We’ve come out of one recession, possibly headlong into a second, but time keeps on ticking, and kids keep growing up. But as they hit the bottleneck of the post-college job market, which hasn’t been great since the Tech Boom, and has been ridiculously terrible these last few years, where entry-level mailroom jobs are requiring five years experience, and 40 hr per week, college-education-level gigs are being labeled “This is an internship – no pay,” Americas young men and women find themselves in a pretty strange position.
We just can’t afford to become adults.
In record-setting numbers, young adults struggling to find work are shunning long-distance moves to live with Mom and Dad, delaying marriage and buying fewer homes, often raising kids out of wedlock. They suffer from the highest unemployment since World War II and risk living in poverty more than others – nearly 1 in 5.
This is a particular problem for men. Women have been asserting themselves, successfully, for a generation, and while they are suffering the same employment troubles as their male counterparts, men had historically always defined themselves by what they do much more than women.
And when men aren’t doing anything, then what are they?
Put down the Xbox controller and slowly back away...
There’s a lot of reasons for the man-boy Peter Pan Syndrome that many of the 30-something generation are going through (and those in their 20s seem just as lost). It should really be know, however, that the inability to afford to grow up is not an excuse.
Yes, the job market is tough. Yes, it may not seem possible to get one’s own apartment out of college. Living with a half-dozen roommates or even going back home to one’s parents is a more appealing option. But just because you’re sleeping in your twin bed under your Buzz Lightyear comforter again, or you’re up at 3am with the rest of your roommates playing Call of Duty, it doesn’t let you off the hook for growing up and becoming a man.
You may have to live as a child for the time being, but you don’t have to act like one. Freemasonry is one affordable way to get a little focus and positive direction in your life, but it isn’t the only one. Finding interests is pretty easy for many men, so take the lead in those interests. Use your love of nerdery to carve out a leadership path. Organizing clubs and events is a surprisingly robust way of getting the only Experience Points that really matter. XPs for life.
Braden 168 