(A piece I wrote just before I decided it was time to head to the dreaded Emergency Room 
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Why do there seem to be so very, very many little boys disguised as men among my generation?
There is some confusion as to what generation I belong to as my parents waited until they were in their mid-thirties to have children, unlike most of the baby boomer cohort. Thus, I am by default a member of “Generation X”, but also belong to, what are they calling us slightly younger folk nowadays, “millennials”?
So, I’m speaking about the current population of “men”, around age 20-40 by now, as they have parents that were baby boomers, products of the end of World War II….
Who live in their mother’s basement. Who don’t know how to do their own laundry. Who still have mommy sit as an audience when rehearsing for a school/work presentation. Who expect someone else to clean up after they have broken a glass. Who have never once in their lives used a vacuum or a mop. Who spend any income, often not income but money donated by mommy or a girlfriend, on video games, marijuana, and Internet pornography. Who experiment with food in the kitchen at times, attempting to “cook”, but do not clean up when their experiment fails to work out. Who have no idea how to deal with bureaucracy. Who still have bank accounts attached to their parents’ in case an emergency deposit needs to be made. Who, if they do live on their own, live in cyclones of garbage that make sitting on the dirty floor the only conceivable option for a guest, or the only possible place for sex. Who borrow their parents cars and pretend that they are their own to impress a potential girlfriend. Who throw a temper tantrum when some kind of work/bureaucractic/other stressor comes up, demanding that someone in their proximity (usually mommy, a girlfriend, or a sister – these man-children have been socialized to believe that women are the ones who “take care” of any such matter, as well as their personal well-being) to fix it at once. Who ask, “why would I do that?!?!” and look at you like you’re half-mad, when you offer, for a change, to show him how to do something instead of just doing it for him. Who often miss the toilet completely (I don’t understand how this is possible. I can aim better with my vagina.) but don’t bother to clean up their smelly mess. Who are so careless with their belongings that iPods, discs, cell phones, etc. have to constantly be replaced, at least in part with funds from mommy or a girlfriend. Who think that sex with a lover should resemble a pornographic film. Who threaten to hurt themselves, quit school/work, or some other nonsense, if a desire cannot be immediately fulfilled. Who don’t even bother to put ‘em in the dishwasher, much less the sink. Who start blabbering like toddlers and twitching if you ever bring up the suggestion that some of this child-like behaviour should change. Who, on the rare occasion of discovering one of their flaws, project it onto whoever they are confessing it to?
What social phenomenon occurred during the actual childhood of these “men” such that they have now been adults for some time, but would be absolutely unable to survive without the assistance of a woman? Their parents are/were, baby boomers, so-called “war children”, thus they were young children during the 1950s – ah yes, the decade of the revival of the “cult of domesticity” in American culture. When I think of the 1950s all I can think of are images – of Norman Rockwell paintings of nuclear families, and of women with their hair curled, lipstick perfectly applied, wearing a dress, garters, and an apron and high heeled shoes. The women with the perfect smiles that had dinner ready for their man, never a minute late…wow, who knew I even had some guilt about not matching up to an image of 1950s “ideal femininity”.
If this was how girls of this generation were socialized to act, as housewives and mothers that were never seen without make-up and worked like robots, happily completing the same routine every day to ensure plenty of time for grooming, household cleanliness, and making a new dish every night, this makes some sense. But then the 1960s and 1970s happened, and I thought something called “feminism” was revived then, and women burnt the stereotypical gender roles they were supposed to conform to along with their bras. I thought that many “career women” proudly carried themselves in a workplace full of men that she managed in the later 1970s and 1980s. I thought that those 1950s stereotypes were now only referred to jokingly, like on those fridge magnets with a “classic” 1950s woman winking, a feminist or subversive statement coming out of her mouth in a cartoon bubble – like this one I have on my own refrigerator.
Was that entire period of somewhat radical activity in America just collectively forgotten? I have written before of baby-boomers’ failure to remember the battles of civil rights movements and hold on to the socialist and anarchist values that they held so dear to them “back in those days”, trading them for material comforts as soon as there was an economic boom, and voting in conservative governments in the United States, Canada, and the UK (Reagan/Bush;Mulroney;Thatcher) that personified everything they rallied against when they were younger, seemingly not to worried about the world would look like when their offspring came of age. What made most men trade in their ponytail and tie-dye t-shirt for a suit and tie? And these “career women” – how many of them ended up: 1) quitting their jobs and becoming housewives, just like their mothers, just with a bit of a chip on their shoulder, or 2) working the “doubleday” so successfully that they managed to raise sons who have no idea how to take care of themselves – hygenically, nutritionally, financially, emotionally, or spiritually.
We’ve all heard the news clips about “23 being the new 18″ and such, but this goes deeper than that. Women, who are taught to be caregivers and “nurturers” by their mothers do become women somewhere between those ages, completely self-sufficient, and very aware of how to do the dishes or the laundry since they’ve been helping mommy out since they were 6. But mommy forgot to teach her sons how to do the same basic tasks that are so very necessary in life? On average, young adults of all sexes live “at home” for longer periods of time, but only these “men” often go back, choosing being waited on over independence – often they go back “for good”, or, I suppose until they marry a woman and move in with her? At which time she’s supposed to take over mommy’s role…and at which time she hopefully says “no way”. The aforementioned “material comforts” that this generation acquired, and the numerous low-interest loans they were able to take out without penalty (well, until the recent recession 
) also make it possible for a “family” to financially support a son for an indefinite period of time – he only needs food and watering and gasoline, and he sure deserves surprise gifts “just because I love you and am so proud of you, my brilliant son” once and a while, keeping him clothed and entertained.
