The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Lately I’ve been reading about a new phenomenon out there in the world of media sociology: the lack of men working manly jobs.  If I’m to believe the statistics, a lot of Help Wanted postings are going unfilled.  And the reason, these analysts speculate, is that us men are unwilling to do MANual labor.  Ya think?

Down here in the canary-filled mines of the South End, any manjack of us could have told these sociologists the trend is real.  But we could also have informed them that the danger is not as dire as they seem to be suggesting.  We’ve been work averse for most of our lives without undue harm to the island’s economic well-being, only to our own.  Putting economics aside, the psychological and spiritual benefits of, okay let’s call it male malaise, have been substantial. Sure, divorce rates might have spiked but that only means that the women were freed to take on the work us lazy good-for-nothings left open.  A small loss for marital happiness.  But a big win for women’s liberation.

Plenty of women in the ‘hood here chop their own wood, haul their own water, build their own sheds, keep the hearth fires burning … and still manage to raise the kids and work a 40 hour week.  You think they’re unhappy?  Ask any of them and they’ll tell you what liberation is all about:  not having some deadbeat husband under foot telling them what they ought to do but not do one damn thing himself.  You think they’re looking for a replacement, think again.

What I worry about and the media sociologists ought to too is the next generation, the kids who think work is anything but physical labor.  They’ve grown up with video games, smartphones, apps, laptops, computers, digital toys, just about anything that glues them to their chairs.  Work?  It certainly doesn’t entail sweat or brawn.  Those days are history, my friend, relegated to the Cro-Magnon period, the one prior to Artificial Intelligence and the Rise of the Android Work Force.  Male malaise?  Why do you think we need immigrants?

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