Why Men aren’t Growing Up.

Over the past several years, there has been an intense discussion about youths never growing up. More specifically, men, never moving from adolescence to adulthood.

Articles dating all the way back to 2007, coming from all corners of the globe, and repeated by some reputable sources have been springing up with different outlooks on the subject.

I want to throw a wrench in this topic. Sure, I’d say men aren’t growing up in the old definition of growing up. But why? It’s impossible for them to.

My understood definition of growing up: getting a job, moving into your own house, settling down with a family, kids, wife, what-have-you.

Why is that impossible now? Money. The root of all evil. What average 25 year old has the money to go purchase a brand new home, or even the solidarity of lifestyle that allows that? What two young people just starting out in life have the funds or careers that allow them to begin raising children?

The short answer is very, very few.

It’s flat out cheaper to not grow up. Splitting living costs with roommates is obviously cheaper. Living in apartments with short term leases or renting homes allow for flexibility in your residence so you can move when a career affords it.

Babycenter.com estimates, not including saving for college, that raising a child from birth to 18 years old will cost an estimated $220,000+ or over $12,000 a year. I personally don’t have that short of income to just move around.

So why are men refusing to grow up? Because it’s damn expensive to, thats why!

Good Questions and My Workplace

There is a long standing phrase, “There is no such thing as a bad question.”

I want to refute that. There is most certainly a bad question. I constantly get asked bad questions, and it is rather frustrating. (A funny sidenote, while typing that sentence through Google Docs, spell check flags “bad” as an incorrect spelling of good. I’m not even kidding.)

A large portion of Corporate America is constantly pushing their managers and leaders to be more “HR Friendly” or rather “Lawsuit Paranoid”. No longer can someone be reprimanded, less the company get put into hot water for discrimination. My place of work, specifically, has to go through two verbal warnings, and five written warnings within a rolling 12-month calendar before someone can be held accountable for their actions — and that is for a specific type of occurrence. Attendance and performance are not tracked on the same paper trail, for instance.

After years and years here, I’ve realized this attitude towards discipline or “seeking to understand” helps people that shouldn’t be afforded the jobs they have hold onto them for the sake of getting a paycheck. A direct result of that being those that are more capable or intelligent in their current position being forced to constantly coach these people along their day-to-day tasks.

Here is where those bad questions come into play. I am rather convinced that these questions are not brought up from a curiosity or the seeking of knowledge, but as a way to decrease their own mental investment to the least amount possible. They are not asked in an effort to understand the task at hand or thought of in a sense of solution. The answers received are not written down, practiced, or noted for later. And the worst situation of all, the questions aren’t even asked hoping for an answer, but asked in hoping that the person that was asked will take care of the situation themselves.

And those, my friends, are bad questions.

I have been asking myself for a while what to do with situations like this, and quite frankly, I’ve got nothing. I typically fall into that last category — I just take care of it. I do this because I can get it done quickly, I get the satisfaction that it’s done, and I don’t have to look at a long chain of emails later on covering why it wasn’t done. It’s easier that way.