Family is important and serves a huge part in making its mark on us and how we become. Most, without realizing it, go on and repeat the same patterns that their mother and father had before them. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who one’s family is. The successful and healthy tend to stay successful and happy and the poor and miserable tend to stay the poor and miserable and so on and so forth.
At least on average. Obviously a single person can choose to divulge from the path their family was on, for better or for worse. I always recommend that, becoming your own man. Taking what is useful from what you were given and rejecting what is not. But that’s not what this article is about. First off let me state clearly that I am no professional, really in any context. I am not a doctor, lawyer, or psychologist. I am a man saying what I see in front of me and what I’ve seen in life. You could take this as the ravings of a madman if you wanted.
But nothing I say should be constituted as professional advice, but the disclaimer says all that anyways. What I wanted to talk about is a family dynamic that I see all around me that seems benign to most people but is actually a toxic poison that destroys the lives of so many men, not in a completely ruins them way, which they’d fight against, but in a more insidious way. It has to do with sons in particular but daughters work in their same way as well.
The Epidemic Of Overmothering
Mothers seem to get free passes in our society. While fathers or often said to be useless, evil, or a great many other things, mothers are seen as angelic saints that can never do evil. While there are certainly horrible fathers out there in a myriad of different ways and I’d never take from pointing wrong out where it is, I want to take a second to look at mothers and something I see more and more around me. Through the years I’ve written a few pieces on relationships between sons and mothers and how they go wrong.
I wrote one called “The Epidemic Of Overmothering” that got a bit of traction and I was amazed at how many responses I got from email, people telling me their own experiences with this. Check it out if what you read here interests you and also check out the book it mentions. But I want to revisit this topic or at least something related to it. When we look at abuse and misuse of children often what we look for is the big things that stand out. Namely physical and sexual abuse, which are obviously horrible crimes and should be stamped out whenever we can.
But there are other milder forms of abuse and while they obviously aren’t comparable to the two listed previously they still have their negative effects. Sort of like eating pie everyday isn’t as bad as getting into a crippling wreck but it’ll still do a lot of damage to you in the long run. Unhealthy is unhealthy, wrong is wrong, even if some degrees are more sever than others. Meaning pointing out falsehood is important not just for the big things but for the small and medium things that make up our day to day lives as well.
The Dangers Of A Mother’s “Love”
A mother’s “love” is considered holy in our society, something sacrosanct and beyond questioning. I don’t know where this came from but I know it’s been around for awhile. While a father’s “love” can be questioned and seen as wrong and evil (which sometimes it is) anything that a mother does it too good for questioning. After all it’s only fathers that are abusive and manipulative. A mother is a perfect being, holy and sacrosanct and beyond all reproach.
I’m kidding but the societal view doesn’t stray too far from this. Because of this line of reasoning, along with a few others, mothers can often have free reign over their sons without input from others, especially the father. Mothers make their sons their “little mans” and essentially date them just without the physical intimacy part. They use they to fulfill their emotional needs and use them as a tool. It may look like their just overbearing or smothering but there’s darkness to those actions, and damage to the son’s development.
The father doesn’t step in because either he wants relief from the mother’s neediness or because he lives in a modern relationship where the woman runs the house. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying coddling and doting are necessarily wrong especially in the very early years but when it progresses beyond five and even into teenage years then something is very wrong. There’s a difference between smothering and true love. True love can often be harsh, quiet, and more reserved. These mothers try to make their sons emotionally dependent on them and stifle their growth so that they remain so.
An Overabundance Of Weak Men
I think this, along with some other key factors, is a big reason we see so many soft males now. Sure there endocrine disruption, feminism, lack of hardship, and a million other things but what I talk about here has a big part to play. And it stems from fathers not putting their mothers in their place or telling them what’s what. A hundred years ago a man would say you’re smothering the boy and you have to loosen up on him, you have to let him be a man, and he’d put his foot down. This can be done in a loving and matter of fact way.
And the boy would be allowed to grow into a man. But now the mother becomes so dependent on her children that this is never allowed. They remain children their entire lives so that mommy doesn’t ever feel emotionally needy or like she’ll be left alone. She sabotages her children and the father lets it, making both responsible. Granted many children end up fighting back against this, some going to extremes, but the damage is still done. Mothers have to learn to let go and fathers have to learn to put their foot down.
Society Needs Men
Men who are strong and capable. Not little boys that want to cuddle in mommy’s arms. That’s cute at three, toxic at 13, and we won’t even talk about at 21. I think a big reason this happens in lack of development for both men and women as well as a few other factors that I might get into later. So many boys are kept boys way past when its time for them to start manning up and becoming men and this has untold negative effects across society as a whole. Not an exhaustive treatment of the subject but something that needed pointing out.
If anything I said here interests you I’d highly recommend you check out The Ultimate Alpha Collection which is a compilation of 16 of my books for the price of 5. It covers everything from being a man to making money to getting the right mindset to getting girls to fighting and more and is a resource no man should be without. Pick up your copy today!
-Charles Sledge
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