Annie’s Mailbox: Boys need goals, help getting there

Dear Annie: I read the letter from “Run Out of Ideas,” whose high-school graduate nephew plays video games in his parents’ house all day and seems to have no interest in growing up and being responsible. This nephew has lots of company.

Please address the “boy crisis” in this country. Thousands of young men in their late teens and 20s are just like the nephew: “perfectly content not to go anywhere in life.” Your advice wasn’t wrong, but it ignored the fact that his nephew represents a social trend and a problem. Maybe you should explore what’s wrong with our society that so many young men are so disinterested in being productive and pursuing success. – Waco, Texas

Dear Waco: There are plenty of young men who are productive, successful and responsible members of society. For the others, there are undoubtedly myriad reasons: difficulty in finding employment, poor wages and high turnover, substance abuse, mental illness, laziness and overly indulgent parents who issue no consequences for loitering. Studies show that job-hopping is no more excessive for this generation than previous ones. Parents have to insist that their kids be educated, find work and pay rent, or get counseling to achieve those goals. But decent employment has to be available, or recent graduates will float from job to job feeling undervalued, being underpaid and getting nowhere.

Here’s a suggestion from one of our readers:

Dear Annie: “Run Out of Ideas” should have a local military recruiter visit his nephew “Peter.” There is no better organization in the world to turn kids into adults. – John Q. Public