Basically, it seems like the hippies brought up a generation of men, the majority of which are completely useless without a full-time female maid, cook, sex-machine, and secretary. They brought up a generation identical to that of their own fathers’, the fathers that they resented, promising themselves that they would not spend their lives attending to the every desire of a half-drunk husband who “has cheated in the past but promised me he would never do it again”. Now the women of my generation are expected to fulfill the roles of their mothers, this word functioning on a few different levels here..?? Somehow I don’t see many of them making the choice to do so.
I suppose there are many women in my generation who have dreamed about that white dress and rings and cakes since they were little girls, who have been waiting to marry the first man who tells her that “she is beautiful”. My heart goes out to these women. They have no idea what they’re getting into.
As I dated man-children from age 17 to 24, before finding a real man who I can have a reciprocal relationship with, I am terribly interested in this phenomenon. I would love to hear any other theories as to why these men are stuck in five year-old-dom. The ones that I have come up with make me very, very angry at my own mother’s generation, though not at her specifically, as she died when I was young and never had a son, so I did not get to witness first hand the differential socialization of boys and girls during a supposed “progressive” era. Actually, I couldn’t see her allowing a male of any age to piss all over a bathroom 
She certainly didn’t put up with any shit from my dad…although she did launder and press his shirts and dinner was always ready by 5:30 pm sharp…:roll:
The motivation for writing this post came from the recent exchanges I had with Evan*, whose identity won’t remain sealed for long as he comments on this blog, and has apparently been reading it long before he got back in contact with me. He has no concept of a life where one is responsible for their own self-confidence, success, and grocery shopping. The lack of progress he had made towards adulthood was immediately obvious when I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to try being “friends” yet, and he responded in a 1:30, incoherent video clip showing the tornado which I’m sure had just hit his previously clean room 
It did not look suitable for human life. I refriended him to avoid receiving anymore disturbing video clips, or dramatic suicide threats. And he just had to tell me that he was now “scared for my life and incredibly upset that I’m physically ill but,” about how “deeply hurt” he was because…
…last summer when he was using cocaine and heroin and collecting Employment Insurance and sick-leave, telling the government as well as his employer that he was suffering from the extremes of mania and depression, that “bipolar disorder” was the reason for his “erratic” behaviour at the call-centre (oooh! Another pattern – a terrible lot of these men, if employed, work at call centres!!!). I was extremely angry when I caught wind of this, as people suffering from mental/physical illness beyond their control should be the recipients of these very hard to get funds – indeed, Empoyment Insurance claims are nearly impossible to file, so he must have been getting help from mommy or auntie or another woman.
He compared this sentiment of mine as being equal to the pain he caused me by refusing to listen to (or remember) tearful, daily lectures to try to get him to stop destroying himself for 2 months, during which I was doing my final work necessary to graduate, as well as being the only T.A., a position requiring some dedication, for my department during exam/final paper season, as well as his tendency to very loudly call me names, most often “whore”, in public. Oh, and all of the money I donated to supporting him after his funds ran out in January after buying boy-toys.
This will have been my last attempt to converse with a man-child. If I want to speak with a child, I will look for a child. I refuse to let this unfortunately large sector of my generation take up any of my time or energy, ever again, as it is a pathetic and fruitless cause.
I will end with this “apology” I received from Evan*, commenting on my piece on destroying art, about a week ago. Any further comments will be automatically sent to the spam box, so don’t waste your time.
“My mom didn’t destroy those collages intentionally, but she didn’t exercise very much caution in moving them. She didn’t understand the importance of them, and trust me, I’ve already screamed at her for her carelessness until I ran out of energy. It was no use.
I still have a couple of your collages though. I’ve done my best to preserve them. It’s a particularly difficult medium to preserve over years (magazine papers are unstable, the glue gradually loses its stick, any time you have to move them from one residence to another something will tear…). I guess eventually I’ll take some photos of those which remain and preserve them digitally. Even the Sistine Chapel will collapse one day, but if we code the visual impression in some condensed file (ie. 0100101110101…) and then put it on a satellite and send it to the Andromeda Galaxy, immortality (or something close) is not so far fetched.
Anyway don’t get too angry at my Mom about that, she just didn’t understand… But I did, so I tried to keep it in as good condition as I could.”
Seriously. Defending mommy, who I watched rip the collages I had made with a dear friend out of items I had collected for five years, anticipating making the collage – no, the mural, as it took up an entire wall – before I could tell her to “STOP!!!”
Man-children, you do not have the right to tell me what I should and should not be angry about. As you have given me no indication that you respect me, why should I respect anything you say to me?
Mommy, how can you justify destroying something that had obviously taken hours and hours to make, never mind the artistic and personal significance it held, made by another woman, the piece also obviously expressing those same “feminist” and other radical values that were once an important part of your identity?
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