My mom was always on me for playing too rough, getting in trouble, and getting hurt. I would come home with a stitched up head from striking it on a post, a bloodied face from boxing, or a dislocated finger from playing soccer.
If my mom could have it she would be perfectly fine with me never moving out of the house and being at my side to always take care of me. I can’t see myself as a 40-year-old man living with my mom and still washing my clothes, but mothers are protective creatures. As long as we are alive they are doing their biological duty.
The dynamic between mother and son presented in mythology, fairy tales, and movies has always shown the necessity of a tearing apart from the umbilical cord for one to become an independent human being.
In her Article Esther Perel, relationship expert, psychologist and speaker of a popular Ted Talk explores how one can create a boy into a modern masculine man. She say’s,
“Only with thoughtful support will our boys have a chance to break out of the outdated gender norms that cause so much trouble today by demanding stoicism, fearlessness, competition, invulnerability, and aggression.”
Esther Perel’s article and my mom seem to be bouncing off the same maternal instincts. Don’t play too rough, be nice to others, stay inside or you are going to get sick. In Fairy Tales, the mother traps the princess in the highest tower, puts them to sleep, or prevents them from going to the ball. The hero is put into a passive state for fear that if they go after their goal or highest potential they risk getting hurt.
In Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent traps the prince in a cell to prevent him his goal of rescuing Aurora. Robert Bly author of Iron John says the way to escape this cell our mothers put us in is by stealing the key under her pillow. Only by disobeying the mother can we set free the Wild Man (Masculine Energy) and pursue difficult challenges.
This can be seen with boys with skateboards risking injury and embarrassment so they can learn a new trick, boys joining the military so they can discover more about themselves and become disciplined or a boy joining football to practice fearlessness and see what he is capable of. Only by being brave will we escape the comforts of our cell for the suffering to grow stronger and the joy to know we can overcome it.
For my experience, if I listened to my mom I would have never left my home to venture out into the unknown. But as I have gotten older, made closer ties to my dad and made more male friends I feel more happy and supported. But what makes me the happiest is having the bravery to take on difficult tasks other men might not do. Only with goals and a sense of recklessness can we do what so many other rebels have been able to accomplish. Because no good boy has ever accomplished something worthwhile.