Some mums enable their sons poor behaviour

[theprincessthepea]

I had my first daughter with my “childhood sweetheart” who ended up becoming a terrible adult and so we broke up when my daughter was young. He hasn’t seen his child for over 5 years now but I am still in contact with his mum who lives abroad.

As I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve realised her attitude is very much “boys will be boys”, “us women will always carry the burden of childcare and we should be grateful for the little men contribute” and “at least he cares about his daughter and is trying in his own way.” (E.g. a text once a month!!!!)- she tells me these things. Whenever he had stepped out of line in our relationship she usually laughed it off.

Her son has gone awol apparently and she is trying to convince me to “motivate him again”. He is in his early 30s - he should have grown up by now - but I believe his mum has enabled so much of his lazy behaviours.

I think about my current partner who shares the household load. He is close to his mum, she also taught him how to cook and he has an element of respect for his mums time and opinion. Complete opposite to my ex.

A friend of mine recently complained about her husband - they’ve had their 3rd child and he feels like he can “do what he wants” and when he goes to his mum she takes his side and treats him like a big kid (cooks for him, has the boys will be boys attitude etc).

AIBU to think that mums carrying this attitude plays a big role with enabling some of their sons negative behaviour. I feel like my exes mum enables him and I’m tired of her excuses for her son.

Many people’s behaviour and thinking is directly correlated with their childhood and the role models they grew up around. Doesn’t have to be parents but more often than not it is. So if you have an over indulgent domestic-based mother and a misogynist father with ‘traditional’ ideas about where power should lie, unless you become self aware or hang around with mates who live differently you’re always going to think that that is normal.

100%. My brother is largely lazy, entitled, and does very little for his children or ex wife. My mum absolutely enables his behaviour which is utterly infuriating. To be fair, my dad does too, so it’s the result of bad parenting from both sides. Still drives me completely insane to sit by and watch.

I will change my statement to “bad parenting”. I focus on the mum in this case because the dad wasn’t around. I would say his dad is to blame in many ways for not being there.

Im sure his mum did everything she could - she was a working mum that was never home though! I would know - we grew up together - my issue isn’t blaming her on how he has turned out - maybe he always had a shit personality. My issue is that now that he is an adult, that doesn’t show up for his daughter and that hasn’t got his life together - she continues to defend him and tells me to accept the little effort he makes

@livingnight I agree when it comes to generational patterns, as my daughter has had to grow up in a single parent household because her dad can’t step up.

I agree there is nature vs nurture at play here. Personality has so much to do with how we end up. In this case I’m talking about enabling behaviour even in adulthood.

I agree with whoever said I should just ignore her

Parents enable their children's poor behaviour. Just because his dad wasn't around doesn't mean it doesn't contribute to his poor decision making and lifestyle.

Some women perhaps normalise but behaviour but ultimately women are not responsible for men.
Parents have do a responsibility to bring up respectful sons and daughters, of course.

With all due respect OP, you blame her for raising a bad person, we could all blame you for choosing to procreate with him?

As others have pointed out, it doesn't matter what men do, it will always be a women's fault.

But you criticise her for defending and mitigating for her son. That's obvious isn't it? As much as you want her to join in with your character assassination of him, she's not going to: it's her son. Just as you're not going to stand around nodding and smiling and joining in when anyone slags off your DCs in the future. It's our basic instinct as parents to defend our kids.

If she's a good grandma, I wouldn't even discuss her son's behaviour and poor parenting with her. It's not on her, that's on him as an adult human being.

My parents babied me growing up. I was a useless, incompetent 18yo.

I am now a fairly able, self-sufficient adult who can work, cook, clean, run a home and look after my DC. Leaving home for university and then living away for work turned me into a functional human being, as there was no one else around to pick up the pieces. Nor did society give me the message that when I moved in with someone else, I could unload everything onto their shoulders.

Parents play a part, yes, but by the time someone is 30, I think personal responsibility/societal expectations feed into it.

My niece's father is awful. His parents and grandparents do all the school drop offs, he doesn't even know the school address. My niece is six and he has never so much as made her a slice of toast. This year he bought a dog for £1000 but refuses to buy a car seat so he can transport my niece and claims as he cannot transport her he cannot do any overnights. My sister needs holiday care and when she called him up to ask for a contribution he responded 'that sounds expensive for you'. He is meant to see his daughter every Sunday at his parents but doesn't turn up for weeks at a time and when he does he arrives just before her bedtime so he doesn't have to spend time with her. He also allows his girlfriend to smoke in front of her.

