Leonard Sax, a family physician and psychologist, wrote an op-ed piece in The Washington Post responding to the movie "Failure to Launch." The premise of the film, that a 26-year-old man is content to live in his parents’ house without any career plans, isn’t just Hollywood fiction; it is a growing trend among young men. "This phenomenon cuts across all demographics," Sax wrote. "You’ll find it in families both rich and poor; black, white, Asian and Hispanic; urban, suburban and rural. According to the Census Bureau, fully one-third of young men ages 22 to 34 are still living at home with their parents — a roughly 100 percent increase in the past 20 years. No such change has occurred with regard to young women. Why?"
Sax doesn’t haven’t any clear answers but suggests these possibilities: "Maybe the problem has to do with the way the school curriculum has changed. Maybe it has to do with environmental toxins that affect boys differently than girls (not as crazy an idea as it sounds). Maybe it has to do with changes in the work force, with fewer blue-collar jobs and more emphasis on the service industry. Maybe it’s some combination of all of the above, or other factors we haven’t yet identified."
Got any theories?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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48 Comments
The Government is so fat and needs so much money that when you move out, you will spend all of your earnings just paying your bills.A car to get to work
License and registration every year.
Insurance on everything.
Electricity.
Gasoline.
Water.
Natural gas.
Repairs on everything.
Taxes built into everything so those fat-ass Government workers who do nothing can live high on the hog { and fees to cover everything taxes should be covering }.
As soon as you walk out of the door you have to support about half a dozen Government worker’s families who do a “heck of a job” spending your money.
Just stay home.
wow, the last poster seemed extremely bitter and hasn’t been looking at the government payscale lately… I am a young man (whom is married and lives independently) who believes that the reason is largely attitudinal. There is no real societal denigration anymore for living at home. Let’s face it, guys are naturally lazy, where we can, we’ll take the path of least resistance. Why is it that females are more likely to be expected to both run a home and hold down a job? Earlier in our history it was necessary for males to work harder just to put food on the table. As technology made our lives easier, it is males who became more reticent…
ED that is just called “Adulthood”, would not change and has always been that way.
This maybe a more complex issue then just guys are lazy. in part it may be that women have changed. Moving away from looking for a good provider to simply a male in their life. As we move away from the gender assigned working roles. Women can now start to make their own living.
It use to be the strongest turn off for a woman was to find out that the man lived with mommy and daddy. The strongest turn on was that the man owned his own home.But as social attatudes change this is less a concern for women.
I know one guy that in his fifty nine years has only lived outside his parents home for about eight months. No he is not gay and no he is not married. Of course he does not date much either.He started out saving for his own home, but moved back to help out with family concerns. Never to move out again.
It’s the parents. Like the so-called greatest generation that brought us the hippies, now the hippies are supporting their own welfare kings.
It is very interesting that women aren’t having the same issue. Perhaps all the government schools teaching how men are worthless is also coming to bear fruit.
In the end though, it’s the parents. If they didn’t want their babies at home they wouldn’t be there.
OneShot–
You’re kidding, right? Only a small minority of young people in the 60’s and 70’s were real hippies.
Most were pretty much like the goofballs you see on “That 70’s Show.”
A lot of people smoked pot and grew long hair, but that was just an outward trapping–”radical chic.” I don’t know anyone personally for instance who lived on a commune. I don’t know anyone who had joined the SDS. I know very few who even protested the war, and I lived all through that stuff.
What we’re seeing is purely economic. Wages for young people suck, like they do for everybody else except the top 1 percent who make like a million a year.
Back in the old days of the turn of the last century, young men lived in “boarding houses.” Rising wages and cheaper houses led to the demise of that institution, but now the reverse is in effect–higher housing prices and lower wages.
Thank you, G. W. Bush and your fellow Republicans.
A number of factors at work I think. OneShot and hmmmm… both have good points. I would add that even as recently as the 70s two young men could live together as roommates to save money on rent – we commonly did. Today they might be looked at a bit ‘differently.’ I don’t remember boarding houses from my youth but do remember shared apartments.
I think another factor is sprawl and the demise of public transportation. I often got around by transit and/or bike; that is less feasible today.
Add to that higher expectatione. We used to joke about our decor being “early American poverty” but definitely did not feel poor. We just had better ways to spend our money on fancy stuff – like groceries and rent. Didn’t need the latest in stereos etc.
