Are we creating "weak men"?

[pb4uski]

I think it depends. When I look at our kids, DD/DSIL have way more saved at their age then we did and will not need to rely on any inheritance from us even though they will got one.

Similar for DS... any inheritance he receives will be helpful, but he is doing well principally because he is extreme LBYM and is willing to live in an inexpensive apartment.

My bigger concern with future generations is whether they will know which end of a screwdriver or hammer to use.... DSIL is very good on that score... DD is ok, DS has little interest in using tools. But then again, I have two uncles who if you asked them to fetch a screwdriver out of the toolbox who knows what they would bring you.

 

[Amethyst]

Not a problem. We responders have been treating "men" as a species designation, which includes both sexes.

Shouldn't the OP's post title be "Are we creating weak men/women"?

No need to exclude half the population.

 

[Amethyst]

I was that way, until home ownership set in. Necessity is learning's mama.

My bigger concern with future generations is whether they will know which end of a screwdriver or hammer to use... I have two uncles who if you asked them to fetch a screwdriver out of the toolbox who knows what they would bring you.

 

[unclemick]

I can see the four Yorkshiremen showing up here soon.

I love that one!



As a U Tube junkie I read some Jonathan Haidt about ? 'fragile kids' and also Tony Seba.

'Cars? cars? We don't need not stinking cars'!

Heh heh heh - The current generation will adapt and do fine. Got rid of my 'love beads' and tore up my leisure suit picture.

 

[Katsmeow]

Weak men? Are the women not adversely affected by these things? Or, is it the assumption that women are already weak? Not sure why the concern is only about men and not about all children.

On the actual issue I did worry about it. I grew up in a working class family. My parents were frugal and good savers so we had more money available for us than many of our neighbors and friends. Still, I worried when my kids were raised in a very different environment and also knew many people from truly wealthy families. We did live in nicer neighborhoods, went on vacations, and so on. But, we weren't really extravagant in things that we bought. My son commented once that he now realizes that we had more money than some of his friends who had more "things" in their house in terms of expensive furniture, etc.

 

[jollystomper]

One issue, in my view, is that today it seems more people (not just young people) want guarantees out of life, not opportunities.

When you take on an opportunity, it might not work out well. You may fail. However, that opportunity, even it is failure, will likely creates experience, wisdom, and skills, that will increase one odds to be successful for the next opportunity.

A guarantee, in my view, does not do that. While it does eliminate risk, it might also bring everyone down to a lowest common denominator. A guarantee cannot provide you with everything you want. However, many will be fine with that lower denominator, instead of risking an opportunity that might benefit them in the long run. Would I choose to work in a restaurant in as a server or dishwasher for $1000 a week, and work hard to stand out, or stay at home for a guaranteed $600 a week and do whatever I want?

We seem to be doing less to encourage people to seek the risk of opportunities, and more telling people of their particular "victimhood" and the promise of guarantees to overcome that. Particularly in good times where there are clear economic "winners" and "losers". The thinking is less "what to do to improves you odds of being a 'winner?'" and more "what do the 'winners' owe the 'losers' for unfairly winning?"

I can remember, in the summer of 1975 before I went to college, my mom, dad, and many other minority parents on the block I lived on giving me the message that "this is a great opportunity. Don't blow it". I particularly remember the 4th of July cookout. At one point about a half dozen of the fathers were with me and 8 or 9 of my friends who were going off to college or the military and saying, in blunt terms, life is unfair, you will encounter discrimination and racism, but that is no excuse to blow this opportunity. Deal with it to make you stronger. Not everyone will want you to succeed, but some will; you need to find those people, hand out with them, and help others behind you who want to succeed.

Social media tends to make things worse in this arena,; I am so thankful my formative "growing up" years did not have to deal with this. In several minority cultures there is a term called "crabbing". This is from the observation that if crabs are in a barrel and some take the risk to climb out, instead of the others following their lead and also trying to climb out, they pull the ones trying to climb out back down. This contributes to the "no opportunities, just guarantees" mentality.

