A sons a son....

[curious33]

'A sons a son until he finds a wife but a daughters a daughter for all of your life'

Curious to know peoples experiences of this in real life... heard the phrase for the first time yesterday. AIBU to not know how much truth there is in it and to be taking it a little bit to heart now as a mum of two boys?

‘My husband is a mummy’s boy’

So he cares about his mum and speaks to her a lot. You don’t want your son to be like that. Be careful what you wish for would be my advice.

My ds is 26. He’s close to me. We love each other very very much. Does this make him a mummy’s boy?

How horrible and insulting is the phrase ‘mummy’s boy?’

@Plurr

Not all daughters have a close relationship with their mothers.

^This.

My DB is close to my DM. I’m not and have been NC for years.

@thelonelymoatedgrange I winced reading your theory but then I actually saw some truth in it. For some men at least I think you’ve definitely hit the nail on the head for a certain type of men.

My DH is very close to him mum.

My two brothers are also very close to my mum, more so than me.

Well DSiL moved thousands of miles away to Oz, so it's DH who spends more time with PiL and it's my DB who cares for my elderly parents, so rubbish. And my son is gay so there won't be a wife happening. It's one of those brainless things people trot out.

Also when people have children, even if the mother is working they are the ones arranging and running their children’s schedules: their childcare arrangements, the drs appointments- the life admin. It’s not that big a jump to understand as parents get older a daughter is more likely to be the one to help with their life admin over a son. It’s more wired into women maybe

I think it’s likely to be true to a degree. My DH calls his mum and we see them on important occasions but not that regularly (they live at a distance).

I guess if I wasn’t here he would see them more but me and my family and our own children fill up “family” time in his head and he doesn’t press for more of it.

Nonsense. I think it's how you raise your kids. I can really see DS being very close to dh and I because we have such a bond already.
Dh and I are both not close to our parents, because they didnt seem to have much interest.
I am a daughter but dont do that much for dm or close to her.

My ds is 26. He’s close to me. We love each other very very much. Does this make him a mummy’s boy?

The “we love each other very very much” just sounds wrong. There is nothing wrong with loving your child or your parent, but to say you love each other very very much when you are talking about parental love is odd.

Isn’t it a misogynist statement that appears to criticise sons, but is actually aimed at daughters-in-law?

I’ve come across loads of failed marriages where the relationship with the husband’s mother is a big issue. Never known divorced men complain about their overbearing MILs, despite the Les Dawson jokes.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince I think of a mummy’s boy as a man who is overly reliant on his mum, who prioritises his mum over his partner every time even when it’s inappropriate. Also who’s emotionally enmeshed ie mums opinion matters above all else, feels a need a please her etc.

Nothing wrong with a loving son and mother speaking most days. I think there is something wrong with panicked phone calls and multiple messages because a phone call hasn’t taken place.

That’s just my view.

I find it strange that parents expect to be very close to their adult children. Yes, of course they/we are always there if needed and we enjoy each other's company and share special occasions but we aren't in constant touch and wouldn't expect to be.

My parents have two daughters. They raised us to send us off into the world and are happy that we dont "need" them constantly. I hope to do the same with my sons.

Absolutely, and to what @Ragwort said.

I'm frequently a bit taken aback by the webs of obligation, over-involvement and resentment that seem to be taken as normal relationships between parents and adult children on Mn. I'm very fond of my parents, and DH is of his, but we lived in a series of other countries to them for our entire adult lives till a few months ago and haven't 'relied' on them for anything at all since we left home, wherever we lived. Perhaps part of the issue is the increasing normalisation of grandparents being assumed to offer free childcare. We've never done this, and I would certainly not anticipate doing it for my DS's (eventual) children. I imagine he'll be off somewhere else in the world doing his thing, with my full blessing.

It is only "true" if people continue to reinforce gender stereotypes.

There is no biological reason why adult females are closer to their parents than adult males. However we live in a gendered world so people spout bollocks like this.

Yup. Someone always bobs up on a thread like this to say that in all her years working in a hospital/old people's home, it's always adult daughters visiting/attending appointments with parents, and entirely failing to recognise that this is the case because of still-different male and female socialisation, which still trains girls in dutifully caretaking relationships and putting other people's needs before theirs.

I think a lot depends on the circumstances and personalities involved and how flexible parents are to changes with their children’s lives.

In my own family, my brothers and their wives are all really close to my parents. My parents are supportive and present but not intrusive, they treat us as equals, not children, and they’re respectful of our choices. We all help each other out where we can (I live in a different country so not as easy for me.) We prioritise family but not exclusively. One of my SILs is much less close to her own family who are more demanding that she dance to their tune, help comes with strings attached, and definitely don’t see her as an equal.

My parents are hugely supportive of my decision to live in the UK with my (British) husband and kids. They’d love us to move to my country but there’s no pressure. Pre Covid they visited regularly and we did likewise.