I think all your points are relevant. When I first started out (age 18) we didn’t make any money, but we didn’t have to spend much for rent ($99 a month), groceries ($20 per week), gas (25 cents a gallon), etc. We lived on less than $500 a month and couldn’t even afford car insurance so we didn’t have any (that wasn’t illegal at the time). As our generation matured, we had the opportunity to become the biggest earners in history, and many of us were able to give our kids everything that our own parents could never afford to give us, but that became a win/lose situation, because as a result many of our kids developed a keen sense of entitlement, plus life at home with mom and dad is way too comfortable. When a person never has to struggle for anything, it’s so easy to become complacent, plus the opportunity to learn much needed survival skills is lost. My parents couldn’t afford to bail us out everytime we became hardpressed, so we HAD to learn how to do it for ourselves. Many kids today don’t have that issue, and they’re handicapped because of it. Lots of kids today are a casuality of living in an affluent society, and the big bad world looks pretty scary if you’ve never had to venture out much.Cudos to the ones that do, because I know life today is much more of a struggle with the price of everything. There is no way wages have kept up with the cost of living, and things are only getting worse. It takes a lot more to survive these days.
I agree with some of you guys that its a combination of numours different factors.
Economics: Yes. The standard of living is hard to achieve for a young person. But it was the same situation in the past, but most abled young person just worked hard and saved money and eventually got to a happy spot with a house and family. But “I want it now” mentallity has put many young people is serious debt. I have a good friend that didn’t move out of his parents house till he was 27, because he racked up over $60K in student loans, about $20K in credit card debt, and had an expensive car payment. He just couldn’t afford to live on his own, and he was making at his job a little over $30K, which is comfortable wage around here. He lived with his parents until his credit cards and car was paid off.
Society: Yes! There are a lot of pot smokers and video gamers that just cling to that and never move out.
Work Reality: I believe that lots of college students graduate from college expecting to make big bucks. Not going to happen unless you know somebody that can get you lucky. There are more college students graduating with degrees every year than there are jobs that require them. Making it a surplus of college degreed job seekers. Most people end up in positions that do not require a degree.
There are lots of people that don’t want to work or think it’s beneath them. There are people who just never had a job, so they live with their parents.
Helicopter Parents: There are parents that hover around their kids and try to protect them and so encourage their kids to keep staying with them. They do everything for their kids to the point that kids grow up with a “yes, anything for my child” maid that they couldn’t really survive in the real world.
Others: I know there are many other factors.
The federal Government just gave themselves 2.8 trillion dollars of our money. Next comes the State with their hand in your pocket, then the County slicing-up your billfold, then the Local and what ever is left, you still have to pay all of the fees they impose. I just paid 62 dollars to register my car for next year. They’ve already collected that money in billions of taxes, but want to zap me again.
It amounts to me renting my car from the State for 62 dollars a year.
My health insurance sucks but theirs is a free ride.
And now when I need information from any level of government, the bastards won’t even answer the phone.
Get a rope.
Plus those G-d bastards show me attitude.
Many stay home to help share expenses. { taxes }
From the perspective of a member of the younger generation.I don’t want to let my dear peers totally off the hook. However, I don’t think college prepares students well for life beyond college. This is both the attitude of students (4 yrs to party hard) and the course content (we’ll teach whatever silliness you are mildly interested in and we won’t fail you, to boot). WSU is probably better than KU because it is more of a commuter school, so more students with more responsibility. Not to say that many students are not working hard to put themselves through school at KU as well. Then, they get out and would rather live at home and work non-career jobs than take entry-level or “boring” jobs. But, even entry-level jobs are not the promise of a future they once were. Lay-offs, stagnation of top levels, mergers, and over-sees replacement are too much of a reality. Young people have always been told they can do whatever they want, and the self-esteem movement tells them they are too special to do anything else. Then, they find out they can’t do anything they want and 200 others also are just as special for that great job as they are.However, it isn’t just that young people are unwilling to live in cheaper or less desirable housing; that sort of housing is a lot more dangerous than it was 25 years ago. My parents lived in no-air-conditioning, cheep housing, but it was safe. Safe housing is relatively more expensive than it used to be. Cars are a necessity now. My mother had her first car at 30 years old. Public transportation, like housing, is unsafe.Of course, I am a girl, so I live on my own. But, man, let me tell you finding responsible, independent young men to date who aren’t co-dependent on Mommy isn’t easy.
