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Every day, more men and boys choose to drop out of school, quit their jobs, and drop out of society altogether. They pursue distractions, pursue comfort, and lose the sense of purpose that once drove them to live lives with meaning and ambition.
We need to turn this around.
In 1998 I started my heavy metal band, All That Remains, and over the last 25 years we’ve performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, mostly young men. I’ve had countless conversations with them, and their stories are often harrowing.
Without a purpose, and in a society that places little value on boys and men, many simply choose to remove themselves from society altogether. (Courtesy of iStock, contributor JulPo)
I hear about addiction, depression and feelings of hopelessness. Some people say that my music has helped them find a little light in the darkness. And while I’m glad that there are people out there who feel that way, it’s a big problem when so many people feel the same way.
This epidemic is America’s modern civil rights challenge.
The foundations of strong societies are built on family, faith and community, and without strong masculine figures and role models, these foundations begin to crumble.
I was fortunate to have a father who taught me what it meant to be a man. My dad was a blue-collar man from Western Massachusetts who was a machinist, construction worker, entrepreneur, and business owner.
We didn’t do the same kind of work, but he was and always will be the type of man I aspire to be. A lot of young men today don’t have that, and it shows.
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According to a report from the National Fatherhood Initiative, 17.5 million children, or 1 in 4, are growing up in homes without a father. That’s a huge number. The study also shows that children who grow up in fatherless homes are more likely to experience poverty, drug use, and incarceration.
But this isn’t just about father absence. Spaces where only men and boys can interact are becoming increasingly rare. This trend is problematic for several reasons.
Firstly, it reflects our lack of value in men, which can be seen as an open hostility towards men and boys by society, and secondly, because we do not value men, men no longer feel their value in society and choose to withdraw from society altogether.
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One area where this is evident is education, where the academic achievement of boys and men is declining most. Over the past decade, the rate at which young Americans attend college has steadily declined. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of young college students who are young men has fallen from 47% in 2011 to just 44% today.
And this education gap is spilling over downstream into the job market, where, as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., points out in his report, “The State of Men in Work and Out,” men are less likely to participate in traditionally male occupations.
Rubio points out, “In 1985, the median man’s wage was enough to pay for comprehensive health insurance, reliable transportation, good housing, healthy food, and college tuition, with 20 percent left for other consumption and savings. In 2022, that same man would still be 10 weeks short if he worked a year to afford middle-class essentials.”
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It’s not just about money: In the United States, men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women, according to data from the National Institute of Mental Health. Plus, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, men are more likely to turn to illegal drugs, start using alcohol and drugs at a younger age, and are more likely than women to end up in the emergency room or die from drug use.
Without a purpose, and in a society that places little value on boys and men, many simply choose to remove themselves from society altogether.
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These issues are close to my heart because I feel the same. I have been through the same things. If things had been different, I might have ended up struggling with addiction, loneliness and depression, just like so many other men.
I believe we are at a tipping point — I’m not the first to say this, and I won’t be the last — if we don’t take these issues seriously, we stand to lose an entire generation of men and the families that they build, and that’s something that society cannot afford to lose.
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