Daddy's little princess

This post should really be entitled 'The sins of the Father'.
However, on reflection, I decided that this was not as grave a sin as that described here.
Because the consequences of the sins of the Mother are far greater than this.
Hopefully I can explain my reasoning in a clear fashion below.

Besides, it is only fair after bashing Mama's boys to take a long hard look at his female counterpart.
Equal opportunities and all that :-)

We all know about the possible consequences of absent fatherhood.
Teenage pregnancy, promiscuity, depression, low self-esteem, underachievement in school, delinquency...the list goes on.

But there is another ill in society, less acknowledged, but nonetheless present.

This is where a father over-indulges his little princess.
Daddy means well. Perhaps he had it hard growing up. He doesn't want his little daughter to suffer in life the way he did. She should have the best of everything.

This Daddy is not actually a 'bumbling beta' as you would suspect, ususally. He usually is an excellent husband. He has the right amount of alpha and beta in him to sustain a lifelong marriage, make no mistake about that.
But he goes weak at the knees for his girl. For his daughter.
Nothing or no-one will ever be good enough for her.

But I believe that if he is indeed a beta man, the situation is much worse for men seeking his daughter's attention than if he were a bona fide alpha.

Why?

Because an intrinsically alpha man will never see another man as a threat, even where his beloved daughter is concerned. He is secure in himself. He has his wife's support and love and loyalty (hopefully). His daughter is just another woman to spoil :-)
A beta man did not succeed in keeping the 'tingle' of his wife going for long. He is 'king' to no-one except his daughter. Here, he won the lottery. A woman looks up to him. A woman thinks the sun rises and sets on him. Adoration and respect non-stop. Every man's greatest wish.
He will do anything to keep this going.
Even if he is emotionally absent, he will use material wealth to keep daughter sweet.
This is his psycological Achilles' heel, so to speak. Woe betide the man who tries to lure daughter's gaze away from him.
This is the man who caries a gun around when daughter starts dating.
Because he knows his self-built dream concerning daughter is about to be shattered by some little upstart who most likely does not deserve his daughter.

For the upcoming little upstart who wants to compete with Princess' Daddy, how to tell the difference between an alpha Daddy and a beta Daddy?
It's simple. Look at how Daddy and Mummy relate to each other. Who wears the pants in their relationship? The more beta Daddy is to Mummy, the more alpha he will be towards daughter, and the worse for you, little upstart :-)

But, if you are not in a position to see Daddy and Mummy interact, just look at how Mummy and daughter interact. You don't care about how daughter relates to Mummy: all girls are competitive with their mothers, it's part of growing into one's femininity. What's important here is how Mummy relates to daughter.
If you get the impression that Mummy is somewhat in competition with daughter, then Dad is beta. If Mummy acts jealous in any way towards daughter, Dad is extremely beta and you stand virtually no chance with daughter.
Why? Because the wife of an alpha (who loves her) is secure in the knowledge that her femininity is validated by a masculine man. She is in competition with no-one, least of all her own daughter.

Being Daddy's little princess is a good thing for a woman in many ways.
Because she has a father, full stop.
That alone has been shown to increase self esteem.
It also allows a good starting point for a woman's 'man tolerance device'  - her hourglass apparatus. The higher the level she starts off with, the better she relates to men throughout her life.

(But of course, even if she has a low level, she can build it up from scratch. She just needs a good teacher for that. This is where a good mother comes in. But failing that, there are many other sources for this 'education').


In every woman's life, there comes a maturity point that makes her 'ready' to take on the role of wife and mother. This includes being able to look at a man and see a king.
But what if there is already a king in her life and she just can't get past the first king to move on to the second and hopefully final king?
What if Daddy is turning her into a reluctant bride for her future husband?

Similar to the Oedipus complex, women have a slightly different version called the Electra complex where she competes with Mother for the affections of Daddy. Women without a father are at a distinct disadvantage early in life for they do not get a chance to play this game. It is an important step in psychosexual development. However, like every 'lack' in life, it can be compensated for, but it takes self-effacement and hard work.