Why do I need to register my car, it’s already registered.
I drove my last car 12 years and gave them “registration money” every year.
In France they got rid of their “problem” with a Guillotine.
Good way to cut expenses?
Good observation, Damoon.
Joe W wrote–
“Economics: Yes. The standard of living is hard to achieve for a young person. But it was the same situation in the past, but most abled young person just worked hard and saved money and eventually got to a happy spot with a house and family.”
Yup, it all comes down to personal responsibility. That’s why people in Mexico are so poor–they just don’t work hard like we do. (Sarcasm off)
Twenty years ago, you could buy a 10 gallons of gas for an hour’s worth of work at minimum wage. Now, you can’t even buy two gallons.
Why? The corporation has taken over the gov’t and they gotten just about what ever they’ve wanted.
Pensions, gone. Minimum wage, essentially none. Unions, destroyed. 24 hr. unrestricted world trade, check. 12 million of illegal aliens to do the work of slaves with no legal rights, got it. Monopoly of basic commodities like oil, corn, wheat, pork, chicken, done. Off shore shell companies to avoid US taxes, check. Lower and lower taxes for the rich and corporation, did that. Endless war for corporate cronies, yup.
This is unbelievable. I mean..the judgment, the attitude and the blame is beyond comprehension.
First, why is it anyone’s business if someone lives with his parents? Second, the claim that all males are lazy is a tad bit oversimplified. Third, of course, we can blame everything on the government.
Sheeesh. Pass judgment on people who live with their parents? WHO CARES??
And no, before you all turn your knives/blame/judgment on me, I moved out of my parents house the week after I turned 18, and never returned.
Lib..you might want to check your facts. 20 years ago, the federal minimum wage was $3.35. National gas average was around $1.35. So, how can you buy 10 gallons for $3.35?
Today, the federal minimum wage is $5.15, and national gas averages is $2.50. Yes, you can buy 2 gallons for an hour’s work, just like you could 20 years ago.
I think it’s just harder for young men to get ahead than it used to be. I worked for minimum-wage starting at age 14 ($1.40/hr). In today’s dollars that was about $9/hr. A lot of boys worked back then. But Republicans would tell you that if the minimum wage was raised to that level, a lot of employers simply wouldn’t hire teenagers today.If this is true, why? What has changed?
At age 18 I had a summer job that paid $30/hr in today’s dollars and basically put away $10,000 in today’s dollars in three months for college. I had to pay FICA, but no income tax. It was grueling heavy-lifting work, but I had a strong back. Can young men with high school degrees get similar-paying jobs today?
I took a relatively low-paying job after college for career-development reasons. In today’s dollars it paid about $25,000. It included a free HMO health plan. It was a project-based job, so I was able to make my own schedule. I went to the beach nearly every summer afternoon at 1 PM. (I worked efficiently, and also put in evening and weekend hours to carve out beach time, and my boss was more than satisfied with my work.) I was able to afford an apartment (not shared with anyone) immediately.
I have heard that my job title now pays $18,000. That’s a significant drop from $25,000. To make matters worse, a beach community apartment that then cost about $500 in today’s dollars is now $1000/mo. Somebody who has my job title today almost certainly has to share an apartment or live at home.
Final point, I attended a public university with tuition of $1500 in today’s dollars, and I had a Pell Grant that paid the tuition in full. My grandmother paid my dorm costs, and I worked part-time, so I didn’t have to take out a dime in loans. A few years ago, US News and World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” said that the average WSU end-of-college loan obligation was $17,000. That’s not an insignificant sum.
There is a theory that delayed adolescence is related to the increased life span. 100 yrs ago, life span was mid fifies (like why SS was set at 65, because people didn’t live long after that). Now it is mid seventies. The idea is that people don’t just get extra time on the back end, but spread it out. There is not as much biological push to get married early and start family if it means you still have 50 years ahead of you instead of 30. You can be pretty sure you can see your kids grow all the way up now, even if you start in mid 30s or for men 40s and 50s. Why start a career path, if you are going to be plowing away at it for the next 40 years or longer (retirement age may increase). Why not stay a kid longer, you have no where to go, and lots of time to get there?
