CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - What's Going On With All The #BoyMoms?

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

In this episode of Calling Home, Whitney Goodman discusses the trend of mothers being overly attached to their sons, often referred to as "boy moms". This dynamic can be harmful to both the mother and son and lead to emotional incest, where the son is put into a husband-like role. Whitney talks about the reasons behind this phenomenon, including societal norms, lack of community support, and unfulfilled dreams of the mother. She also discusses ways to address this issue, such as practicing small separations, developing more support, setting boundaries, and encouraging independence. Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Click here to get “Toxic Positivity” on paperback.  Join Whitney’s Family Cycle Breakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at CallingHome.co. Follow the Calling Home community on Instagram or TikTok.  Follow Whitney Goodman on Instagram or TikTok.  The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice or other medical advice or services, is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider, and does not create any therapist-patient or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Home’s Terms of Service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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most of your getaway wherever that is because the only thing better than a great playlist is a great trip life's the trip make the most of it at Best Western. and save at bestwestern.com. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another solo episode of the Calling Home podcast. I am your host, Whitney Goodman. I'm really excited to be here today because I feel like we need to talk about this. What is going on with all the boy moms?

As someone who is a mother of sons, I am seeing a really weird trend online among my fellow millennial mothers as well as older generations. And I'm seeing so much conflict happening between the generations about this. Like daughter-in-law is having so much. many issues with their mother-in-laws, younger moms of young kids, speaking about their boys in a really different way than they do, their daughters. And there's all of this conflict arising from this. And so today I want to talk about, like, what's going on with all the boy moms. And I want to give a disclaimer here that I want to be very cautious about demonizing

women or mothers during this episode because I do think that some of the main contributors to this dynamic, of course, are misogyny, patriarchal norms, women being placed in certain roles in the home that contribute this and also like partners of these mothers not being present or available and this causes these sons to be placed in the dynamic and they are ultimately harmed by it, both the mothers and the sons. And so when we're talking about men who are enmeshed with their mothers, we use a lot of terms like mamas, boys, boy moms, et cetera. But really what's happening here is this is emotional incest a lot of the time. These sons are being put into a husband role in their mother's mind. And the son goes

along with it because he's getting closeness from his mother and he's afraid or has been threatened with rejection if he does not participate in this role or he's just been conditioned to think that this is normal. And so I ran a couple of polls on my Instagram and I got like a thousand responses to each question. But before we dive in to those questions, I want to play you the audio from a clip that went viral recently about this topic. boy moms feel me on this but my son has my heart my heart and my soul I obviously am obsessed with Stevie Lee she is just the greatest little girl in the world but my whole life I always wanted to be a boy mom and I remember when I found out I was pregnant with him and I was

just ecstatic because I was such a tomboy growing up anyways the whole point of me making this video is I had to share his preschool photo with you because when I tell you I opened up this email and I just hysterically cried. He is just everything. This video, of course, sparked a lot of commentary on the internet and I was reading a lot of things that people were saying and it seemed to create like this polarizing response, right? Of some people being like, oh my gosh, the poor daughter, the way that she's speaking about her son is so clearly in contrast to how she's speaking about her daughter. And then there were a lot of videos created in response to this that were like, oh my gosh, I get it. I am a boy mom and my love for my son is just so different and it's so

much more intense and boys love their mom so much more. And it was really making me think about all of these really entrenched beliefs that we have about mother-son relationships when the son is young and in the household with his mother and how difficult it can make that son's life when he decides to leave the home and potentially partner with someone, especially if that partner is a woman. And I think what I see in the adults that I work with, that when there is a son that has been really enmeshed with his mother and has been treated in this way for a lifetime of being told that they're special, they're different, the mother's love for them, them is different. They're maybe treated with more care or they're not required to do as much

around the home or there's this really like marked difference in how they are treated in comparison, especially to their sisters if they have other girls in the home, really sets these sons up for failure in their relationships later. And it's ultimately the women that end up getting married to them that end up being blamed by their mother-in-laws for any shortcomings, any failures or any like rocking the boat after this son tries to create his own family or his own relationship. And so I asked all of you a couple of questions and I want to give you some of the results to these polls, right? So I asked you, if you had a relationship with a man who was inappropriately close with his mother, was any of this true about his mother?