Just as in the Oedipus complex where a boy finally matures when he stops seeing Mother as the only woman on Earth by becoming a man in his own right, part of a woman's maturity lies in the eventual recognition that Father belongs to another woman, Mother. She must stop idolising him and go find her own man.
In rare cases (and I really do hope this is rare), this step never takes place. A woman is left forever comparing every potential suitor to Daddy, and thus sabotaging her own launch into womanhood. Daddy may compound the problem by aiding and abeting his daughter in this.
Not good. It will always end badly for daughter.

Dr. Kevin Lehman in his book 'What a difference Daddy makes' touches on this subject. He should know. He is father to five daughters.

The good news, I believe, is that a woman like this is in a far better position than one raised in a matriarchy where men are absent or just not respected/respectable.
This woman only needs one thing and she is sorted.
All she needs is a super alpha to topple Dad off the pedestal she has built for him. That's it. Problem solved.
But...
1. Does such a man exist? And
2. If he does, can he be bothered to scale the dizzy heights of alphadom just for a woman? Especially in today's SMP?

*rubs chin*



In the film 'Hitch', Kevin James' character only got the girl (if ever there was a Daddy's princess, this is it :-) when he pulls a super alpha performance in front of her amidst the many 'yes men' she was accustomed to. She only noticed him when he showed his alpha side (coached by Hitch, of course).


Daddy's little princess can be a right narcissist. But as I have explained above, this type of female narcissism is much less a worry for men than that created by a matriachy. Because for all her sins, a Daddy's princess has a baseline love of men (albeit 'bought' or 'bribed' - but as a man, you don't care. You shouldn't care. Better 'bought' but nonetheless present than absent :-)

It is also my opinion that in relation to a Mama's boy, a Daddy's little princess is in a far better position.
Because a woman does not really need to be as independent as a man needs to be, in order to have a successful relationship/marriage. Nowadays many women are independent, sure. But they don't have to be. Generations of women made the transition from 'daughter' to 'wife' without an interim 'independent gal' stage. It worked out just fine in most cases. In fact, close ties to the parents (his and hers) were necessary in order that family links could be maintained between the generations. And of course, the woman was the traditional care-giver for the old folk, his and hers.


In related news, there is a new kid on the block, so to speak, on Reality TV. I have no idea how I get to find myself reading this stuff. But it seems these people get shoved under our noses whether we like it or not. So I am afraid I am inflicting her on you... sorry...I am 'passing it forward' :-)

The new kid on the block comes from 'The Shahs of Sunset'. Some Kim Kardashian wannabe.
Rich Daddy's girl.

This one might actually prove me wrong that Daddy's girls are less narcissistic than women brought up in a matriarchy ala Kim K. I might have to watch this space :-)

Gentlemen, please don't overspoil your daughters. You will make them ultimately unhappy and you will deny the next generation of men of good wives.

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.

Feminism: A simple case of adult P-envy?

Are we all suffering today because 50 years ago a few women wanted their own male appendages?

I am not a psychologist. I think that much is clear :-)
But there are certain aspects of psychology that strike a chord with me.
In today's post, I am specifically interested in developmental psychology.


I remember that in the post on MGTOW, I was baited into questions to the tune of 'do you wish you were a man' or some variation thereof, and I quipped back saying those days were long gone.

By 'those days' of course, I meant 'under age 5' kind of days.
Those days when I was fascinated by how high some of the boys in my kindergarten class could pee.
And being dismayed that I couldn't do the same :-)

Some of the more unkind men reading this might say, 'things haven't changed much, then, Spacetraveller'...
But I assure you they have!

As soon as I started sprouting strange protuberances on my own chest, I forgot all about high-pee boys.
Or rather, my interest in them changed somewhat. Let's just say I was no longer interested in how high they could pee anymore :-)

My point is, I moved on from one developmental milestone to the next, in a fairly typical fashion. I was, in this case, firmly within the Gaussian distribution.