Two points.
Heartlander, are you saying it is harder for men than women? All the things you noted as reasons are also true of women. Why do the women not live at home but the men do?
second point
Women move out to get out from under parental supervision. No matter how old, daughters and sons are treated differently.
If a 30yr old guy lives at home, spends the night with his girlfriend, shows up at home with his folks the next morning looking like hell, Dad says he’s a real man and Mom says boys will be boys.
If a thirty year old woman does the same thing, her parents lecture her on “what will the neighbors think” and warn her about being a loose woman.
Double standard. No wonder the women need privacy. And when the men are all living at home, it is a good thing the women have an apartment where they can “hook up”.
Ksfg-I had never thought of it that way, but it sure explains my brother and me.
Raptor,
Good snag. You are correct, sir.
Reagan had been in office for 5 years, so of course minimum wage was still going to suck. Not as much as it does now, but still bad.
Let’s go back thirty years to 1976 or so when minimum wage was over 2 dollars and gas was still 35 cents. So that’s six gallons of gas for an hour’s work . . .
Right, Heartlander, that’s exactly my point.
I also worked my way through college. But total fees were only 350 dollars a semester. My room and board (I lived in a psuedo-fraternity house called a co-op house) only cost 105 dollars a month.
Thanks to my 7.35 / hr. job working 15 hours a week, I actually saved money by the time I graduated. I had to get up at 3:30 in the morning, but the pay was great thanks to the Teamsters’ Union.
Now, those jobs are paying just a little more than they did then. College tution is ten times what it was then, mainly because of state’s cutting funding and forcing costs on to students.
And why are states cutting costs? Because federal aid to states keeps getting cut.
Reagan started it, and it just keeps going and going and going like the Energizer bunny.
Got to make sure Paris Hilton gets to keep more of her hard-earned money.
Allie – unfortunately there is no delayed adolescnece; in fact puberty is arriving at earlier and earlier ages. There are a number of reasons for this ranging from increased hormones in foods to increased meat/milk consumption. These increase the production of testosterone and estrogen. Unfortunately, this early onset of physical adolescence is NOT accompanied by maturity.
Ben Huie,The earlier menstruation is a separate phenomenon. Actually, a scientifically valid reason for early menstruation is that menstruation is associated with weight. Heavier girls being their periods on average before skinnier girls, no matter what they eat. It is, in part, because estrogen is stored in fat. Adolescent girls weigh more than 20 yrs ago, so more start earlier periods. Delayed adolescence (not precocious menstruation) is a psychological phenomenon that young adults do not feel the pressure to grow up that people did when their lives would be shorter.
Ben is right. Actually studies done three decades ago charted the progressive lowering of ages of pubescence from 1900 to the 1960’s. The exposure to longer periods of light, and inhibition of the dark-period-active pineal gland were proposed to be a potential reason. The change was progressive, and was measurable before the introduction of hormones to livestock and use of estrogen-mimicking pesticides.
You all should read Newsweek’s Jan. 30 story, “The Trouble With Boys”. It remarks on one argument that boys are treated as “defective girls” in public education. Boys are explorers, experimenters and challengers of propositions. Grils are much better at doing routine assignments. For example, give a smart boy five math problems that represent the same principle, with varying numbers in each problem, and they will solve the first problem, and consider the remaining four to be a “waste of time” because they “get” the principle upon completing the first problem. Girls will happily do all five problems. Who gets the better grade in the class?
Girls make for better industrial workers than boys, which is why the first American factories were staffed with girls (textile mills in Massachusetts in the 1840’s).
In most entry-level jobs for high school students and graduates, and in many post-college jobs, routines are required. Girls and young women outshine boys and young men in routines.
Our schools are destroying masculine talent. They recruit young women to be teachers who will teach and also take up household management duties. They recruit lazy men (who don’t do household duties as much as their wives). Boys don’t have ambitious-male-teacher role models. The schools’ curricula cultivate boys’ strengths, but rather snuff them out.
To teachers who deny this, fine. Get to 50% male/female teacher ratios, and I’ll be happy to debate with you. If you say that women make much better teachers than men, and that’s why 75% of schoolteachers are women, give me some statistics to support you notion. If you say, women are better teachers, given pay that doesn’t attract smart, energitic men, I would agree with you wholeheartedly.