Okay. Nineteen percent said she was divorced and not remarried. Ten percent said she was widowed. 37 percent said she had a bad relationship with her partner, and 34 percent said none of the above. So a huge percentage of these people, about 65 percent, all had some type of issue with the partner, and that doesn't mean that that issue was necessarily their fault. but there was something about this relationship that left the mother operating on her

own, feeling alone, something like that, whether that was divorce, death, or a difficult relationship. And I have found this to be true anecdotally in my work that a lot of the men that are dealing with these types of situations are typically emmeshed with a mother who had a difficult or strained or non-existent relationship with their partner. The next question that I asked was, have you ever been in a relationship with a man who had a very close relationship with his mother that negatively impacted your relationship? And 52% said yes. And 5% said, I'm in one of those relationships right now.

And then that left 43% saying no. So a little bit more than half, we're saying that it was negatively impacting their relationship if they were in this type of relationship where the son was very close with his mother in a way that infringed on how they were operating as a couple. The next question I asked was if you had a relationship with a man who was inappropriately close with his mother, did you feel like he was always forced to choose between you and her? And 59% said yes and 28% said sometimes. So the vast majority of people who were in a relationship with a man like this felt at least at some point in their relationship, they were always being

forced to like choose between the partner or the mother. And that I think is one of the biggest strains for these types of couples. I also asked if you're a woman who grew up with brothers, did you feel that they were treated better than you? And this is interesting. 75% said yes. And 25% said no. So three-fourths felt that their brothers were treated better than they were in the home. And then I asked, if you were a parent of both genders, do you feel like you treat them differently?

10% said yes, and I think that you should. 52% said, I don't mean to, but it happens. and 39% said no. So I think if we look at the percentage that, yes, it happens even if I don't mean to and openly admitting that they do, a majority of parents, about 60-something percent are saying that sometimes, yeah, I do treat them differently or I'm very open about the fact that I do treat them differently. So there's something to be said about those women who grew up with brothers who felt

that they were treated better. I also came across a 2,500 person survey by the parenting website Netmums found that although almost one half of mothers say it is wrong to treat boys and girls differently, almost 90% admitted in this survey that they do that. And mothers at the research shows that mothers are twice as likely to be more critical of their daughters than their sons, while over half admitted that they feel a stronger tie to their sons than their daughters. Like, that's wild. The research also showed that these moms type their children according to gender, with boys being labeled with far more positive traits than their sisters. More than one in five mothers admitted that they turned a blind eye to the behavior of boys for which they would reprimand

their girls. So that's a pretty telling survey. If you're a son and you're wondering, if ammeshed with your mother or you're a partner of someone who might be, here are some signs that you can look out for. The son is the center of the mother's world, so everything she does revolves around him. The mother expects all her needs to be met by her son, especially emotional support, companionship, or other roles that are typically filled by a partner. The mother cannot stand when her son is different from her and guilts him for one wanting to be his own person. The mother does not respect the son's boundaries, and the mother expects to be prioritized

over the son's partner or other important people in their life. So if you recognize any of those signs in a relationship with your own mother or your partner's relationship with their mother, this might be a sign that they are being enmeshed, especially emotionally. Summer's here, and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days, delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered,

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they also might share an identity with their mother so he feels like he has to reflect the personality and beliefs of his mother or he could cause conflict or distress and he understands that there will be consequences for any deviations from that shared identity. There's also this expectation that like everything is an emergency when it comes from the mother. So even if there is no emergency, the son is expected to respond immediately to his mother's needs. And when he does this, it's really him demonstrating his loyalty to his mother. And he will consistently be put in positions where he has to show this loyalty. And it seems like everything is like a fire drill.

