For decades, viewers have enjoyed the Japanese reality-TV series "Old Enough!" in which preschool children venture into the streets alone to run errands for their parents.
What if American women asked their live-in boyfriends to stop playing videogames, leave their couches and run errands? In the Saturday Night Life sketch "Old Enough! Longterm Boyfriends!" guest host Selena Gomez asked her helpless boyfriend of three years, played by cast member Mikey Day, to buy her eyeliner and two shallots.
This man-baby ends up in tears with a big bag of onions and "a blush palette for African-American women." The frustrated girlfriend says she may need a mid-morning glass of wine.
There was wisdom in that comedy, for pastors willing to see it, said sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.
"There's a whole class of young men who are not flourishing personally and professionally. … The systems have broken down that help raise up attractive, successful men. Churches used to be one of those support systems," he said, reached by telephone.
"The future of the church runs through solid marriages and happy families. The churches that find ways to help men and women prepare for marriage and then encourage them to start families are the churches that will have a future."
The crisis is larger than lonely, under-employed and Internet-addicted men. Rising numbers of young women are anxious, depressed and even choosing self-harm and suicide.
The coronavirus pandemic made things worse, but researchers were already seeing danger signs, noted San Diego State psychology professor Jean Twenge, in a recent Institute for Family Studies essay. She is the author of the book "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy -- and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood -- and What That Means for the Rest of Us."
"Something began to go wrong in the lives of teens about 10 years ago," she noted. "At first, I had no idea why teen depression was increasing so much. … But then I noticed some big trends in teens' social lives: They were spending less time with their friends in-person, and more time online. That tends not to be a good formula for mental health, especially among girls and especially when that online time is spent on social media."
Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center study found that most single U.S. adults, even before the coronavirus, were depressed about dating and building relationship. This past February, 70% of those surveyed said "their dating lives are not going well."
The survey summary noted: "A majority of single Americans overall are off the dating market -- 56% say they are not currently looking for a relationship or casual dates, up slightly from 50% in 2019. Among the 44% who are currently looking, 32% say they are looking only for a committed relationship, 16% are looking only for casual dates, and about half are open to either a relationship or dates."
It's logical to link these numbers with U.S. birth rates, which have been falling for more than a decade. During the pandemic, the fertility rate experienced its largest single-year fall in 50 years, to 1.6 per women, then rebounded slightly to 1.7 in 2021 -- well below the population replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman.
These trends should be of special concern to clergy, since religious faith plays a pivotal role in deciding who gets married and who does not, according to Brian Willoughby of the Brigham Young University School of Family Life.
When researchers study "the raw number of marriages in the U.S., a clear and unique pattern emerges," he wrote, for the Institute for Family Studies. "Despite steady population increases each year, the number of marriages has been decreasing over the last 20 years."
What does religious faith have to do with this?
"Recent findings confirm what I and others have been noting for several years," he added. "Marriage is slowly becoming an institution mostly utilized by the religious, who continue to view marriage as a symbolic representation of life-long commitment to one's partner. While non-religious couples certainly value commitment and still get married, more and more non-religious couples are opting for long-term cohabitation, while an increasing number of individuals in the U.S. and Europe are electing to remain single."
NEXT WEEK: Is there anything faith groups can do to help?