All children think that if only they grow up, their lives will be great. Yet, when adulthood arrives, they see that life is not at all like what they imagined as kids.
When we are kids, all the obstacles on our way are conveniently removed by adults, so it’s easy to think with a child’s mind that life will always be that way.
When we grow up, we have to overcome our own obstacles. Since it’s not easy to overcome the obstacles life inevitably puts on our path, many of us avoid assuming the responsibility of becoming a grown-up man and consequently remain a man-child.
A man-child is a pathetic human being. Everybody despises a man-child, including his own family. A man-child despises himself too.
A man-child is a liability to his family, tribe, community, country, humanity, and to himself. On the other hand, a grown-up man is an asset.
Here are the common traits of a man-child:
1. A Man-Child Avoids Responsibility
A child depends on adults for solving his problems and having his needs met.
A grown-up man knows that he is fully responsible and capable of solving his problems and taking care of his needs.
You are responsible for making money, having sex with the women you want, building relationships with high-quality people, taking care of your body, and anything else you happen to need or desire.
If a man is on the younger part of his life, his family may help him make ends meet financially but that can’t go on forever. Sooner or later he must learn how to make money. The longer it takes for him to figure out how to make money, the harder it will be for him to fend for himself.
Getting laid is completely on you because even your own mother and father are not losing sleep if you can’t get laid. If you depend on arranged marriages or your friends to meet girls, your options will be extremely limited and you will find yourself in situations where you have a responsibility to the people who set you up with your girl. It’s best to take the matter into your own hands and rely on your own skills to meet and bed the women you want.
Building relationships with high-quality people requires you to be high-quality yourself in the first place. Becoming a high-quality man is your responsibility and it’s attainable through self-improvement.
A man-child is unable to rise up to the challenges of life. He hates taking responsibility because he doesn’t want to face the consequences of his actions. When he was a child, adults were always there to cover his ass but adulthood is different. An irresponsible adult male is still a child. A man-child.
2. A Man-Child Fears Independence
Children need boundaries because when they don’t have boundaries they feel insecure. Only weak parents fail to set boundaries for their kids. Having weak parents can literally mean death for a kid. Kids subconsciously know this, so they are scared when their parents don’t set boundaries for them.
When you grow up, you no longer need boundaries because you are fully capable of fending for yourself. While boundaries are restrictive, a man-child will still need them because he feels insecure without them.
When you reach adulthood as a man, the boundaries of your parents are not binding anymore. They are just opinions. You may choose to agree or disagree with them. In either case, you should be the final decision-maker. If you are still scared to disobey your parents, you are not a grown-up man. You are a man-child.
If you have trouble living without your parents, moving to a different city, or moving abroad, you are not a grown-up man, you are a man-child.
A grown-up man is an independent man. He has no rules to obey and no boundaries to restrict him. He makes his own rules and he sets his own boundaries.
3. A Man-Child Is Entitled
When you are a child, you are not expected to earn anything. Everything you need is freely given to you. The entitlement mentality is natural and necessary for a kid but it must be abandoned in adulthood.
When you are an adult you must earn everything that you want to have. You can’t count on handouts. I see many grown-up men pirating books, movies, or games. They feel they are entitled to free content. A grown-up man knows he has to earn everything he wants.
Many men get pissed off in the face of the slightest inconvenience. A man who constantly complains is a despicable man-child. A grown-up man focuses on solutions, not problems. He fixes the problems instead of complaining and doing nothing about them. He doesn’t wait for the politicians, his parents, or other authorities to solve his own problems.
4. A Man-Child Is A Liar
Kids lie their asses off all the time. We sometimes tell them it’s wrong to lie or we laugh at their obvious lies at other times, but in either case, we fully expect kids to lie.
Lying is essentially a way of coping with life’s problems, an inefficient way at that. A man-child has trouble owning his actions so he needs to lie.
I know it’s impossible to go through life without telling a single lie but a grown-up pathological liar is easily detected and despised by everybody. Building a reputation as a liar is bad enough by itself but what’s even worse is that a man-child lies to himself too.
If you repeat a lie enough, you start to believe it. Nevertheless, a lie is a lie whether you believe it or not. The truth will sooner or later bite a man-child’s ass. There are no two ways about it.
5. A Man-Child Doesn’t Keep His Promises
This is tightly connected to #4 but a little bit different in the sense that a man-child may be actually meaning it when he makes a promise. He is not lying at the time but keeping promises requires integrity and accountability, the qualities which a man-child lacks.
“He is a man of his word” is one of the greatest reputations a man can build. It takes a grown-up man to keep his promises. A man-child will fold like a cheap lawn chair when the going gets tough. People will lose respect for a man who can’t keep his word, and it will eventually lead the man-child to lose respect for himself too.
6. A Man-Child Is Emotional
Children are devoid of logic. They are purely emotional. They are defenseless against the brutal facts of life but they do ok because they have adults to take care of them.
An adult man can’t afford to be emotional. Emotions are fleeting. Basing your decisions on your emotions is like building a house on a wobbly foundation. Sooner or later, your life will collapse just like a house built on a wobbly foundation.
A grown-up man is fully capable of using his faculty of logic when he is making his decisions. It’s absolutely crucial for a man to make rational decisions because, otherwise, he is setting up himself for an inevitable disaster.
7. A Man-Child Is Afraid To Leave His Comfort Zone
When you are a kid, it makes perfect sense to never leave your comfort zone because kids can’t defend themselves. They aren’t fully capable of solving life’s problems.
Many men carry this attitude to adulthood, which is a time when they no longer need it.
Magic always happens out of your comfort zone. If you are too scared to leave your comfort zone, you are not a grown-up man. You are a man-child.
The times have changed. The life path laid out for you is a path to a miserable existence. Be born-go to school-get a job-get married-have kids-die is not a viable option anymore. It’s up to you to leave your comfort zone, discover the uncharted waters and carve your own path in the world.
Conclusion
All children are solipsists. Solipsism is thinking that the world revolves around you. Solipsism is supposed to be abandoned in adulthood, especially if you are a male. It’s rare for women to abandon childhood solipsism. Most women stay solipsists for a lifetime. Women can afford that because it’s possible for them to reach their goals indirectly, ie. through men.
Men don’t have that option. A solipsist man will suffer as an adult because nobody cares about men. All men should be striving to become fully functional adult males as soon as they hit the age of 18. Growing up as a man doesn’t mean that you should leave all your childhood traits behind. You had many strengths as a child which you should carry into your adulthood.
A man-child is an immature shell of an adult male who failed to leave his childhood solipsism behind.
We live in a world where we have more comfort than any other era in human history. This level of comfort allows men to delay adulthood without immediate consequences. The fact that you can delay the consequences doesn’t mean that you will not face them later in life. The sooner you grow up, the better. Only then you can become a masculine man and realize your potential.
Be sure to read:
- How to Be a Superior Man, the ultimate self-improvement program turns boys into men.
- Do You Really Take Responsibility For Your Life?
- How To Spot A Self-Entitled Individual: 15 Signs Of A Sense Of Entitlement
- 21 Ways to Stop Being an Effeminate Modern Man and Be More Masculine
- 24 Ways to Get Rid of the Victim Mentality and Adopt a Victor Mentality