Growing up in the 1970s, my mother was a committed feminist who attended rally after rally alongside Gloria Steinem. From the time I was seven years old, she encouraged me, her only son, to become a sanitation worker. At the very same time, she encouraged my sister to become a doctor.
Even before my parents separated, my mother insisted that if there were only enough money to send one child to college, it should be my sister. At the time, I was only two years old and my sister was three.
My parents separated when I was very young. By the time I was about four years old, my father was no longer a significant presence in my life. As a result, my mother had virtually complete control over how my sister and I were raised and how money was handled within the household.
Growing up, all the money my sister and I received from birthdays, Christmas, and Halloween was taken by my mother. She repeatedly assured us that the money would be deposited into bank accounts for our future.
Later, when I began working odd jobs at nearby mechanic shops and shoveling snow, that money was taken as well under the same promise. By the age of fourteen, I had a weekend job that earned me approximately $60 every weekend. During the summer months, when school was out, I often made as much as $120 per week.
My mother insisted that I hand over every dollar.
This time, I refused.
She was furious.
By the time I turned seventeen, I wanted to see the money that had supposedly been saved throughout my childhood.
Years of birthday money.
Years of Christmas gifts.
Years of Halloween money.
Years of odd jobs.
Years of summer work.
Years of promises.
The grand total was $195.
And that was only my money.
My mother had also taken my sister’s money throughout those same years under the exact same promise that it was being saved for her future.
Looking back, I do not believe my experience was unique.
Over the years, I have seen similar patterns repeated in other families.
I have seen mothers baby their sons until the sons become completely dependent upon them. I have also seen mothers turn their sons into permanent providers and protectors whose primary purpose is to meet their mother’s emotional, financial, or practical needs.
In both cases, the result is often the same.
The son exists to serve the mother.
She effectively spousifies her son, treating him less like a child and more like a substitute husband from whom she can extract loyalty, resources, protection, and attention.
There is a popular saying, “You only have one mother.”
The phrase is often used as if it settles every argument and excuses every action, no matter how destructive her behavior may have been.
Curiously, there is no equally common saying reminding people that they only have one father and must therefore love and honor him regardless of his actions.
A woman can influence people through emotion, persuasion, guilt, manipulation, deception, and social pressure. She can shape relationships, create alliances, and drive wedges between family members.
What a man can build with iron, brick, and wood, a woman can often build or destroy with people.
The difference is that some women seek cooperation, while others seek control.
Rather than raising a son to become independent and productive, they raise him to remain useful to them.
The consequences of this behavior often remain hidden for decades.
Today, many adult children find themselves dealing with the decline, illness, and eventual death of aging parents largely on their own. These burdens were once shared by extended families that included spouses, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
Yet many of those family networks no longer exist.
Over the years, I have watched wives create conflicts between their husbands and their siblings, mothers, fathers, cousins, aunts, and uncles. I have watched relationships destroyed, family ties severed, and entire support networks dismantled by manipulation, deception, jealousy, emotional coercion, and the relentless demand to become the center of a man’s loyalty, attention, and affection.
The result is often isolation.
The husband becomes disconnected from his family.
The children grow up disconnected from theirs.
And when hardship finally arrives, the support system that should have existed has already been dismantled.
Looking back, I have come to believe that most fathers want their children to grow up and become better than they were. Many mothers, however, seem more interested in raising children who remain emotionally, financially, or psychologically dependent upon them.
Whether through overprotection, guilt, manipulation, or dependency, some mothers do not prepare their children to leave. Instead, they prepare them to stay.
In the end, the independent woman who demanded that everyone revolve around her often discovers that she has spent years pushing away the very people she may someday need the most.
In her mind, she, and she alone, should matter.
Eventually, reality presents a different answer.
