents, regardless of the cultural context, to disciple their children into concerned, responsible, and unselfish people. And it is the role of the church to reveal and disciple parents toward that idea that they have and can fulfill that responsibility.

I love the photo and comment in the article: "About half of American males aged 18 to 34 play video games—and do so for over two hours a day." And about 90% of American males aged 35-80 watch TV--and do so for over two hours a day. Clearly video games are the cause of this social decay.

There are men/women that fill the bill, but you have to know where they are. I see them every day. You want a man who is just in his 20s, willing to take on more responsibility and than his peers would ever contemplate, has more courage than his peers will ever need, has been shaped and rounded by more life in a few short years than any of his peers --- a man made sensitive in a crucible and has the perspective to value being at home with loved ones --a man who finds the face of god in many places without even trying -- a man who is vetted under fire and is made decent by total strangers who don't even speak his/her language. What you want isn't even in Cancoon or Florida on spring break. They are right here with me each day in Iraq. Lots more in Afganastan. They are combat veterans. They are 1% of the US population statistically. I see a lot of noncommissioned officers and commissoined officers who are Christian and don't have anyone in their lives and wonder when that special someone will come into their lives. This war can't last forever. You want a man? there you go.

My husband encourages my son to play Halo 3 with him for 1 - 3 hrs. almost daily. My husband thinks that it is fine and good. He tells me that he will come in there and be with me at 9:00 after he plays.

My husband is a hardworking, very intellegent busnessman who is wonderful in a million ways, but I think that he has lost it. He doesn't get it, He is sacrificing our relationship, teaching my son values, and letting our house go down to the game.

I am frustrated and need prayer and advice.

Women are expected to do everything these days. Even fight in wars. I often really blame feminism for this. What's left for men to do? They are like male lions. And men have it so good in this post feminist world-why would they give it up voluntarily?