The first teachers were men. But the architects of public education wanted a semi-educated workforce that would do industrial routines. So the architects chose young women for teaching. Unfortunately, this emasculates boys. So after four generations, boys have become dysfunctional because the educational system trains them to be “defective girls”.
I meant to say, that the schools’ curricula DO NOT cultivate boys’ strengths.
Your argument seems to be based on the “inherent” fallacy that feminists decry, Hrtldr. But I personally agree with it.
Only a radical ideologue could argue that there are no intrinsic differences between men and women. Biologists see innate differences in male and females in every species, but humans are supposed to be influenced ONLY by culture?
Lower men’s testosterone by castrating them like Eastern cultures used to do, and you get a very different kind of man.
The old “punch card” model of education is going away though. I see a lot more educational options these days, more small group work, more independent research.
But your final analysis is right–people who can’t take orders get scooted out of the system and usually that means boys.
It also doesn’t help that a huge majority of boys are growing up in households in which the father is absent.
“People who can’t take orders” . . . what I mean by that is people who can’t come to terms with taking orders, can’t see the ultimate goal of the process.
I love the pejorative assumptions underlying this argument. The male characteristics are displayed in the most positive light – adventurous, ambitious, explorers, challengers. Girls are routine, suited to household tasks and industrial work. Those traits, even if true about women, are not called dependable, contentious, careful, precise, i.e. things that, in fact, make good professionals including lawyers, doctors, and researchers. No, the male argument is women do better in school only because they are obedient and the teaching is boring enough for them; men are really just too manly for school. Women were the first industrial workers because there were very limited opportunities for them to have education or skilled jobs. Don’t blame women’s constitutions for the fact men would only give them crappy jobs. Men were the first teachers when women were not afforded many opportunities for higher education. As the general education level became higher across the board, more women had the skills to be teachers. As always happens, the pink collar effect took over – if women can do it, clearly teachers don’t need to be paid as much, say the men running our government.
Proudlib-The question is should we attribute all sexual differences to biology, since clearly there are some. The other point is that male virtues are held in higher esteem, even if they are in fact not better. The chauvinistic assumptions that run deep in our culture make us read the biology in certain lights to demean women’s contributions and suggest justifications for maintaining a male status quo. Even biological research isn’t culture blind. In things as sociological as human interactions and conditioning, you naturally set up experiments that prove your assumptions.
What she said!
Amen!! It just makes my heart leap to see women starting to outnumber men in college, law school, and medical school.We’re taking over the world and all I can say is…IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME!!YYYYYEEEEEEEHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
For the past 20 yrs. our society (all of us) has been slowly castrating the male gender. We as a whole are no longer supposed to be a “man”. Along with all the very old-fashioned things that go with being a man. Like getting a job and supporting yourself, being responsible. You know, all that stuff that used to be part of a man’s world. And this trend is part of the end result. And folks, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Justoneman,Just don’t try to blame women for it.
JOM–Women have had to change over time as well. Their roles have shifted at least as dramatically as men’s. It seems from your post here you think women are able to cope with the changing world better than men.
Has anyone noticed the number of posts here that focus on excusing men, but very few celebrating that women are more independent, and they are independent at an earlier age? I thought in our society those were GOOD things.
“We as a whole are no longer supposed to be a “man”.”
Well JOM, what manly traits are no longer valued? Brute strength? Domination? Fighting? Hunting?
I think the manly traits of supporting your family, both financially and emotionally, of protecting those less able to protect themselves, leadership, stewardship, compassion, vision, etc. are ALL traits my straight women friends would LOVE to see in their men.
I think it depends on what manly traits you speak of. Women dont NEED men. Now they have the luxury of wanting them. My experience has always been that being wanted was far better than being needed.
I guess THAT outta get the “angry woman” meme going today!
I don’t think the problem is an inherent problem with school curriculum or toxins. It’s just a way some people choose to live.My birth mother lives in JoCo with her parents and has ever since my parents divorced. The only time she has not lived with her parents is the time she was married to my dad. She makes good money (even by JoCo standards) but for various reasons she chooses to live with her parents.
More adult children are remaning in their parents homes. Yup. That is true.
In the America we are making it is something we are going to see more of out of economic necessity.
Now aside from the bad economics that make this necessary, I don’t think it is overall a bad thing..