There's also a lot of built-up resentment for these sons. The son will be unable to express or act upon how he feels towards his mother over time. and that resentment will build, but he will likely feel like he cannot express that or he may not even know why that resentment has built up. And I mentioned this part earlier, but a distant father is often very common in these situations. So if the father is emotionally distant from the son, the amassed relationship with his mother becomes even more intense because the son also cannot rely on his father for emotional closeness and neither can the mother. And sometimes they can even bond over that lack. Another trait that's common is that the son becomes overly reliant on his

mother's approval. And this can impact his career, his relationships, and his ability to really do anything outside of the mother-son bond can also really impact his decision-making skills, because he relies on his mother's input, advice, or approval to make decisions. There's also a lot of boundary confusion in these mother-son relationships. And so the son really doesn't know where he begins and his mother ends, and he cannot keep up with this level of emotional confusion. And so there cannot be boundaries because they are kind of the same person in a lot of ways. There's also a lot of excessive guilt in these relationships, you know, especially if the son

attempts to deviate from his mother's opinion, her wishes, her personality, really anything. He will experience guilt and that will make it harder to connect with her. She may also really demonstrate this excessive guilt and put it on him whenever he does something that she doesn't approve of. These sons are also tasked with a lot of responsibility, and this is what can make their own partnerships feel extremely daunting because they are responsible and have been responsible likely from a young age for their mother's well-being. And usually that's at the expense of their own health, their own relationships. And when you feel responsible for a parent's emotional and or physical well-being, it is so much responsibility. And a lot of their decision making

will revolve around that responsibility. There's also a lot of self-sacrifice in these dynamics. You know, the son typically is going to be suppressing their personal needs and wanting to make sure that the mother feels like he can meet all of her needs. And that is really how he forms his identity, right? And ties that to, I am a good son if I can keep up with everything my mother needs and keep her happy and safe and all of these things, even if that comes at the expense of my own career,

my well-being, my relationships, this is what is most important. And so I asked a couple of you to share some of your individual stories with me and I wanted to highlight some of them to show you how this dynamic can become damaging to our relationships, especially those with partners when it gets out of control.

So one person messaged me and said, my college boyfriend's mom was unfortunately reliant on men to take care of her. She was raised during a time when women weren't able to get mortgages or credit cards. Her father doted on her mother and worked hard to provide for his family while her mother stayed home. So when the transition to both partners working outside the home started to take place, she ended up at the mercy of men like so, so many women from the silent and baby boom generations.

I understand why she clung so tightly to her son. and I loved him for his desire to save her. I just knew I wasn't a good fit for their dynamic. Fast forward from my early 20s to late 40s, and I'm so glad we parted. Being saved by a man, even one who truly loves and advocates for women, would have led to me never knowing I could save myself.

So this is a person that ultimately got out of this dynamic, but I wanted to share this story with you because I think it points to a couple of really important considerations here, that a lot of times in these dynamics today, we are talking about mothers and women who have lived through such a rapid change in how women are allowed to operate in society, right? And so if you have a mother who was not able to get a mortgage,

was not able to get a credit card, really could not function without her relationship to this man. Being tied to a man really felt like survival. And when that man then becomes unreliable, emotionally, physically, financially, it makes sense why a lot of these women then thought, okay, I will attach myself to the next closest man around me, and that is my son. And they then especially look to their sons for companionship, emotional support, all of this stuff. And so that's when I say that, like, this isn't totally about demonizing women or demonizing

these mothers and saying, oh my gosh, how could they do this to their sons? But instead, looking at the context and trying to help any mothers who lived through this rapid change understand that a lot of the circumstances of their lives are what led to this type of dynamic. And now things have changed in such a way that we can all learn that relying on our sons for companionship, emotional support, financial support, in the ways that we would a partner, is no longer as necessary and really is detrimental to these relationships. And that can be a hard thing to understand, especially when you have not lived your life that way and you've really been taught that not only do you need to center men in your life,