DH’s family are lovely but view him moving to London permanently as fairly odd. They live 3 hours away and have visited us three times in the 12 years we’ve lived together, because they don’t like the journey or where we live. They are much closer to SIL as she moved back to the area after uni and they do a lot of childcare for her. They never ring DH - the onus is on him (but they do get sad if he doesn’t ring regularly). They’re great grandparents but only when we go to see them. It’s inevitable that they have grown less close over the years as the relationship is much more one sided.

The lesson I’ve drawn, and from watching others, is that if I want to have successful adult relationships with my boys I need to treat it as a relationship of equals, with mutual respect and effort, rather than continuing the parent child dynamic into their adulthoods.

And even then it’s obviously not a given. But I’ve got great role models in my parents.

My mother had 3 girls and 1 boy.

The three girls now live in different continents, the boy lives close by and sees her every week.

Totally depends on the situation. My MIL lives with us and it was my idea. She's like a Mum to me.

When my Nana was alive (my GP's brought me up from the age of 7) it was very equal between her and PIL.

My Aunt goes on about this phrase all the time, but actually the reason her DIL's parents are closer to my cousin and his wife is because she is bloody rude to his wife. She also expects my cousin to put her first all the time - for example timing dinner around his PIL's trains, his brother's work, and his children's naps rather than his mother's preference (only different by 30 mins) is her being "pushed out".

I think this saying tends to become true when the parents get older.
And it’s a saying as often applied to father/daughter relationships as mother/son.
In personal experience I have yet to see a so who runs around after his elderly parents when there’s a sister or wife to do it.😡

Well, that phrase was true when that is what society expected - women were not really given any choice but to remain dutiful to their parents, so true love and devotion didn’t necessarily come into it.

I don’t think it is brainless.

If people look beyond their own individual experiences for a moment and in general we accept that:

• Mothers who abandon their children are so remote as to make up a handful of cases each year, while a man abandoning his children is practically socially acceptable.

• women provide and organise the care for elderly relatives

• men are regularly ‘adopted’ into a family with a lone female parent and become dad, this almost never happens in reverse

• when women are widowed, they generally are less likely to remarry and usually after some years have passed. Men are far more likely to marry and often after a short amount of time.

Then some smaller ones

• men are not usually the primary caregivers of children

• men do not usually instigate what happens at Christmas

• men are more likely to leave the area they were born in

Now I know some of you will now tell me your DH is a SAHD who you married 3 months after your first husband died and loves nothing more than cooking the Christmas turkey for mil who lives next door but generally these are the patterns.

There is a difference, and I think it is societal but then we are society. It’s more than one family making the right noises certainly.

@mynameiscalypso

I think it totally depends - it's true in my husband's case as he is much less close to his parents now than he was before we met. It's absolutely not true for my DB who is as close to my parents as ever; his wife is also very close to them. Closer than I am!

Why's that Calypso? Why has you relationship changed his relationship with his mum? Sounds worrying too me.

I imagine he'll be off somewhere else in the world doing his thing, with my full blessing.

Yes! I got absolutely zero grief from my parents for moving abroad (at first temporarily but then got shacked up, married and had two kids here).

Whereas my PILs honestly can’t get their heads around DH living in a different county, and expect him to do all the work maintaining the relationship as a result.

Maybe it’s also that they have more traditional gender roles - perhaps they always expected to be closer to their daughter than to their son in adulthood, and it became a self fulfilling prophecy.

Billben😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

You are just so wrong. I can’t even be arsed to explain it.

I have a good relationship with my sons, but I do find them more...distant when they have a GF. Younger one has just moved in with his GF and I admit to feeling slightly bereft when he did. He was the last of my children to pair up and was always the one I called on to pop over for a long dog walk and a chat (although he is also the only one with transport, so that may have contributed).

My girls are keener to chat on the phone or invite me round for no real reason, more physically demonstrative. But now they are all in couples, I take a back seat and wait for them to contact me (mostly, I mean I will call or text if I haven't heard anything for ages!), but I certainly don't insist on any level of contact.

But then, there are five of them. I haven't found their sex to be the barrier to us being close, but I do leave them to their own devices largely unless they need me.

Ridiculous saying that makes all sorts of fairly negative assumptions about men women, parenthood and marriage.

The other thing is not all elderly parents need care and to be honest if I live that long I’d prefer my children not to provide it.

It isn’t about a sort of tit for tat relationship, just about one that is hopefully loving and respectful.

My husband warned me that his mum, though lovely, has a tendency to want everything to revolve around her family.

She slowly and steadily cut out her husband's family, and now all family events for his side revolve around her family.

My husband didn't want that for us so has been carefully even handed - whilst still being a good son.

We're both very different people to our parents though, so we wouldn't suit being joined at the hip with either set. I like to think we sit nicely in the middle of both sides somewhat extreme tendencies.