Is Western culture stopping people from growing up? (opens in new tab)

I'm growing up in the West and I can't find any impulse within me to be a man. It was never prioritized or taught in a tangible way. Im 25 and I still don't have the essence of a man like my father. There's that aura that older men have that younger guys don't. Its missing from me and I think that other cultures do it better. I have a friend from Kuwait who is only 2 years older than me and is strikingly masculine. He acts completely different from me and has a clear boundary of what is childish and what is not. I can't help but think there is no male role model in western culture.

I read an article that blamed the issue on the last 6 years of formal school. There was a time when kids would attend 6 or so years of school and then move on to the adult world. Childish tendencies were scolded out of the kids as they grew into adults and started interacting with adults. The current school system keeps all kids in school until they become adults. They learn from their peers in the same age range. So it's ok if they act a certain way since their other peers do the same. It's ok to keep the childhood toys until adulthood since there is no peer pressure to change. It's even encouraged. Given enough generations, what used to be childish behavior has become the norm in society.

A case in point, Disney was commenting that there are too many adults at Disneyland that attend without kids.

A thesis of The Xenophobe's Guide to the Americans (1994) is that US Americans are much easier to deal with if one thinks of us as teenagers who have never grown up, which suggests the noted issue, if it exists, (a) is not new, and (b) may be more specific than "Western culture".

I find these discussions so tiresome. Yes, young people are cringe, but people learn quickly and will adapt as needed. If you're worried about losing to other countries, don't. If people want to win they will work hard as long as they're allowed to and capable of it, and young people in the west are still very free and capable. Everything else is people getting mad that other people prioritize different things.

Reminds me of when Simon Pegg posted online about it. I can’t seem to find the original but this sums it up: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/simon-pegg-adults-...