 

[Amethyst]

It's not just minorities who do that. As a woman, I observed and experienced "crabbing" by women against other women. Why should she be doing so well, who is she sleeping with, let's talk about her behind her back until others start asking the same questions. Let's undermine her self-confidence, instead of helping her so that later on, she'll help us.

All kids need to be well aware of the burdens jealousy can entail, and taught ways to defuse or deflect jealousy's harmful effects.

O. In several minority cultures there is a term called "crabbing". This is from the observation that if crabs are in a barrel and some take the risk to climb out, instead of the others following their lead and also trying to climb out, they pull the ones trying to climb out back down. This contributes to the "no opportunities, just guarantees" mentality.

 

[tmm99]

The attitude of entitlement... Has that been around for a long time as well?

 

[pb4uski]

The attitude of entitlement... Has that been around for a long time as well?

As long as there have been little sisters and little brothers.

 

[Gumby]

Weak men? Are the women not adversely affected by these things? Or, is it the assumption that women are already weak? Not sure why the concern is only about men and not about all children.......

From what I can see, the future is female. In my own family, I see that my nieces-in-law are the hard-driving, successful ones in the family, not my nephews. And, more generally, I observe that there have been more female than male college graduates for at least the last 25 years and, more recently, more women than men in graduate and professional schools. To me, the trend is clear; God help us men if science should ever develop human parthenogenesis.

 

[jollystomper]

It's not just minorities who do that. As a woman, I observed and experienced "crabbing" by women against other women. Why should she be doing so well, who is she sleeping with, let's talk about her behind her back until others start asking the same questions. Let's undermine her self-confidence, instead of helping her so that later on, she'll help us.

All kids need to be well aware of the burdens jealousy can entail, and taught ways to defuse or deflect jealousy's harmful effects.

I definitely agree. You reminded me of the mom in our neighborhood who years ago tried to instigate an affair with me because she and DW both volunteered at our kids school and she resented her perception that DW was treated better by the school staff than she was.

 

[audreyh1]

Weak men? Are the women not adversely affected by these things? Or, is it the assumption that women are already weak? Not sure why the concern is only about men and not about all children.

On the actual issue I did worry about it. I grew up in a working class family. My parents were frugal and good savers so we had more money available for us than many of our neighbors and friends. Still, I worried when my kids were raised in a very different environment and also knew many people from truly wealthy families. We did live in nicer neighborhoods, went on vacations, and so on. But, we weren't really extravagant in things that we bought. My son commented once that he now realizes that we had more money than some of his friends who had more "things" in their house in terms of expensive furniture, etc.

I thought the OP simply meant that we didn’t need to worry about any women getting weak.

 

[Amethyst]

Cloning.

An excellent sci-fi story - a fable, really - by James Tiptree Jr. (real name: Alice Sheldon) - will give you the genuine shudders by how she develops this idea. I, personally, would not like the all-women "utopia" in this story; but one has to admit that it seems to be working well for those who inhabit it.

It's called "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?"

https://www.scribd.com/doc/20608868/Houston-Houston-Do-You-Read-Tiptree-James

God help us men if science should ever develop human parthenogenesis.

 

[ER Eddie]

Yes, we are creating weak men, and we have been for decades. See "Coddling of the American Mind," for instance, for a discussion of all the ways we bubble-wrap kids now, and how fragile it leaves them. See our leaders' penchant for handing out stacks of borrowed money to protect people from the consequences of their decisions, in exchange for votes. See the cultural/media messaging over the past few decades that men are inadequate, bumbling fools, predatory, etc., and need to dial back their "toxic masculinity" and become more like women. See also the plummeting testosterone rates, which are likely related to modern diets.

 

[REWahoo]

Yes, we are creating weak men, and we have been for decades.

Yes. I'm almost certain it started on December 19, 1988. That was the date the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued its warning that lawn darts are banned, should be destroyed and could no longer be sold in the United States.

 

[Winemaker]

Yes. I'm almost certain it started on December 19, 1988. That was the date the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued its warning that lawn darts are banned, should be destroyed and could no longer be sold in the United States.