I stopped having p-envy when puberty kicked in for me, much in the same way as a boy leaves behind his mother in his Oedipus complex when he becomes a man and seeks his own female company. In fact, p-envy ends well before puberty if I am not mistaken.

Now, I realise feminism is not as simple as all that.
It has many facets I know nothing about.
It is a bigger political animal than I give it credit for.

But I am going to concentrate on a small aspect of feminism which could explain a lot.

I was watching British boxer Amir Khan give a little 'masterclass' on boxing to two reporters who were doing a documentary on him. The reporters were male and female.
After the boxing masterclass in a gym-like setting, the two reporters were put into a boxing ring for a mock boxing match, with Amir Khan as the referee.
It was absolutely hilarious to watch.

The man was only marginally better than the woman at boxing, and one could clearly see that he was being chivalrous and allowing the woman to land punches on him for comic effect.
In fact the reason it was so funny was that her punches were so wildly out that even a blind boxer would have been able to avoid getting hit, and he, to (over)compensate, was actually getting into position in such a way that those ridiculously off-target punches would land on him.
He was not managing to get any punches in himself, because he was too busy receiving hers.

To make it even more hilarious at the end, Amir Khan declared her the winner, his explanation being that she was the only one actually landing punches. Which was technically true.

I laughed so hard, I was in physical pain at the end of this boxing 'match'.

But, after the laughter came the overwhelming sadness.

This little 'charade' I had just witnessed demonstrated in no uncertain terms what has been lost, perhaps for good, in this modern era.

Chivalry. Lighthearted banter and 'friendly fire' between the sexes.

The male reporter hadn't really been 'beaten by a girl', of course. It was plain for all to see. The two were complicit in creating this little 'act' for the entertainment of the TV audience.
The woman made a big show of 'winning'.
The guy looked suitably crestfallen and even made a little 'attempt' to appeal to Amir Khan who was having none of it: his decision was final.

Everything was made funnier by the fact that this guy was like, twice the size of the girl, and even taller and bigger than Amir Khan himself. It was like the characters in this 'charade' had been handpicked for maximum comic effect. It worked. I laughed until it hurt.

This woman was 'validated' by the guy much in the same manner my friend had ''respected" the men at the dinner party in her home. No cost to the giver. But invaluable to the receiver.
It was easy enough to do, knowing my friend. It didn't cost her anything to 'respect' the men.
It was goodnatured fun. It made a nice evening extra special.

To state the obvious, more and more, that sort of thing is getting lost in modern society.
Like Tango dancing.
Exchanges between men and women are less cordial than before, for sure.

It seems the only time there is passable civility between the sexes is when one party wants something from the other.
A man may validate a pretty stranger just so he can get her to a four-poster in double-quick time.
A 'not so nice' girl might put on her 'nice girl' face just long enough to get a man to commit, and then shortly after, this Medusa appears from nowhere.
There really is no such thing as a free lunch anymore.

Yes there was plenty wrong pre-feminism. This is why I have a healthy respect for first-wave feminism which brought me certain rights that my female ancestors from a hundred years ago would never have dreamed about.

But then things got all crazy and weird, and now both women and men are worse off.
Because today, a man in that male reporter's position would find nothing wrong in knocking out  a woman half his size within two seconds of the boxing 'match'.

Some of his charming brothers might even cheer him on chanting, 'kill the b*tch!'
This very scenario unfolds all the time in The Manosphere.

The following three lines are a shameless lament of the death of decorum. I know the causes of this, but point no fingers. Ever the (not so) quiet observer, I feel I am as much part of the problem as the next guy (or girl).
A sinking ship not long ago...
The heavily pregnant women on trains and buses who can't find a seat...
The old lady who passes a line of able-bodied youngsters as she struggles up some steps with her heavy shopping.

