Excellent article, Joe!!! I agree with you 110%.
I love how you characterize work as a corporate hellhole that treats people like garbage; in many instances work places are very much like that, with toxic cultures and ridiculously rigid rules that basically dehumanize us and expect us to be and work like robots. I don’t think I could have phrased a description of the general work environment any better than you did. It seems to me there are more rudderless men (who probably didn’t have a “solid foundation” built under them in their growing-up years) in the generations after the Boomers, which is the demographic I’m in. Yes, I know there are/were unmotivated people in my generation (and ones before mine) so the Millennials — as I once told my now 24-year-old son — haven’t cornered the market on lacking ambition and motivation. But taking from what I’ve observed in my son’s circle of male friends I’ve surmised that many younger men can’t or don’t want to take care of themselves because they learned dependent behaviors at home. These kids somehow came to see--through the anxious lens peering out at the world, provided to them by their anxious parent s— the big, bad world out there as immensely terrifying and they don’t want to go out into it (hence many Gen X and Millennial men still living with their parents). It’s interesting, and sad, to me that this is happening with males, while women are going to college in greater numbers, getting careers, and many are also raising kids on their own (all of which I did because the American dream of the husband, two kids and house with a white picket fence didn’t happen to me either). I’m sure there are many reasons for the seeming lack of motivation in men these days, though you touched on some of them. I will go out on a limb and put some of the blame on certain parenting styles that didn’t prepare kids for “the big, bad world”, didn’t ready these guys with the “tools” and the mindset to adequately care for themselves…so they become overly dependent on others. Let’s call that parenting style “failure to do your job as a parent” because that’s exactly what it is (can you say “neglectful”??). Also, kids are being coddled and parents are doing everything for them (including allowing them to stay in the nest far longer than they really should be), and thus the kids aren’t being “toughened up” with necessary real-world coping skills.
I know because for too long I provided free room and board to a man who was happy to let me do so…. Until I got sick of it and filed for divorce. He was from a rather dysfunctional family in which I could see the roots of his problem; his being raised basically to be overly dependent, never stray too far from mom and dad… which unfortunately is happening to too many people (it also helps explain why some of us “older” women may possibly never date younger: because men in our age group usually have a strong work ethic).
When I was growing up, I vividly recall my parents saying “When you’re 18 we’re breaking your plate,” or in other words “out the door you go”. And I couldn’t wait to move away out into “the real world.”
Again, great article!! You have some very valid points and said some things that quite frankly needed to be said.
