The Joy of Adulthood

Since when did becoming an adult mean the end of something good?

I’m writing this from a hotel room in Miami Beach.

The sun peeps in and out from behind storm clouds. There are lots of young people in small bathing suits on the beach drinking sugary, boozy drinks. I have to admit, I feel a bit old here, but that’s okay. I’m here for the sun. I’m here for the silence.

Patrick and I took this trip for the first time in 2021, when prices were cheap and we needed to escape the pandemic isolation that had kept us homebound with a toddler and a newborn. Our world at home had become joyously, deliriously loud. We needed quiet. Each year since then, the prices of a February weekend in Miami have steadily increased, but so have the benefits of a little time away. At home: the basement has flooded, someone threw a scotch tape dispenser down the toilet, and there are unending piles of laundry to wash and dishes to clean.

Have I enjoyed three nights away? Yes. Yes, I have. But I’m looking forward to going home. Maybe it’s just that I’m 36, and uninterested in the transient allure of beach bodies, bottomless mimosas, and thumping music. I’m thankful for a different kind of chaos. One that features two little boys with their big ideas (and bigger voices). I like who we are becoming as a family. I like who Patrick and I are trying to be as adults.

But not everyone my age wants the responsibilities that come with such a commitment.

Yesterday I overheard a young woman in the gym locker room say, “He’s 31, but in Miami, a guy that’s 31 might as well be 21. They’re kids.” The day before, a woman my age mentioned a similar anecdote about her boyfriend. When I mentioned our two boys at home, she shrugged, said they hadn’t really thought about having children, and that he — the boyfriend — was really just a big kid himself. She said this with a smile on her face.

Which brings me to my central question: why are so many boys failing to become men?

Recently I listened to an episode of the podcast Arm Chair Expert, with guest NYU Professor Scott Galloway. Galloway is a marketing professor, but he spent most of his time with the hosts, Dax Shepherd and Monica Padman, discussing the crisis currently facing men and boys. He explained that while it’s not “cool” to talk about the problems facing men — considering all the persistent problems with the so-called “patriarchy” — the statistics tell a frightening story that can’t be ignored.

Here’s the dismal truth: men are isolated socially. Fewer people attend church. Fewer children enroll in Boy or Girls scouts. Fewer people speak to their neighbors. Men are three times more likely to overdose. Four times more likely to commit suicide. Twelve times more likely to be incarcerated and suffer from depression. “On almost every statistic under the age of 30,” Galloway says, “it is harder to find a cohort that has fallen further faster than young men.”

“There are a lot of economically and emotionally unviable men,” Galloway said. “There’s going to be two female college graduates for every one [male college graduate] in the next five years.”

Add to this rampant pornography addiction, violent video games, transactional sexual relationships, and the cruel, looks-based addictive ecosystem of online dating — and we have a recipe for disaster. The pandemic didn’t help, nor does the de-criminalization of recreational drug use, and the sudden proliferation in online gambling. Here, the world says, put our your hands and pick your vice. But be careful. What you hold will soon hold you.

Addicted and isolated, men are experiencing soul death. A total and complete abdication — not just of adulthood and responsibility — but of the goodness and beauty of real life.

It would be easy to point the finger at these men and say it’s time to get your act together. But I have no interest in shaming a generation for inheriting a set of circumstances at least partly out of their control. And I’m aware these generalizations sweep across a vast landscape of personal stories. There are families I know who suffer the grief that comes with these dry “statistics.” These aren’t numbers. They are people. I don’t mean to cast blame. I only want to understand how we can do better.

Madeleine L’Engle, in her book A Circle of Quiet put it this way:

“Carl Jung disagreed with Sigmund Freud that the decisive period in our lives is the first years. Instead, Jung felt that the decisive period is that in which my husband and I are now, the period of our middle years, when we have passed through childhood with its dependency on our parents; when we’ve weathered the storms of adolescence and the first probings into the ultimate questions; when we’ve gone through early adulthood with its problems of career and marriage and bringing up our babies; and for the first time in our lives find ourselves alone before the crucial problem of who, after all these years, we are.

