Mutant Mothers
There is a virus going around – and it is infecting moms around the world. The mother figure has been infallible in the test of time; cave paintings depict the relationship between mother and child, statues and sculptures from ancient times serving as physical testaments to maternal love. The sentiment holds true to this day, but what happens when moms go overboard? When does this love, often thought of as instinctual, become obsession?
Boy Moms
The name is self-explanatory; this term has been used to refer to any mother with a male child, typically more than 1. In recent times, with the massive rise of TikTok, these moms have gained a reputation of failing to grasp that their sons can and should live independently. Consider them the other half to the much older archetype: the Mama’s boys. According to Merriam-Webster,, the phrase “Mama’s boy” first appeared in the 1850s, albeit with a slightly different connotation. Mama’s boys are known for their strong and arguably unusual attachment to their mothers now, and this definition can somewhat be applied to its original definition too. The phrase was a derogatory term for young men or boys who were deemed too effeminate; they were quiet and meek, did not socialize with other girls or boys, hid behind their mothers like a young child. Since the coining of the phrase, the stereotypical Mama’s boy mutated from a wallflower who just wants his mom to a grown man who has repeated failed relationships (with women, that is) because none compare to his mother. It seems that it is only within the past few years that the role of the mother in this archetype came to question.
It can be confidently stated that most mothers are nurturing and protective, traits young children would want to hide behind and continue to use as shields when they enter the labyrinth of adolescence. Mama’s boys as they were originally defined are understandable when the nature of mothers is accounted for. The “I want my mommy” attitude in grown men stops resembling Mama’s boys, instead it looks a whole lot like entitlement. Now, it is important to make it clear that having a healthy, loving relationship with one’s mother as a grown man and having respect and gratitude for her lies on a completely separate spectrum; this is a grateful son. Mama’s boys, the modern kind, are spoiled sons. Rotten by their mothers: the boy moms.
Boy moms place their sons on an unbelievably high pedestal, but hold them to extremely low standards. This imbalance, if extended to the son’s teenage years and adulthood, is what cultivates a Mama’s boy. Here is another important distinction: not all moms with boys are boy moms. Boy moms form an unhealthy relationship where the son fails to become his own person because of the micromanaging and protectiveness that comes with this kind of parenting style. Take Irene Reilly in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, a retired boy mom for example. She first appears in the novel tending to every one of her son’s insufferable needs and ridiculous excuses, giving him space when he is annoyed by her but running back when he starts whining (surprise, he’s 30!). Irene distances herself from her son and his incessant complaints as the novel progresses and she breaks free of her boy mom habit in favor of being a mom of a boy, leaving her son Igantius to fend for himself for the first time in his life – just 20 years too late.
To be fair, Irene is a more centrist example, she is not anywhere near the obsessiveness boy-mom-hood can actually reach. Multiple accounts from all platforms of social media depict a form of motherhood that transcends the norm. In the most extreme cases, boy moms fail to recognize that their sons are separate people with their own identities, adults that should know how to live independently. The mother will continue to pamper her son as if he were a child, make excuses for his mistakes or incompetence as if he does not know better, or worst of all, become envious of his female partners as if he were not her son. It is not unusual for mothers to be overprotective but when an active disruption of other people’s lives are at play (often the son’s significant other), that a mother’s love evidently becomes obsession.
Almond Moms
Two words: Diet culture. Almond moms are some of the biggest victims (and promoters) of diet culture, a societal schema to keep people always unsatisfied with themselves. Diet culture has existed since thin became the beauty standard – depending on the region, somewhere from the late 1800s to early 1900s. Since then, the standard has snowballed, picking up increasing amounts of unrealistic expectations to the point where the ideal is to look non-human. Almond moms, having grown up in 80s and 90s, times that were very forward with diet culture, have particular routines with food and exercise that have strayed far off the health-conscious label and stumbled into disordered eating and behavior.
Let’s begin with the first ever almond mom herself: Yolanda Hadid. The term “almond mom” emerged after a clip of Yolanda telling her supermodel daughter Gigi to “have a couple of almonds and chew them really well” after Gigi called saying she felt weak. But author Rebecca Walker actually used the term in her book To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism around 10 years prior, defining an almond mom to be a mother who is diligent and devoted to both career and family. Similar to the boy moms, this phrasing shifting connotations so drastically is interesting. How and why would Walker’s almond mom become Hadid’s almond mom? The answer is simple – fear.
Protectiveness drives boy moms, but fear fuels almond moms. Fear of gaining weight, of looking “flabby”, of having cellulite, and having their daughters unravel years of fine tuning by daring to live in a natural and healthy body. Only black coffee for breakfast, snide comments about portions, snooty remarks about the pounds they have dropped; almond moms not only restrict their own lives, but push it on to their children, particularly daughters. Young girls growing up and seeing their mothers hate their bodies will have that image imprinted onto their minds – a silent message telling them that to be content with your body means you have let yourself go. Having a fear of your body, which is really a fear of a loss of control disguised as something more business-friendly, as a mother easily becomes a fear of your daughter’s body too.
Almond moms often defend their unsolicited remarks about their children’s eating habits and bodies by claiming they just want them to be healthy and prevent humiliation. Health, of course, is an issue the youth have to deal with. Eating the caloric amounts for toddlers is not the solution to that issue. Almond moms propagate dangerous ideals and habits, hurting themselves and anyone influenced by them. It would be wrong and baseless to assert that almond moms fail at loving their children, but it is no doubt that they lead them down a very dangerous road. It is when the obsession with health – psychiatrically recognized as orthorexia – overpowers the love for one’s children that an almond mom becomes a hazard.
Obsessive mothers come in many more forms: tiger moms, crunchy moms, soccer moms, dance moms, pageant moms — all intensified and aggravated mutants of the typical mom: a mom that just wants the best for her children. Obsession often starts out as love, but as it grows, it has the capability to turn into a vice and end up doing more damage than manageable. After all, obsession is just desire colonized by fear and envy. Finding the thin line between love and obsession is important for more than just mothers, the problem is bigger than them. Holding mothers accountable for their damaging behavior is needed, but only when society is held accountable for pushing perfection on mothers will mutant mothers find their way back to normalcy.
Comments