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In a recent op-ed, Kay Hymowitz argues that it's time for 20- and 30-year-old guys to put down the Xbox controller and grow up.

It wasn't long ago, Hymowitz says, that the average man in his mid-20s had achieved many of life's major milestones — he had a job, a marriage, perhaps even kids and a house.

Today's mid-20something male "lingers happily," Hymowitz writes, "in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance."

Social scientists are struggling to define this new phase of life — "emerging adulthood" and "delayed adolescence" are two identifiers. Hymowitz has selected the term "child-man."

"Adolescence appears to be the young man's default state," Hymowitz writes, and the behavior is encouraged and reinforced by pop culture — television and the gaming industry in particular.

Hymowitz's article, "The Child-Man," appeared Sunday in The Dallas Morning News.

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