30-year-olds: 'drop the pad and grow up'

Men in their mid 20s and 30s need to put down the Xbox controller and grow up, says writer Kay Hymowitz in an opinion piece published by the Dallas Morning News.

Thanks to the emergence of pop culture such as television and gaming today's mid-20-something male "lingers happily, in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance," argues the article.

In fact, compared to the last generation of young men, today's 20- to 30-year-old blokes can't be considered adults, she says. "Adolescence appears to be the young man's default state," a phase which the writer has chosen to call "child-man". This state is encouraged, she says, by gaming.

As a modern 26-year-old male, the article reads, "you live in an apartment with a few single guy friends. In your spare time, you play basketball with your buddies, download the latest indie songs from iTunes, have some fun with the Xbox 360, take a leisurely shower, massage some product into your hair and face - and then it's off to bars and parties, where you meet, and often bed, girls of widely varied hues and sizes." So far, spot on…

When asked if this typical modern young man has a wife, kids or house, she replies: "Are you kidding?"

According to the article, back in the 60s the average man in his 20s had achieved most of life's milestones such as a good job, marriage, a house and even a few kids. These days, the vast majority of 25-year-old men don’t have a house, wife, or children (which definitely has nothing to do with birth control pill or Ayia Napa, apparently).

"With women, you could argue that adulthood is in fact emergent," Hymowitz writes. "Single young males, or SYMs, by contrast, often seem to hang out in a playground of drinking, hooking up, playing Halo 3 and, in many cases, underachieving. With them, adulthood looks as though it's receding."

If 10 thousand achievement points is underachieving, then it looks like this lady’s got our number.

"The problem with child-men," the article continues, "is that they're not very promising husbands and fathers. They suffer from a proverbial 'fear of commitment'."

What about the demographic of men who have a job, house and kids and still play games, then? Call us immature, but we thought that grown men were adult enough to decide what their hobby is.

Want to defend your gaming habits? Head over to theforumsand start a thread!

Courtesy of CVG.

Jan 30, 2008