The Good Men Have Gone Geek

Many of you have no doubt seen the Wall Street Journal Saturday essay entitled "Where Have All the Good Men Gone?" Its author, Kay S. Hymowitz, makes the point that a large percentage of modern men are stuck in a "pre-adulthood" where they obsess over things like Star Wars and video games to the detriment of the "milestones" of adulthood.

From the moment I read Hymowitz's piece, I knew it would need to be rebutted, but Tracy V. Wilson from the awesome FanStuff blog at HowStuffWorks beat me to the punch. From Tracy's well-crafted and even-keeled riposte, WSJ Mistakes Fandom for Immaturity:

"I wish ... Hymowitz understood that 'Star Wars,' video games and other geeky pursuits do not instantly turn grown men into glorified frat boys who can barely take care of themselves, and that not all—or even not many—of the grown men who are into these things are incapable of being husbands and fathers."

Couldn't have said it better myself. Tracy even mentions GeekDad and our sister-site GeekMom as sites exemplifying geeks who are capable of handling grown-up stuff like, y'know, parenting.

While Hymowitz makes some interesting arguments about the impact of feminism and the "knowledge economy" on this outbreak of Peter Pan syndrome, she also appears to have a very narrow mindset on what it means to be successful as an adult. Maybe we should send her a copy of the New York Times Bestselling Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share and show her that many of those geeky tendencies she's disparaging can result in some of the coolest dads (and moms) around.