What a travesty to think that a huge contingent of people in our culture will never reach this decisive period of their lives. Not because they’re suffering from medical infertility, but because they chose to postpone adulthood to such a degree, that it eventually moved wholly out of reach.

How can I, as a mother of two young boys, guide them toward a good and beautiful life? How can we, as a culture, create media, art, and public policy that bring young people out of these self-inflicted caves of isolation, depression, and addiction?

Galloway advocates for larger investment in young people, greater avenues and opportunities for college education, and for more “third spaces” where men and women can meet in real life (rather than on the two-dimensional screen). I agree with him. I also believe that it’s time we address two things head-on. First, the way technology negatively impacts men and boys, turning their lust into addiction. And second, the attitudes and worldviews that keep people (of both genders) from embracing the joys that come with the responsibilities of adulthood.

When it comes to tech, there needs to be a reckoning. Documentaries like the Social Dilemma have proven what the rest of us already know is true. Social Media is sucking the soul out of us, and we’re letting it happen. What would happen if there was a multi-plaintiff super-lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram, not unlike the law suits against cigarette companies in 1999, forcing these companies to admit how they’ve defrauded Americans and led to the deaths of thousands?

When it comes to worldviews: we need more television shows, movies, books and art that bring to light the joys, not just the doldrums, of male adulthood. Think Steve Martin in Father of the Bride, and Parenthood, and Coach. Remember when there were family sitcoms that glorified the father figure? Now, we see only dysfunction on the screen. Yes, art mirrors reality — but as I writer, I also know the other business truth — dysfunction lends itself to better plots. We need better stories.

And when it comes to parenting boys, here are the ideas Patrick and I have currently leaned into, for our boys ages 5 and 3: more time outside, less time in front of a screen. More engagement in household chores, less time watching Mom do it all. More connection and service, less selfishness disguised as “self care”. More time in church community, less time alone. More open doors, less isolation.

This week the Wall Street Journal Sports writer, Jason Gay, made a plea, asking people to host Super Bowl Parties. Though seemingly unrelated to the crisis facing men and boys, I heard in his article a similar echo of the desire to push back against human isolation and perpetual childhood. “Today we watch what we want, where we want, wearing whatever we want, on our time, not anybody else’s.

“It’s convenient, but it’s bad. Social scientists have warned us for years that we’re raising communities of strangers, divorced from rituals like barbecues, church and boring town meetings. We meet neighbors only briefly while in line for power washers at the big-box store. This distance builds loneliness and worrisome habits like eating microwavable mini pizzas and typing lengthy online missives about Florida politics.”

He goes on: “It’s not enough. It’s not a full life. We need to feel each others’ warmth.”

His solution? Host a Super Bowl Party. And, hey. It’s a start.

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Recent Favorites

BOOK:
Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout. “It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us.” If you’ve been here any time at all, you will know that I love the author Elizabeth Strout. This novel chronicles a year in the life of Lucy Barton, as she moves to take shelter on the coast of Maine with her ex-husband William at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. I didn't think I was ready for a COVID novel. But then, Elizabeth Strout did what Elizabeth Strout ALWAYS does. She made something beautiful, something that felt deep and true, and resonant. Pick it up!

PURCHASE:
At the beginning of January, I spent $40 on a set of meal plans from Pinch of Yum. I have to say — it is the best money I have spent in a really really long time. My favorite recipes so far have been the Spicy Ancho Turkey Chili and Ginger Peanut Chicken. I think the ship has sailed on the meal plans, but I highly recommend Pinch of Yum!

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One Last Thing:

This Friday is my birthday, and I am heading to Birmingham for a small writing retreat with some women I have never met. Ha! So wish me luck! I am very, very thankful to have another year on this earth, and so happy that you have chosen to engage with my writing by subscribing to this newsletter.

The best birthday gift you can give me is to share this newsletter on social media, through e-mail, or by texting the link to someone you think might enjoy the content.

Thank you!