Despite all this his mother maintains that he is father of the year and any tantrums or bad behaviour my niece displays is my sister's fault. She will send long voicenotes telling my sister all the things she's doing wrong. Unfortunately, she relies on them quite a bit so she can't say too much back.

Family background and upgrading is a massive part of it generally. I absolutely hate the kind of males who just bum around and "boomerang" back to mother when things get tough, and they're usually the ones who "love their Mums" too much, which is all an act to keep in their mother's good book and overlook their crap behaviour. The mothers stupidly accept it because, of course, "he's a good boy really". Fair enough when they're 10, but when they're 20, 30 or even 40, there's something very strange about that scenario! It's more about the mother being a doormat than a parent to an adult child, and the male takes full advantage of it!

Personally, I think the great way of making someone grow up and responsible is them getting a full time, long term job. So that they start to have more responsible people to work with, in an adult environment. And I think that's where a lot of today's problems stem from, i.e. the worklessness, the benefit culture, and the "side hustle" which is just for pocket/spending money, because such people are "dependent" on either the state for their flat etc or some still nominally live back with their mother (inbetween girlfriends of course).

These males basically don't grow up. But all they need is a cheeky smile, buy some flowers or chocolates occasionally, and the women in their lives fall for all.

I think you avoid blaming women for the shortcomings of men while still acknowledging that a patriarchal environment shaped a man’s upbringing.

My ex was brought up in what was then a Third World country in poverty by a semi literate mother because the dad had fucked off when she had three infant sons.

His mum raised all three boys to adulthood in incredibly difficult circumstances with basically no social safety net and two of them have become fairly successful. I take my hat off to her for achieving what she did and will always have massive respect for her.

But I can still acknowledge that all three of them (now in their 40s and 50s) were brought up with the expectation that women would manage all domestic labour because that’s how it was in that country in the 1960s and 1970s. It would have taken an educated and exceptionally progressive individual to have gone against that grain.

So while I don’t blame my ex’s mum as such for the fact he still struggles to wipe his own arse as she was a product of her time, I can still observe that her perspective has contributed to his uselessness.

Maybe not, but they’re responsible for their own misogynistic attitudes and how they raised their sons.

My mum is the same OP, runs herself ragged after my nasty brother, doesn’t do anywhere close to the same for my sister and I, never stands up to his appalling behaviour, always plays along with his victim narrative after he’s the one who has hurt others, etc. I hope she’s banking on him caring for her in her old age (which he never, ever would) seeing as she’s neglected me and my sister in favour of indulging his dramas.

his dad wasn’t around.

Oh so he's blameless then! Thanks for clarifying!

So this woman raised her son on her own, worked long hours to provide for him (you say she was never home), and now you want her to spend her old(er) age chastising her son for his behaviour - behaviour that is undoubtedly caused by his father (or lack thereof)?

Maybe she's bloody tired! Maybe now she just wants to try and enjoy the relationship she has with her child to whatever extent she can given that she missed lots of his childhood due to the fact she was solely burdened with providing for him.

Maybe she is trying to impart what she sees as wisdom to you. Maybe she found peace in just accepting that her son's father was a dickhead and just focused her energies on her son instead, and she's just trying to spare you wasted energy and focus on the good. Maybe she sees her son's behaviour as inevitable due to his absent father, and doesn't know what she can do. Maybe that doesn't mean she thinks it's okay, it just means she doesn't think herself capable of changing generational patterns of behaviour which she herself was a victim of.

Is any of that ideal? No. But I'd probably give her a break and instead look to blame the man who is actually causing your problems.

I think we can acknowledge all that and have valid judgements. I think that so many women soldier on and do it all had a really negative side effect on many men. They expect women to do it all too to which I say say, no thank you! Maybe women should let on just how difficult and unfair it is. Certainly not accepting it with "boys will be boys".

As a parent I do feel it's my job, along with their dad, to instil decent values into our dc and raise good, competent humans (of both sexes). If my kids grew up to be lazy, entitled shits, I would feel responsible tbh (as would their dad)! Clearly something would have gone wrong!

But I certainly don't believe that as the mother, it's more on me than dad.

@theprincessthepea

@villamariavintrapp his dad wasn’t around.

