Failure to launch and the Mama's boy

In the last post, I forgot this phenomenon as yet another way that young women are being robbed of men :-)
So I shall address this issue and my thoughts thereof here.

This time, it is not God or homosexuality or consanguity or the MGTOW movement that is the culprit in question.

This time, it is none other than Big Mama herself.
Yes, sweet darling (potential) Mommy-in-law.
And the man-baby she is enabling in his infantile ways.

:-)


(Um, I think I might have put on a red dress by mistake this morning, Grasshopper
:-).


Since 2003, Italy has been paying her people to have kids.
Sweden was doing this way before that.
I am sure there are lots of other countries with a tradition like that.
China's one-child policy seems to have found its antagonist elsewhere in the world.

Specific countries are declining in population. Italy, in 2050 will have 15 million fewer people than ten years ago. The full article can be found here.

I am not really interested in the reasons for the above policies because I am already familiar with them. Not enough people are marrying - marriage still being the preferred environment for raising children. People are marrying later in life, with the result that even if they do get married, they really only have time for one or a few children.
Somehow, the people having many children are not in large enough numbers to buck the trend.

And then there is the question of religion. Some Catholic countries where contaception is a no-no would expect their numbers to...

Wait.
Italy.
Seat of Catholicism.
A high proportion of Italian children under 10 are now an only child.
Is China a favourite holiday destination among Italians by any chance?

In Italy, a specific issue has been indicted as a prominent factor in the population-declining debacle. The phenomenon of 'Mama's boys'.
It has a name: 'mammismo'.
Mama's boys exist all over the world, I am sure. But they seem to have their headquarters in Italy.

The film 'Failure to launch' starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey touches on the issue of a man who fails to cut his ties to his parents. The parents of McConaughey's character pay a woman to get their 35 year old son out of their house and into a place of his own. As usual, there is always a hitch (a crisis) and then a hitch (a wedding). Total chick flick, but enjoyable.

The point about Italy though, is that unlike McConaughey's parents, Italian mothers are not so quick to get rid of their grown sons. They want him at home. All the while moaning that he is not providing them with grandchildren when Lucia from across the road already has five and she is ten years younger.

This symbiotic relationship seems to coexist quite nicely for the pair of them.
But not everyone is happy of course.

Young and pretty Maria who has had her eye on Luigi for a while now is not getting a look in. Because his sixty year old mother is the apple of his eye.

Is this phenomenon of 'Mama's boys' just a public shaming tactic of men who have a great relatoinship with their mothers (something women claim they like in men) or is this a recognition of a man-child who never outgrew his Oedipus complex?
An expert gives his opinion below:

 "The traditional family unit was historically the only guarantee of survival in uncertain times," says Roberto Vincenzi, a professor of psychotherapy in Genoa. Vincenzi says the key factor that keeps Italy's "figli per sempre" (sons forever) home in greater numbers than daughters is the sons' stronger attachments to their mothers. Proietti believes that mammismo has its roots in the traditional role of the Italian (and Latin) woman, who often felt unfulfilled before career and divorce were options. "She thus poured her love into her children. Over time, the son became a sort of husband to his mother, without the sexual component," she says. Vincenzi says the mother-son bond becomes pathological only when it impedes the son from growing up.

Erm, do I spot an example of  'The sins of the mother' here? Mother wants a substitute husband?
What?
And what about the son? Is he really being noble to Mother or is he just afraid of the responsibility of having his own family? Using poor old Mother as the excuse? Is this what psychiatrists call folie à deux?
Or is it really the economic crisis? That would be understandable, of course.

Not having experienced Oedipus complex myself, I do not know how it affects a man. I have an idea but I do not claim to be an authority on it.

Women have their own 'Electra complex' of course. Interesting that it coincides on a temporal basis with p-envy.
Anyhow, the consequences for society must be far greater with Oedipus than Electra, surely.


A man should be fully independent of his parents before he can take on a woman. A woman does not really need to be. Modern society is such that she often is, but in fact things worked out quite nicely when she wasn't, no?

What's the deal with the Mama's boy? He is not the classic MGHOW, but he may bridge both camps.
Does he really need a woman to lure him away from Big Mama's apron strings? Does he want a woman who is identical to Mama? Is that the issue at hand that no-one is admitting to?
Would this not be a little, well...creepy and weird?
Because afterall, a Mama's boy is far from identical to a woman's Daddy, right?...Because at least Daddy broke away from his mother long enough to have kids...

Can young women be blamed if they don't want to take on Big Mama?

Because afterall, let's face it - Big Mama can be a formidable opponent.

Just ask Ray Barone's long-suffering wife Debra.