I listen to a lot of theological, social, and political commentary on my iPod. One theme I keep hearing, especially among Christian commentators, is that today’s kids aren’t expected to “grow up” the same way they used to be. There are two trends I’ve seen in our culture, or at least highlighted by commentators, but I’ve never seen the two trends discussed together as related topics.

The first tend I keep hearing about is for men to continue being boys even into physical and chronological adulthood. You can blame it on a lack of fathers. You can blame it on video games. You can blame it on poor discipline. Blame it on whatever you want, but we’re being told that more and more twenty-something males are taking on less and less responsibility. We’re told they all stay indoors and play their PlayStation 3’s, watch Family Guy DVDs, and get pizza delivery to their homes (read: mom’s basement) all day.

I don’t know if this is true nationwide or not. I do see a lot of twenty-something’s in my area who are just slackers, but that may just be human nature. When many of my peers, especially those from high school, find out that I’ll be 25 next month, have been married for almost four years, have two kids, and am a bi- (or soon, tri-) vocational pastor, I get the same blank stare I see in the catatonic psychiatric patients in the IMHU at the local hospital. And I’m not an overachiever. Any of you who read this blog and know me personally know that I have a bad tendency to be a slacker.

The second tend I hear about, is for girls to be hyper-sexualized into incredibly young “women.” Now that 8-year olds are buying (they have more money than me?!) makeup, and shopping for bras and thongs at Victoria’s Secret, we have an entire generation of single-digit “women”. Barbie is one thing, but the culture and message presented by the newer doll toys for these kids is amazing. Take a look at the Bratz line, and then tell me Princess Barbie isn’t a wholesome toy for our post-post-post-postmodern (which iteration are we now?) culture. There are one or two little girls in my church who fit into this category. It breaks my heart. They are boy crazy even before puberty, using appearance and flirtation to get attention.

So, combine the two trends together, and what do you get? Start with thirty-year-old women who have been “adult” for twenty years and have the spiritual, emotional, and even physical scars from decades of trying to get male attention. Then add thirty-year-old men who are just waking up from their pre-teen years, who have been emotionally disconnected and disinterested in any meaningful pursuits, except that of spiritual, emotional, and physical pleasure. Mix in a theoretical fifteen-year social development gap, and bake for a year and a half. Recipe yields one nuclear-level relationship meltdown, two people who have significantly different priorities and values fail to integrate into one cohesive unit.

Clearly, there is considerable room for debate in these issues, and some may not even agree with the statement that women are “growing up too quick” and men are “growing up too slow”. However, I think there may be some truth to those statements, and the implications are interesting, and scary.

When I was in Bible College, multiple guys failed out because they were busy playing Halo to go to class, sleep, or eat. Some of those same guys got married to very career- and ministry-oriented women. As with any marriage, as two become one, stress and tension ensued. I don’t know if any of these folks have divorced, but statistics show that the church doesn’t do any better than the world in the realm of marital success, so I am sure the juvenile habits have caused issues in some of those marriages.

Maybe I’m wrong, but if these social trends are true, in a general sense, is it any wonder so many relationships, and marriages in particular, end in failure?

Will the church stand up to redeem and reform the roles of boys and girls, men and women, in culture? (And I’m not even talking about gender roles as it applies to offices in the church, headship, and all the rest, though that may well be the next related topic one would address).

And if all history moves in pendulum swings, from one extreme to another, will my son Elijah, and my daughter Moriah, be part of a more socially conservative generation that will over-stress gender roles to the point of oppression, and become puritanical in regards to entertainment?

I hope not. Redemption is great, but over-reaction may be worse than what we have now.

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