How did we get here?
The same Manosphere has an answer for this:
Apex Fallacy.

A few women from 50 years ago saw how 'good' life was for a few men at the top of the food chain.
They perceived this 'good life' as pertaining to all men.

So they set out to get this 'good life' for themselves. At all cost.
But no-one told them that their very own natures would NOT allow them to enjoy that which was not designed for them.

Did a few grown women see how high one boy could pee on the wall?
Did a few grown women never outgrow their natural p-envy?

If so, why would I associate myself with someone who is behind me on the developmental chart?
Would that not put me in the same place as them?
I don't want to be a 5 year old again.
I enjoyed being a 5 year old. When I was 5.

Being neither bible scholar nor basher, I must say, this by St Paul appeals to me a great deal:
1 Cor 13:11: "When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things."

This little guy in Brussels is not doing too badly...

My 5 year old self would have been impressed...

The sins of the Mother

This is arguably the most painful post I shall ever write. Because this subject delves into the greatest fears of both men and women. It is almost taboo to 'go there.'

We have all heard of the sins of the father.
Deut 5:9. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

I am not sure the bible ever touches on the 'sins of the mother'. If it does, I stand corrected.
However, I would be surprised.

It is said that the only reason that lesbianism was never a crime in Britain (as opposed to male homosexuality) during Victorian times was that Queen Victoria simply did not believe that women could be homosexual. She did not therefore feel the need to outlaw something which did not exist.

During the Iraq war, the British press went crazy on the topic of 'weapons of mass destruction'. Several comedians picked up on this, some of them making jokes about a certain part (or two) of a woman's anatomy being 'weapons of mass destruction'.

A woman's breasts can never really be her best or worst (whichever way you look at it!) weapons of mass destruction.
In a tragic twist, it could be her motherhood.

A woman's greatest fear is abandonment. Of herself and her children. As a lot of single mothers would testify to, it is incredibly hard to raise children alone.

So a woman who finds herself in this position has to survive somehow. No matter how she got to this state of affairs.
She may have been unlucky. The man she trusted with her body betrayed that trust. She may have been irresponsible. The man she should never have gone near, she defied her innate intuition and did. She may be divorced. She may actually have conceived with another man to break up her marriage. She may have been widowed. She may have been a 'reluctant bride' and chosen 'anyone' because she wanted a child, but not the man. She may have decided to 'go it alone' right from the start and naturally or 'artificially' became a mother with a known or unknown man.

For some women, motherhood is a noble art.
Unfortunately, for some, it is a chance to have a bargaining tool at one's disposal. 
Ugly.

For others, it is totally subconscious what plays out. And for yet others, it is a conscious choice to have a child, a "mini-me" to groom into the role of helper and future provider.


A man's greatest fear is betrayal by a woman. Whilst this often means betrayal by a 'mate' in the form of cuckoldry, consider this:
What if the traitor is his own mother?

The post on MGTOW produced a lively debate on the various reasons for MGTOW. Some of them were due to a man just wishing to live his own life with no disturbances from female influences, some were as a direct result of previous bad experiences with women, some were to do with the anti-male and prohibitive laws regarding fatherhood, child custody, alimony, etc.
All valid reasons.

This comment from BeijaFlor* stood out:

I'm very familiar with women's fear of abandonment. I saw it in my (single) mother's eyes, heard it in her voice, when I grew to manhood and could have struck out on my own. I stayed with her instead, but picked up the load of "breadwinner" and even bought a house for the two of us ... she died in that house, died of cancer, with her hand in mine, ten years ago. I was 48 that day, with friends that age who were grandparents. So I believe I know what it is to "man up."

No-one else had touched on this particular issue.

A lone mother sometimes depends on her child(ren) to shoulder the burden. That's to be expected to some degree. I would even argue that it is good for the child(ren) to understand how hard life can be.

