Firstborn sons are not substitute-husbands for negligent fathers.

19 May 2020|Emotional incest, Healing, Mother wound

Photo cred: @maximushka

There’s a certain type of mother wound that hits firstborn sons -hard, and their pain is not acknowledged. If anything we have coined the derogative term “mama’s boy” and use it as a blanket to silence and mock their suffering. However, what we never mention is the other end of the spectrum of smothered sons. Mama’s little man, Who is robbed of his childhood and had to play a substitute spouse from childhood.

See, many women, unfortunately, find themselves raising children without the aid of a supportive partner. This may be because she is in an abusive relationship, is single, or has lost her partner to divorce or death. Whatever the reason, it can’t possibly be easy carrying the load and responsibility of raising children alone. And it is in these difficulties that mothers often unconsciously turn to one of their children as a support system, totally blurring the lines between adult and child and therefore committing one of the vilest forms of emotional abuse — EMOTIONAL INCEST.

What is emotional incest?

Emotional incest is when a parent smothers a child. Using their child as a confidant or substitute spouse.

This is often the case where the mother is in an unhappy marriage/relationship or is single. She then turns to one of the children, usually the firstborn son to be the support system that listens to her adult problems and assists her in raising her other children.

This emotional dependency by the mother may make the son feel important because he is trusted with adult responsibilities and adult secrets, but it robs him off of his childhood and leaves him with many psychological and emotional defects that will have him struggling to form healthy attachments as an adult, especially with women. First daughters are also hit hard by emotional incest stemming from both mothers and fathers. But for this article, I will be shedding light on the complexities of emotional incest in the mother-son relationship.

There’s a difference between mama’s boy and mommy’s little man

The other is under natured while the latter is over nurtured. But both serve the purpose of serving mother in her need for attention and emotional support — that she fails to get from other adults.

Thabo is a 23. At age 10 he was already his mother’s confidant, a shoulder to cry on. His mother offloaded the details of her unhealthy marriage to Thabo’s father onto Thabo…“He is mature for his age”, “He gives good advice”; she would say.

This made Thabo feel important. He was trusted with secrets and adult problems/information. But at the same time build up great resentment for his father and an unhealthy attachment to his mother. At 16 Thabo’s father dies and on the day of the funeral, his grandmother pats him on his shoulder and says “You are the man of the house now. You have to take care of your mother and siblings”. AT 16 YEARS OLD THABO WAS NOW THE MAN OF THE HOUSE WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY OF TAKING CARE OF A WHOLE FAMILY. His childhood robbed from him.

Now at 23 his mother still hasn’t remarried and as the man of the house had to finally build his mother a house, pay for his siblings’ education while also trying to start his own life. His mother calls him 10 times a day and cannot make decisions about her household without asking him for advice. He is the man of the house now. Proudly a breadwinner.

As you can imagine, Thabo is a people pleaser, struggles with setting boundaries, cannot be vulnerable, attracts narcissists, and struggles to speak his mind or even ask for what he wants. He has emotional outbursts and is not aware of how these struggles tie to his childhood experiences with his mother and how in all his relationships he is simply mirroring his childhood dynamics wherein his feelings were neglected by his mother and was reduced to a caregiver.

Thabo’s story is the story of many firstborn sons, more especially in African communities. Society calls them mamas boys, insinuating that they are highly dependent on their mothers when in fact their mothers are highly dependent on them.

We find a prime example of this distortion of the truth in Steve Harvey’s book “Think like a man act like a lady” which was later adapted into a movie.

In this movie we are introduced to 5 types of men I suppose to expect in the dating scene and one of them is the mama’s boy. When we are first introduced to Michael who is played by Terrence Jeckings, he is portrayed as having no backbone and being highly dependent on his mother but upon paying close attention you realize his mother is the one that’s highly dependent on him. Making the mama’s boy name given to him, a cover-up for a sinister form of emotional incest where mothers turn their sons into Mama’s little man

I imagine it may be frustrating for sons whose lives are dedicated to taking care of others, to be shamed and invalidated as being weak and highly dependent on their mothers when it’s their mothers who are highly dependent on them…

For many mothers, it is normal to substitute their negligent, abusive, or absent husband/boyfriends with their sons and use them for emotional support. For many, it is unconscious but still vile and psychologically damaging on the child. Emotional incest is one of the most atrocious forms of emotional abuse that kids are subjected to because children do not have the emotional capacity to deal with adult problems. It is also vile in that emotional incest between a mother and son often alienates the father and builds within the son’s resentment towards his father. Let’s not forget that parents are caregivers to children, not vice versa. It is the responsibility of the adult to form supportive relationships with other adults so she can best show up for the children.