Ah so the feckless father wasn't around so it's the mum's fault?
How does your brain work?

Child abandonment trumps mummy's boy upbringing in my books.

@theprincessthepea
I will change my statement to “bad parenting”. I focus on the mum in this case because the dad wasn’t around. I would say his dad is to blame in many ways for not being there.

So the entire premise of your post is incorrect you now concede.

Sadly your OP is indicative of the problem. Initial thought is 'mum is to blame'. Always is this thought. You gave demonstrated one of the major problems with the way we see the role of women vs men

Women need to stop making lame excuses such as this one and be more assertive. "It's always the Mums fault" no it isnt, Boundary up. Women go in to keen, wanting approval, look at how that turns out for Step mums. Start as you mean to go on. My husband lived on his own for years before we got together, he was more than capable, but when he tried to cop out of doing something when we moved in together l nipped it straight in the bud. I said this is going to become a problem for me if you keep doing this, and he took it on board. Women act like martyrs then moan.
I don't tidy up after my son, but his girlfriend comes along and happily starts tydying up after him, l said to her, "Your making a for for your own back, let him do it" she said "l don't mind doing it, l like things tidy" l give up.

Rod, not for.

As a mother of sons, and coming from a single parent family that was all women who had been let down by men repeatedly, I thought I would never marry, and always held the belief that if I had children, I particularly had a duty to raise sons who would make great life partners.

That said, my husband also believed he had that duty... and I attribute much of the success to his role modelling.

But... if we go full circle... that standard my husband held was set by his mother, an incredible matriarch, who took no shit (RIP), and who my husband learned most of who he is, and who he wants to be from, not least the kind of father he wanted to be,

So while I resent the narrative that women are at fault for shitty men, I also believe we have a strong role to play in setting the standard.

@PutASpellOnYou

I don't know what kind of relationship you have with the girlfriend but maybe you could talk to her or even your son about it more?

I do not tolerate the "boys will be boys" excuse.

Unfortunately I've discovered I am very much in the minority. DS has really been struggling with friendships in the past couple of years as he's been introduced to a very different set of attitudes at secondary school.

Parents need to do better.

Yep, always told how much better the DC of their friends were as they knew how to do stuff round the house and had Saturday/evening jobs.

The relative of my friend owned a catering business and had a contract at a Masonic hall-type place. She asked if I wanted a job as a waitress. I was about 13/14. My DF refused as it was “illegal” until I was 16 🙄. So while my friend earned £20+ per shift (this was early’90s), my DPs instead made me do a weekly evening paper round (local free paper) on our estate that sometimes paid as little as £3 per week.

I never got their logic that it was better for me to tramp about in the dark and cold than be in a warm, dry place with an adult keeping an eye. If I ever complained about having no money; it would be “Well you should have got a job like Sarah/Jenny/Liz”, ignoring the fact that by the time I was 16, other people had 3/4 years experience over me.

They somehow expected me to be fully functional when I’d never been shown or allowed to do basic stuff.

I’m sorry about your brother. I have a younger DB and we were treated differently but not to the extent he’d get away with that behaviour.

Actually as soon as he turned 18 she flew off to another country and hasn’t been there for him physically for over a decade. Then again he is a grown man, she should be able to do what she wants - but he spent a lot of his 20s having “mummy issues”, because according to him “my mum was barely around”.

Clearly a very complex dynamic.

she can do what she wants. I am probably bitter because my mum didn’t defend me at all - she bad mouthed me to anyone that would listen for even having a child out of wedlock (and I’m sure most of you on MN would back my mum) - I wonder if I was a boy, would she do the same?

What I am annoyed about more than anything is that she (my exs mum) constantly comes back to me, expecting me to be “kind to her son” - sometimes she calls me, clearly upset, but angry at me for not making the effort to help him (and she can be quite aggressive). I have told her over again that it’s not my job and I will only speak to him if it’s in relation to our DD. I have moved on, have a partner, have pretty much raised my DD alone with family support - and I’m meant to be nice to her son and check in on him (according to his mum) when he doesn’t even check in on his own kid. She should use that energy to tell her son to step up - not beg me to mummy him whilst she’s abroad.

As I said previously the dad is to blame - but it’s not the point of the post. My dad wasn’t around either - wish I could use it as an excuse to not be a good parent. Oh yes - I’m a woman so expected to do my duty as mum - whilst ex can use this as a reason to “not be present” due to lack of role model…