But when a son is forced to take on an absent father's role, sometimes before he is emotionally ready, I find that criminal. Because it reveals a certain selfishness in the mother (which, tragically she may not even be aware of).

A son like this will pedestalise his mother. He wants to help a woman, as his male nature dictates. Especially if that woman is the one who gave him life. It may follow on from his natural Oedipus complex.
But if this woman denies him what is rightfully his, i.e. the right to make his own choices in life, follow his own dreams, live his own life, then she is doing him a great disservice.
This man will pedestalise women until one day he will wake up and realise that he was betrayed. His whole life up to that point was a lie.

And worse, the traitor is also the one he loves the most.

This is one of the rare sources of cognitive dissonance in a man. He understands women so well because he was around one a lot, more than was necessary in fact, but at the same time he is seething with rage at a wrong that was done him. Especially if there was no other man around to take him on the road to manhood. Psychologists believe that the Oedipus complex is finally resolved in a boy when, instead of childishly competing with his father for his mother, resolves to become a man, like Father.  But what if there is no Father figure to allow this to happen?

This man often seeks out women, because on principle he loves women. He wants a fulfilling relationship with a woman, just as much as the next guy. But he will struggle to form meaningful relationships with them. Until that is, he finds the key to the riddle in his heart. By himself.

For him, it is not so much a mistrust of women, but an unresolved, sometimes subconscious fear.

A fear that can be entangled with an anger, tangled further with his love for Mother and his shame at feeling such rage. It may remain sealed away, bubbling inwardly like a pressure-cooker. And his efforts to seal it away could leave him sealing away his emotions - or it could erupt inside him, doing who-knows-what greater damage to his own soul.

Outwardly, this man may appear to be a 'principled mangina'. Or the worst woman-hating PUA there is. Or both. At the same time. Which will be confusing, even to him. Until he works out for himself what is going on in his soul.


And there is no guarantee that he ever will ... which could leave him endlessly wandering that dark wilderness, stripped of inward mercy, that is finally all that is left in his scarred, cankered heart.
In the end, that road can be both excruciatingly painful and at the same time headily redeeming. A man who can bounce back from this kind of trauma is the ultimate hero, because, to face one's worst fear and win is the ultimate test of life.


The daughter of a mother like this also suffers.

This woman is usually on one of two trajectories:
On the one hand, she becomes a 'son' in her drive to please Mother. She loses out on her femininity because she is 'replacing' an absent man. She is acting out the role of 'husband' without her express knowledge or consent. This woman will usually have a deep love for men, because she will have lived most of her life as one, but will struggle to form a relationship with (a masculine) one because she is, at least in her head, not feminine enough. She has been too busy playing 'husband' to another woman to know what it is to be 'wife' to a man.

On the other hand, a daughter of a lone mother could also be 'trained' by Mother to become 'strong and independent'. Never need a man! would be all she hears from infancy. They are bad for you. They will break your heart. Earn your own money, kill your own snakes, buy your own jewellery.

Mother thinks she is helping. She wants to 'save' daughter from a fate similar to hers. But she is in fact doing the opposite. Because in this mindset, daughter's worst fear will be realised.

Both these daughters have a saving grace though. Like Mother, they are also women. So they can recover more easily from the sins of Mother than their male counterparts.
One day they will wake up and reject Mother's brand of womanhood as they come into their own.
What they may suffer more from, is the absence of the mitigating influence of Father.

We all know the effects of fatherlessness, in both sexes.

Motherhood is a powerful force.
Rarely, it can be devastatingly destructive.
Strangely enough, I do not believe that this form of destructive motherhood is connected to feminism per se. Although of course it can have a perjorative effect on it.
Because feminism, with its core of rage against men and manhood, is fighting to make single motherhood the norm, and thus multiplying not only the victimisation of the children, but also the power of destructive motherhood.

Let us minimise the risk of destructive motherhood.

And let us bring back Father into the home.


*A massive humongous 'Thank You' to BeijaFlor for his help with this post.