Why Do So Many Middle-Aged Men Feel So Lost?

Men currently in their midyears are caught between their traditional silent, strong and austere fathers who went to work and provided for their families, and the more progressive, open and individualistic generation of their sons. They do not know which of these two very different ways of life and masculine culture they should follow.”

The pressure to live up to what the report describes as a “masculine ‘gold standard’ which prizes power, control and invincibility” can turn personal troubles such as losing a job into a crisis in a way that it might not for women. The sense of suffering “defeat as a man” can be more acute in middle age, when the responsibilities are greatest.

The result? Men of this generation are in crisis. We often focus on teenage boys and their problems, ranging from depression to delinquency, or on women and they role in socieity, from young and single to working mother to stay-at-home woman. Yet we rarely look at the role of men, especially middle-aged men – and the problem does not only apply to those who have suffered from the familiar seismic shifts in their lives, such as divorce or the loss of a job.