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Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

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Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#571
post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree with this for 18-19 year olds, but at some point (25? 30?) it really does seem like coddling, or enabling at least. At some point you have to move out and support yourself.

Why does it seem like coddling? What do you mean by coddling?

"Pamper, pander to". Perhaps it's a loaded word but as a parent who may some day be facing this situation (from the parent point of view) I feel like I'm justified in my judgement.

FWIW I do have friends that were forced out of the house at 18. At the time I was the same age and I thought it was harsh. Many years later though, I can see that it worked out just fine.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note, on mainstream TV/articles about declining marriage/birthrates in the West, it's common to see criticisms about modern Western men. How women can't find life partners because men aren't masculine enough anymore, don't want to grow up, don't get educated etc. But very rarely do you see any criticism or even questioning about modern Western women and what men want in a woman. Only what women want. The…

> Degrees don't make you marriage material. This gets said so much on fora with men who regard themselves as “redpilled”, but it makes no sense to me personally. As a bookish and arts-inclined person, so much of my worldview, the things that occupy my thoughts during the day, has been formed by the canon of literature, music, films. No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudi…

I knew a few women who went to college specifically for the purpose of finding a man to marry, with their goal being a stay at home mother and wife to a lawyer or doctor or something wealthy sounding.

They were as physically attractive as they were emotionally shallow. There is much much more to a person than an education.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How long does it take to learn how to drive You're not wrong generally, but this one costs about $1000 where I live, which is close to average national monthly salary and approximately twice the minimum salary. Not pocket change for someone who has trouble finding work (and many jobs require driver's license).

Just to add to the story. My sister claimed for 10+ years she had the DMV book and just needed to study it before getting her permit. She said this repeatedly to my father and brother and no one questioned her. For 10+ years. Then a year ago I just called a driving school near my parents house on her behalf. I offered to pay for everything including study time and taxi rides to and from the school. Whatever it took.…

Is someone enabling this behavior in her life? My sister is the same way. My parents enabled her for a decade. Now she is 34 and has minimal life skills and no real job skills to speak of. She just works at a day care. It is a tragedy, but my parents bail her out every time and they barely have many resources themselves. My sister can at least drive and has mostly had a job for a few years now... but that is a recent development.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#574
post #557

>The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. Men are socially adept in their society and a society of their peers. Just not in this one which seeks to break them down and punishes them for not being women.

When all you’ve known is privilege, equality can feel like oppression.

Todays boys have only known privilege until today that they are suddenly equal? How does that work?

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#575
post #559

Men are not doing as well as women in school. If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. In addition, there doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men. The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. This all feels like the perfect storm and there are plenty of people who act like "men…

Bullshit. There are problems but it's not because of some "war on masculinity". The real issues are economic.

It is mostly economic, but there is also a constant attack on masculinity in young boys.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#576
post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More succinctly, why work when we have nothing to work for? Anecdotally, I just graduated from university and am gainfully employed. I'm really happy to be employed, yet I quickly realized that I have no idea what I want to do with all this money. I'm never going to be able to buy a house. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about having kids, and don't think I can afford children in the first place. I have no major li…

Why do you say that you're never going to be able to buy a house, but maybe will end up retiring before you're 40? Sounds like, in lieu of anything else, you should try and buy a rental property or two. Start slow, eventually FIRE, that whole thing. That said, yeah, the same sentence could then be applied but with time: "why retire when I have nothing to do with my time?" I'm 30 and still don't have a great answer fo…

>Why do you say that you're never going to be able to buy a house, but maybe will end up retiring before you're 40?

It's not necessarily about being able to afford a house, but rather about whether home ownership is the best option financially when compared to other options. 20 years ago, homes were so cheap that I'd be willing to buy a home just for the sake of being a homeowner and enjoying the security that entailed. However, nowadays with sky high housing prices, home ownership would need to provide concrete financial benefits when compared to other investments.

Admittedly I'd likely be more motivated to look into buying a house if I wanted children.

>Sounds like, in lieu of anything else, you should try and buy a rental property or two. Start slow, eventually FIRE, that whole thing.

Yes this is the path I am most likely to go down. Buying some rental properties and retiring relatively young is an attractive option.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#577
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. Oklahoma has a 4% unemployment rate and a very low cost of living. Some other states are similar. Anyone who's willing to show up and work hard can survive there.

I'd much rather stay on welfare/parents basement and play video games all day than move to oklahoma and work min wage

The US doesn't have perpetual welfare for non-disabled people. Hopefully your parents love you enough to not allow you to live as a parasite.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But who raises the next generation under that scenario? Immigrants, of course, but what does that say about what American society has become? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/24/will-birt... (Will births in the US rebound? Probably not.) People respond to incentives. Living and having children in the US is expensive, so the results are what you’d expect. Maybe we don’t need replacement rate, except f…

Historically, only a % of the population ever reproduced. About the same as do today. The difference is that the couples that do have children, have much fewer children. 2, instead of 4. We need to look at the costs faced by couples with a lot of children. For example, you can accommodate 2 children in a standard 3 bedroom house, but 4 or 5 children are going to need a much larger and more expensive dwelling. Same th…

"Historically, only a % of the population ever reproduced. About the same as do today"

What is "historically"? Is that in a society of cavemen where most men died before reaching maturity? Is that a polygamous tribal society? Is it ancient Rome where peasants had families and had loads of kids to help with farm work? Are we talking post-renaissance, where vast majority of people had families and contraception was non existent, so basically everyone had kids?

What is a%, 100%? 90%?

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#580

>The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. Men are socially adept in their society and a society of their peers. Just not in this one which seeks to break them down and punishes them for not being women.

There’s a lot of validity to the social struggles of men in a lot of online discourse, but to say “society“ punishes us for not being women flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success.

Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically. Buying into that victim complex is a distraction from your own self-development and healing.

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