but you also cannot survive without them. And so this can feel very risky, I think, to a lot of mothers that grew up in these generations. But we can also see the impact that it's having on their sons. And so we can have empathy and still say, okay, this behavior needs to change now that we are in 2024. And we also see, like in the video that I showed you, some of this behavior still being repeated despite women having a lot of freedoms. A couple other quick things that were shared with me that were like little signs that people shared was, you know, he blatantly told me he would never choose me over her. I knew my first marriage was over when my mother-in-law cut my husband's stake for him at a formal event. Another person said my

ex-mother-in-law has a twisted level of control over my ex-husband and it definitely affected my marriage. Someone else shared with me, I have three brothers. I'm the only girl. The most misogynistic person in my family of origin is my mother and not saying something. I don't think she even values herself very much. Also, she's very close, but not in a way that I wish to emulate with my son to my brother who is gay. I feel her over-reliance on him and her favoritism towards him is causing him harm. They also have a pact that they don't discuss any family issues.

Someone else said, my mom claimed that my dad treated my brother extremely poorly, that he needed extra love and care from her. I, on the other hand, was her place to project her anger and resentment. Apparently, I didn't need the extra love and care the way my brother did. Another person said, my mom used to tell me and my sister, we had to help clean because someday we would have husbands. But my brothers didn't have to help because someday they'd have wives. This was the 90s.

Fast forward and neither brother is married. So, you know, we all grew up, I think, in some way with these really like gendered expectations or beliefs about how relationships should function. Oh, here's some more that I didn't share. This was debilitating. He called her seven times a day, and she joined a grief support group when we married. Ouch, that's difficult. Someone else's mother-in-law was divorced and not remarried, which means that she expects her sons to take care of her. And if they don't, then they're still punishing her for having an affair. So you can see in a lot of these examples that, like, if the husband of the mother or the father of the child does not perform in a certain way,

the mother then takes that burden or that expectation and places it onto the son and how difficult that can become when these sons are trying to form their own new families. And it is okay and wonderful for adult sons to want to support and take care of their mothers. But there's certainly a line where this becomes so at the expense of their own wellness and actually does not help their mothers in the long run. And I think that we need to look at what is the happy medium, you know, between those extremes. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the past.

to a brighter future with Stellist lenses for Myopia Control. Learn more at SLR.com and ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. So let's talk a little bit more about why this happens. I know I've touched on a couple of different reasons, you know, one of them being a distant spouse or an unfulfilling partnership. And we also talk some about the mother feeling or being alone in the world and expecting, you know, the next male in line to protect and care for her even if it's at his own expense. Some of the other reasons can be, you know, insecurity and separation and anxiety, especially if the mother is quite insecure about herself or separating

from her child. There are also parents who are really trying to live any of their unfulfilled dreams through their sons. And, you know, they've, they've attached themselves. fully to whatever their son is doing in their life and see themselves as an extension of them rather than being their parent who has raised them to be an adult who now goes out into the world. Of course, personality disorders or mental health issues can also impact these relationships. We talked a little bit about cultural and gender norms. I think every culture to some degree has specific beliefs about sons and the role that sons should play in a family and some of those are more extreme than others. Whenever I talk about things like this, I think

it's really important to note that culture is important and it's valuable and it's something that should always be considered within the context of talking about families and especially if you're in therapy, it should be something that is discussed and included in the conversations. And there are certainly cultures in the Western worlds that are much more individualistic and would say, you know, sons need to fully prioritize their wives and they need to separate from the family of origin. And that is their priority now. And there are other cultures that would hear that and say, that's not acceptable and that's not what I want for my family. And so I think what ultimately matters here is if you are going to partner with someone that you are having

these conversations about your family, your culture, gender norms, what is expected, what you are looking for in your new family, and making sure that both of you can agree on that. Because this isn't about what's wrong or right. It's about being honest and upfront about what you are willing to provide and what kind of dynamics you're willing to participate in when you join a family. Because far too often I see that this is not discussed. And then unfortunately, when you have a heterosexual couple where a man partners with a woman and the man then starts to retreat from his family or is not prioritizing his mother in the same way or as much, the woman often gets blamed. The daughter-in-law or the spouse are saying, you took away my son,

even though the son is making those choices on his own. And so we have to, I think, be cautious not to just say, like, oh, well, that's my culture, you know, for the woman to take on all these responsibilities and for the man to continue taking care of his mother and instead say how is we how are we going to make this work for us how are we going to blend our cultures together our unique backgrounds together and make sure that we are forming the type of family that we want to have and that might mean full separation from the family of origin it might mean that your in-laws or your partners parents are living with you and they are involved in your day-to-day life this is really just about what works for you and what feels like it is beneficial to your life and to your family.

