I'm A Millennial And I've Noticed Gen-Z Has A Serious Man-Child Problem — 'Coddled, Babied, And Enabled By Their Parents'
A frantic phone call today made me realize how dire things are with the Gen-Z generation.
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Dave* called my husband and me, on the verge of going on a full-fury drive of rage to his ex-boyfriend James’s* house. We were, to a point, waiting on this call because James was already problematic. However, even we were shocked at how bad it got.
You see, it’s hard to anger Dave. Dave is a stoic type of man. He doesn’t shake easily. He is an old soul who has seen his fair amount of bad stuff. During the day, he works a solid “Joe Everyman” job to pay the bills.
He’s an adult in every meaning of the word. He pays his bills and his taxes. He takes care of his son. When there’s an issue with his house, he whips out his tool belt and fixes it.
James is his childhood friend, and he’s the polar opposite of Dave. James is the same age as Dave but has never held a job for longer than six months. He still lives with his parents, whom he doesn’t help. He doesn’t do chores.
He has no responsibilities and throws a fit any time people try to get him to pitch in. When he does get a paycheck, he spends several hundred dollars of it on cannabis. He also tends to pressure people for intimacy, including Dave.
Dave tried tirelessly to get James to grow up. It didn’t work. Eventually, things tore after Dave got lectured by James about being immature. James lost it and dumped him. Since then, James has been badmouthing Dave with claims of abuse.
His crime? Telling him to get a job and telling him that he doesn’t want to pick up after James. Dave lost his mind when he found out the rumors about him. And that’s where our story leads us.
While talking Dave down from the edge of calling James out publicly, he said something striking: Gen-Z has a man-child problem.
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Dave is a gay man, though many acquaintances would never guess it because of his rugged looks and mannerisms. This is very important because I was not expecting this to come out of a man.
Dave said, “I’m 26 years old. I’m too tired and I’m too scared of men these days. I don’t trust that they like me for me. I always think they’re there for my money, my house, or just using me for intimacy. It’s as if I’m just a means to an end for them, and all I want is a partner.”
My jaw dropped. So, this wasn’t just a matter of cishet men. It’s a trend affecting men of all identities in their 20s. And it’s getting worse by the day.
This is a deeply gendered issue affecting Gen-Z men.
Statistically speaking, women are killing it right now. They are more likely to go to college and graduate than men. They are also one of the fastest-growing demographics of business owners.
Men, however, have been floundering. They’ve been dropping out of the workforce, dropping out of college, and also being increasingly likely to be radicalized. The vast majority of NEETs — Not in Employment, Education, or Training — are young men.
In the past, I’ve written about how many men rely on women for their social lives, emotional labor, and social status. I’ve also written about how many men just don’t even show up to a date they manage to score.
Men are increasingly unwilling to work on themselves, better their lives, or even take a chance on relationships. Yet, they’re increasingly audacious in their demands of the potential partners around them. My people, we’re witnessing the growth of Generation Manchild.
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The problems of being a Gen-Z manchild are manifold.
Having seen people who have had arrested development in their lives, I’ve seen what happens when you finally have to be an adult without any practice before. It’s awful. People who are stuck in “Kidult Mode” have a lot of problems that will get worse with age, including:
- Foul work records. Good luck trying to get a good job when your history shows you in low-effort, low-paying roles for six months at a time, max. Starting a business is not easy, either. If you’re relying on a business to make ends meet without having experience in that field, you’re going to have a very bad time.
- Poor financial decisions. If I had a dollar for every kidult (or manchild) that spent a fortune on a credit card because it was “free money,” I wouldn’t have had to declare bankruptcy.
- Mooching. Men who couch surf are not attractive and women are getting tired of it. We all know that no one falls in love faster than a homeless guy who spots a homeowner.
- Poor social skills. Unsurprisingly, manchildren don’t tend to stay in relationships for very long. They’re often intolerable.
- Low emotional intelligence. As a person who’s dated manchildren, I can attest that most of these guys don’t even know what they want. A lot of them want mommy-bangmaid hybrids that are social status-worthy. The problem is, that they balk when they realize they have to bring something to the table.
- Social isolation. The more you fall behind others in maturity, the lonelier you will become. Healthy, functional adults don’t want to hang out with overgrown kids.
- Poor mental health. This is often a “chicken and egg” thing. Are they failures to launch because of their mental health, or is their failure to launch affecting their mental health? It’s hard to tell.
Of course, they also hurt those who try to support them. Manchildren do not care about anyone but themselves. They don’t want to give back. They don’t act as real partners to their dates, nor do they behave like good sons to their parents.
This is an issue that often has a narcissistic streak associated with it. So, you better believe that they tend to leave a trail of destruction in their wake — especially to those who try to hold them accountable.
Dates should be particularly leery of the men who fail to launch. The more leeway people give these guys, the worse they seem to behave. It’s not unusual for these men to use people for money or randomly abandon partners.
And if you’re a woman, be extremely careful around manchildren. They often become more abusive the more you bend over backward to please them. It’s almost as if they want to break women to prove a point.
On a societal level, the growing number of Gen-Z manchildren has dire consequences.
What happens when you have a growing number of people unwilling to work jobs, provide for themselves, or even be halfway decent dates? Well, not good things, that’s for sure: poverty, mental illness, crime, and radicalization.
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As more men drop out of society, they lose the benefits that come from being part of an uplifting community. There’s a reason why misogyny and man-children go hand in hand. It’s because seeing women achieve when they fail burns them up. Bad actors use misogyny as a way to gain more money and power.
Bad actors target Manchildren because they’re the easiest marks out there. We’re already seeing many men with arrested development get radicalized by Red Pill influencers. Red Pillers tend to encourage manchildren to avoid meaningful self-improvement and self-reflection. This creates a feedback loop that makes them increasingly hopeless about the future.
In real life, I’ve already heard a bunch of men blame women for their lack of success. Red Pill radicals encourage them to think that way — and often encourage them to avoid self-reflection on how their actions hurt others. As the 2024 election showed, this has serious political implications.
Coddling the Gen-Z man-child is not the answer.
Every single manchild I’ve ever met was coddled, babied, and enabled by his parents — most often his mom or wife. Every manchild I’ve ever met also somehow painted himself as a victim, especially when people called him out on his lies.
This is an effect of bad parenting, full stop. It’s what happens when parents don’t discipline their sons and keep tiptoeing around them. All this does is kick the can down the road, worsening the outcome.
The best thing that one can do for a member of Generation Manchild is to let them hit rock bottom: Kick them out of the house. Cut off their internet and phone use unless it’s to get a job. Hold them accountable when they do something hurtful to others.
If it seems harsh, that’s because it is. There are times when you have to be cruel to be kind, and this is one of them. Nothing is more humbling than being forced to hit the real world and deal with consequences. And nothing will make you get your life together faster than having life hit you in the balls. Who knows? Maybe they’ll gain a little empathy along the way.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.