• The Hidden Harm of Overprotective Mothering and Its Lasting Impact on Masculine Development

By Michael Clary

Overbearing mothers are an obstacle that prevents their sons from becoming strong men. We’ve all heard stories about abusive, cruel, tyrannical fathers, who harm their children through the pain they inflict. We almost never hear stories of smothering mothers, overbearing women who harm their children by the growth they prevent, especially to their sons.

Every boy must learn the essential lesson of not being dependent on women. I’m not saying he never depends on women, but his life is not characterized by needing women to tell him who he is and where he’s headed in life.

An insecure mother needs to be needed. It tempts her to do things for her son that he should do for himself. This makes her feel valuable. But this momma bear instinct traps her son in juvenile frame of mind.

Naturally, an infant boy has an intensely close relationship with his mother. Before he is born, he lives within her body. After he is born, he nurses at her breast. He cannot survive without her. It might even seem to his infant mind that she is not even a separate person. This is a very special time for mothers.

Eventually, however, he comes to understand that she is a separate being, but she is not like him in one fundamental respect: he is male, she is female. She is something he is not. She is something can never be and should not try to be.

It’s different for girls. Girls naturally progress from infancy to girlhood to womanhood. Mothers provide a constant example to emulate in every way. A. girl can learn how to relate to a man by watching her mother relate to her father. But a boy does not learn to relate to men by watching his mother. He must learn from his father how to relate to a woman, and how a man relates to other men.

Thus, every boy must learn to break the pattern of attachment to his mother to establish his own identity as a man. He must learn to not be dependent upon a woman, but to be a man upon whom a woman can depend—his future wife. He must be stronger and more independent than her. That’s the only way he’ll ever learn to lead a woman properly. He will not become this sort of man as long as he’s tied to his mother’s apron strings.

Smothering mothers can stunt this process. They cling to their sons and struggle to let them grow up. Any mother of a grown son will tell you she still sees him as a cute baby boy. She misses those early days of his childhood and struggles to let them go. She ends up shielding him from the world, treating him like he’s incapable of handling life’s challenges on his own.

This makes him weak. These mothers won’t let him fail, or feel pain, or face rejection. She complains to the teacher if he gets a bad grade. She takes him to the doctor every time he feels sick. She makes him wear a jacket every time the temp drops below 60 degrees. She rescues him any danger, both real and imagined. She doesn’t entrust him with responsibilities. She’s obsessed with his feelings. She tries to “fix” every negative emotion.

This can lead to one of two outcomes.

(1) He may overcorrect as he grows up. Boys who are not allowed to develop their masculine strength may overcorrect, because doing so always felt like an act of rebellion. His masculine, energetic rambunctiousness was pathologized and medicated, as though it were a human defect, not a gift to be developed and trained. His mother’s constant over-nurturing starved him of the challenges he needed to face and overcome to develop confidence as a capable man. So when he’s finally out on his own and he needs to stand on his own two feet as a man, masculinity is not his native tongue. Insecure in his masculinity, he camouflages his insecurity beneath a performative uniform of macho stereotypes. He wasn’t trained to discipline and channel his assertiveness, competitiveness, and sex drive towards good and godly ends, so redefines masculinity according to worldly standards. Some of them end up domineering, abusive, promiscuous, and greedy.

Whenever another video recorded episode of violence goes viral where mobs of young men rob stores and assault innocent bystanders for sport, I see men who’s masculine aggression was never properly trained. They think thuggery, crime, promiscuity, and street violence makes them men. I see weak men who never learned how to channel their masculine strength towards healthy ends.

(2) Other boys do the opposite. They grow up weak, effeminate, and dependent on women. They fail to develop into healthy masculinity such that they know how to lead, take appropriate risks, and become independent. They were overprotected as boys. Rather than rebelling against it as in the first example, he gets used to it. He succumbs to it. He adapts to it and moves on with life as though he can only assert masculine strength and leadership when the women in his life gives him permission to do so.

But there’s a tell with these men. They love their mothers, but there’s an undercurrent of bitterness and resentment towards them. They resent being smothered in a bubble-wrapped childhood that weakened them and left them unprepared to face the world on his own. Their mothers bailed them out of every jam, which prevented them from learning the necessary masculine skills of resilience, resourcefulness, and risk.

Their mothers did not let them break free as boys. So when they break free as adults, they resent the fact that they still rely on their mothers far more than they should. These men are weak and they don’t know why, so it’s confusing for them. They weren’t abused in the way we define it these days, being beaten by a drunk father. Rather, their smothering mothers prevented their development.

Sometimes, these men become “momma’s boys.” They struggle to make decisions without their mother’s input, and she punishes him emotionally when he tries to do so. She doesn’t get along with his girlfriends because she feels threatened by them. No girl is good enough for her son. No girl can take care of him like she can.

In my pastoral experience, I’ve noticed that the most difficult in-law relationship is mother-in-law to daughter-in-law. Mothers don’t like it when their sons leave home and cleave to their wives. It feels like a demotion. She’s no longer #1 in his life. His love and devotion is now given to another. His wife’s youth and beauty spark jealousy. She feels like she’s lost her son, which robs her of her purpose.

Even into his marriage, she constantly meddles and intervenes, testing her son’s loyalty by making him pick sides between his wife and his mother. When he and his wife have an argument, she swoops in to provide motherly “wisdom” and comfort. Secretly she enjoys it. Advising him in his marital conflicts makes her feel useful to him. His marriage problems allows her to reassert mother-hen status, which can only be exacerbated when grandchildren are in the picture.

I haven’t talked about fathers yet. In situations described above, the father is usually passive and aloof. He may not see what’s happening, so he just goes along with it, thinking, “happy wife, happy life.” That’s foolish.

Or, maybe he does see what’s happening, but he doesn’t have the will to intervene. Sometimes, his overbearing wife is just out of control, and he’s tired of trying to reign her in. The father and son may even develop a strange bond over their mutual frustration with her. When the son complains about his mother, the father says, “well, you know how your mother can be.”

The son nods in agreement. “She’s always been this way,” he thinks to himself. He may not resent his father for not addressing this problem when he was young, but he won’t respect him either. His father failed him. Mom was overprotective and dad didn’t do anything about it.

Fathers must provide children with a healthy environment where children can grow and learn without being smothered, coddled, and over-protected. A boy won’t learn masculine strength from his mother. Ideally, he will learn it from his father. Wise fathers guide their sons into danger, risk, and courage. They teach them to be independent, to stand on their own, to become the kind of men others can rely on.

Fathers must know when to tell their wives, “honey, he can do that for himself. Let him struggle. Let him figure it out. He’ll be fine.” Every father must recognize a boy’s need to separate himself from his mother as a child so he can relate to her (and all women) as a man in a healthy way. This is how he becomes strong, independent, confident, and courageous. This is how he can become the sort of man that will one day make his mother proud.

I wrote about these things and much more in my book on biblical sexuality called “God’s Good Design: A Biblical, Theological, and Practical Guide to Human Sexuality.”

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