Another big one here is lack of community support. So this is one of the primary reasons I think that some mothers who are isolated, insecure, unhappy in their marriage become very, very dependent on their sons. And I do feel that if these women had much more community support in the form of friendships, equitable division of labor in the home, feeling supported by their partners, feeling like they had an identity outside of motherhood. You would not see this as often. You would not have so many people feeling like they had to put all their eggs in this basket, you know, in order to feel supported and cared for. And so I do think that the more support we can offer these women, especially women as they age and their children go out and start to form

their own lives, the less likely that this will happen. If you've listened to this episode and you are like, okay, this is what's happening in my family. This is what's happening with me and my mom. This is what's happening with my spouse and his mom. Here are some things that you can do to work on this. So you can try to really like practice small separations. And what that means is just walking things back a little bit each time. So if you're that person who is calling your mom seven times a day, can you knock it down to six, then five? Can you check in via text sometimes instead of calling so often?

Can you try to make these little micro adjustments in the relationship and see how they feel and see what the repercussions are or how those movements are handled? So family therapy or joining a community like calling home can actually be extremely helpful for you as well. For the entire month of June, we're talking about emmeshment in the family system. And so there's a lot of videos, quick scripts that you can use, articles. We have support groups every week in addition to these podcast episodes. And then for the entire month of July next month, we're going to be talking about in-law relationships.

So I think those two months, June and July, would be so helpful for all of you that can relate to this episode. And that content stays on the site forever. So if you join, you're always able to go back to it and use it. And it can be really great for you to use the calling home resources with your partner or even with your parent if they're open to it. Developing more support is super important, especially if you are someone that is enmeshed with your mother, with your parent. you having support outside of them will make you feel like you can tolerate more separation from this relationship. So that's important. The other thing I would encourage is, you know, just becoming aware of these patterns. So as you've listened to this episode, what have you

become aware of that you want to work on more or that you want to notice or take note of when it's happening and how can you and your partner work on this together so that your new family feels supported as well as your relationship with your parent or your family of origin. Boundaries can also be really important. I know that setting boundaries and enmeshed relationships are very difficult. I have some scripts and videos about that on the Calling Home website for the Family Cycle Breakers Club. So definitely check those out if boundaries are something you need help with. And then also encouraging independence is really important. You know, helping your parent find things that they might want to do on their own, really instilling this idea on them that

they can be independent, that you believe in them, that you both are able to function outside of each other can be good. And that's where this idea of like being less available comes in, that sometimes we are reinforcing for the people around us, the belief that they cannot handle things and they need us and they cannot survive without us. And so being less available, you know, not filling every moment on your calendar with helping this person or supporting them is very important. And actually, sometimes when we are too helpful, it is at their expense. So trying to think of ways, again, that you can dial that back a little bit and helping them with things that are essential, but maybe not being present for every single mood change or feeling throughout the day

or whatever it is that you feel like you need to kind of pull back on some. I hope that this episode was helpful and eye-opening for anyone that is dealing with some of these issues. Like I mentioned, we will be talking about enmeshed relationships for this entire month of June and then in July moving into in-law relationships. So anybody related to this episode, I know that you will get a lot of benefit out of the content that we have on calling home this month. And I hope to see some of you in our weekly groups. As always, thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed the podcast, please remember to subscribe and leave a review. That is what really helps us get this show out to more people. And as always, thank you again. And I look forward

to hearing from you soon and look forward to the next episode. Bye. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Home's terms of service linked in the show notes below.