No, I think it was earlier than that. In 1974, as clerk in a hardware store we sold Jacobsen lawn mowers. The box had a warning that the intent of the lawn mower was to lawns and not bushes and hedges. Inside the box was a lone piece of paper with a warning again. Jacobsen had been sued for someone putting 2 wheel on one side on a wall, and was holding the other two while trimming hedges. The injured (idiot) lost his hold/balance with a live lawn mower and it ended badly.

 

[Gumby]

No, I think it was earlier than that. In 1974, as clerk in a hardware store we sold Jacobsen lawn mowers. The box had a warning that the intent of the lawn mower was to lawns and not bushes and hedges. Inside the box was a lone piece of paper with a warning again. Jacobsen had been sued for someone putting 2 wheel on one side on a wall, and was holding the other two while trimming hedges. The injured (idiot) lost his hold/balance with a live lawn mower and it ended badly.

I blame King Gillette and his invention of the safety razor in 1901. What a bunch of un-manly sissies that produced.

 

[Markola]

Are we creating "weak men"?

Yes. I'm almost certain it started on December 19, 1988. That was the date the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued its warning that lawn darts are banned, should be destroyed and could no longer be sold in the United States.

Exactly right, though lawn darts ended in the early 1970s for me. I was about 6 when I put one through the hood of my mother’s Plymouth Gold Duster. I figured it was her fault for buying them for me.

 

[Markola]

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

- Socrates

 

[pb4uski]

From what I can see, the future is female. In my own family, I see that my nieces-in-law are the hard-driving, successful ones in the family, not my nephews. ....

+1... Of 11 of the next generation (kids of me and my 4 siblings)... 6 females and 5 males... 5 of 6 females are college graduates and 2 of 5 males are... 3 of the 6 females are in highly successful careers and 0 of the 5 males are in highly successful careers. 4 of the 6 females own a home and 1 of the 5 males own a home (but it is on his parent's lot).

Luckily, all are launched and none are living at home... though 2 are living at their family home but the parents moved out many years ago.

 

[MRG]

My FIL related a story from his youth that I still remember. He was 7, working on the family farm when a snake was found. He was terrified of the snake and started to cry. His punishment was to be locked in the outhouse with the snake while his cousins taunted him. Toughen him up? He didn't care much for snakes as an adult.

 

[ER Eddie]

"Studies show that men’s testosterone levels have been declining for decades. The most prominent, a 2007 study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, revealed a “substantial” drop in U.S. men’s testosterone levels since the 1980s, with average levels declining by about 1% per year. This means, for example, that a 60-year-old man in 2004 had testosterone levels 17% lower than those of a 60-year-old in 1987. Another study of Danish men produced similar findings, with double-digit declines among men born in the 1960s compared to those born in the 1920s."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/10/02/youre-not-the-man-your-father-was/?sh=733aa1318b7f

 

[Amethyst]

Nor for his cousins, either, I should think.

His punishment was to be locked in the outhouse with the snake while his cousins taunted him. Toughen him up? He didn't care much for snakes as an adult.

 

[Pellice]

Historical context counts for a lot here. We live in a complex society that requires changed skills to navigate successfully. What behaviors are rewarded (leaving aside some folks "at the top" who have the resources to float above struggle).

Changed skills: personal organization. Most people really need to be far more organized than previously to get through daily situations. And even preparation for emergencies requires, well, a lot of paperwork. Lists. Advance planning.

Awareness of rules. Society is so complex and crowded that there are ever-changing rules - and opportunities - to pay attention to. What does "I play by the rules" mean today.

Awareness of others' emotions. You can't just assume everyone feels the same way you do, as used to be the case if you were part of the demographic on top.

If a set of behaviors is no longer reinforced and rewarded - "I'm part of the group that knows what it's doing" - then it's been shown that health (broadly speaking) suffers.

But it's not "we" who are creating these situations. It's broad economic and social movements out of the control of "we."

I know I'm rambling here and not entirely coherent. I am female, and I honor the kindness and decency and strength - emotional and physical -of so many of my male acquaintances. I think of them as strong.

 

[Amethyst]

I've loved men since I was a little tiny girl. I'm not givin' them up (or giving up on them, either, as long as they don't give up on themselves).

I am female, and I honor the kindness and decency and strength - emotional and physical -of so many of my male acquaintances. I think of them as strong.