Now the values that Justoneman talks about…..rugged individuality….go out and drag a woman home by the hair and conquer the world….. These have their place.
But I happen to know there are an awful lot of parents sitting in nursing homes. And while I am sure they are very proud that their children have found successful lives apart from them. Maybe they wish they weren’t quite so far…… apart from them.
As the country ages, we are either gonna need a lot more nursing homes, or a change in attitude as to family. Maybe this “problem” of adult kids staying longer in their parents homes is a beginning.
JR -I agree with you in regards to change in attitude regarding family. My dad and “step” mom and mom-in-law can come live with me anytime. My birth mother is an entirely different story. There is no way that I can reside in the same city let alone the same house as her. Halfway across Kansas is barely far enough!
It seems that my comments triggered a lot of comments. I didn’t mean to impugn girls. I just mean that the educational system is connecting with their attributes, and supporting them, and making it really hard for boys. They say that men living alone die young, while women living alone do fine. I guess this means men need women more than women need men, which is a revelation about real POWER balances.
With high divorce rates, boys more often lose their fathers than girls lose their mothers. Then to add to that there are relatively few men teachers. A double whammy for boys. In the worst cases, such as inner cities you get the males-hungering-for-male-leaders’ Lord of the Flies affect. (The girls don’t do drive-by shootings, do they?)
JR is right on target. I foresee a change to an Old World model in which three generations, or four, live under one roof. In most societies this is patrilineal, but in some matrilineal. With a political target of slashing Medicare costs (it is going to happen), we’ll see families given tax breaks to take care of grandma and grandpa themselves, rather than send them to the nursing home. Grandma and grandpa should decide early to move in before they are useless. They can help teach their grandchildren. Sons (or daughters) bring their spouses home.
A very different society? Yes. A society that experiences really difficult adjustments? Yes. A society that experiences joys that we have missed? Yes. A more caring society? That’s a possibility. It depends on how we all adjust.
I think, perhaps, I have been misunderstood. And that is O.K. The real men out there know what I am talking about. And those real women know also. Maybe it is an age thing.
I don’t think things are harder out there for men, in fact it’s just the opposite, things are too easy. With women bringing home half the paycheck (maybe more) and being more independent and involved in taking responsibility for everything, from running the family business to fighting wars, men aren’t as challenged or as “in charge” as they used to be.With the lowered expectations, it’s easy to become complacent and unmotivated, and as a result life isn’t hard, but harder to cope with.
In the Philippines, you will not find a single nursing home. That is because in their culture they take care of their parents until they die.
JOM,I know what you’re talkin about. Personally I think the independence of women was a direct result of our dependence on machines that make life easier for us. Time went by, human inventions progressed that made home life a helluva lot easier for us. Also changes in the family structure are also responsible. There was once a time when lots of children were desired because children were seen as an employable workforce, and the more kids ya had, the greater your family’s productivity will be. (This was before the emergence of corporations of course.) In modern society, men aren’t needed to do the hard work around the house, the shrinks are now saying that kids dont need a strong father figure in families anymore. (Not that I agree with shrinks of course!) As a man I can say with certainty, that the most humiliating thing you can do to a man is to make him feel inadequate, useless, not needed. What we are witnessing is the result of the breakdown of the traditional family unit by Leftist secular progressives. I feel ya man, I feel ya.
One of the reasons old folks in the Phillipines don’t go to nursing homes is that when they get sick they die. People in our country live much longer than they should because of the great health care our country offers, and we don’t have to have money to get treatment when we get sick.If you look at underdeveloped countries, only the strong survive because there are no social services to help the poor, no Medicare or Medicaid. They simply go without health care and all the other things we take for granted in our country. We take it to the other extreme, keeping people alive even when they want to die. We don’t let nature take it’s course because we fear death and have a hard time accepting that’s it’s as much a part of life as being born. My 93 yr old mother finally had to go to a nursing home because it became physically impossible for us to care for her at home, if she lived in a poor country, she would have been dead many years ago, and putting her in a home would never have been an issue.
I agree, X, all humans need to feel useful and challenged, otherwise we get stagnant and depressed.
X, another thing that really changed our society was the development of reliable birth control. That was the first big freedom women experienced and gave them more choices and control over their life.Remember Loretta Lynn’s song “Now I’ve Got the Pill”?