Mamma's Bouncing Baby Boy
- Details
- Category: Politics
- Published: Tuesday, 11 February 2014 00:30
- Written by Dr. Vincent Polite
by Dr. Vincent Polite
Let's face it… one of the worst things a black man can be labeled is a mama's boy, because in our community it denotes weakness, cowardice and the inability to mature into your promise and potential. Mama's boys do not make good leaders or elected officials and here's why…
The Life Development Cycle
According to Erik Erikson the father of psychosocial development, when people experience conflict it signifies a turning point in development. These conflicts serve to push us along to the next stage, and if interrupted can arrest our development. Erikson's theory poses that there are eight significant stages in the human lifespan; infancy, early childhood, preschool, school age, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood and maturity.
Each stage is defined by significant characteristic that are
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unique, quantifiable and measurable within the social construct in which it takes place. In the infancy stage for most black men, the first emotional attachment they make is with their mother, because she provides the sense of trust, reliability, care, and affection that are the benchmark of this phase. Because he is so dependent on his mother to meet his needs, it his first lesson learned is trust. Trust is based on one thing, having your needs met. If your caregiver (mom) does not meet them, you learn to mistrust, get the picture. Often this can develop into the ideation that mama can do no wrong and she's right about everything if she is the dominant influence in his life.
So, over the early childhood and preschool stages you continue to hone and redefine that idea of trust and mistrust, in additional to learning autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt and attempt to assert control over your environment.
Now here is where the train runs off the track for mama boys. The next stage of the cycle, school age begins the process of separation from mom into other social relationships that are not base in shared biology. These non-biological relationships begin the process of allowing social engineering to shape us and help us become a part of society. Success in this area leads to competence and feelings of success, while failure leads to feeling of inferiority.
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Now effective parenting can help the child adjust to failure to master this stage, while protective parenting can cause child to fail to develop socially and create a continued dependence that can last his entire lifespan. And as the child moves into his teen years, he will continue to seek the protection from the source with whom he developed his first trust dynamic… that's right good ole' mom. So, whenever he get into a situation that he is likely to fail at, he will call mom. If he is unsure of what to do, he's going to call the one person he knows will tell him his truth….mama, and only her input will matter after all she loves him when everybody else laughed at him, called him soft, and didn't let him get his way. She will be there to engineer every aspect of his life playing a role in every major choice, decision and even help him find the right "girl" (one that can't threaten the mommy/son dynamic).
Mama boys will call her at 3am from the suspect side of town and try to get her to tell the officer he is a good boy…. And mama rather than telling him to man up and handle his situation he created through his own conduct, will berate anyone who dares try to hold her baby accountable, because he is special, when in reality all mothers know that every son is special. Mama boys will brag to their friends that they get special benefits because she is an important person about town and has the mayor and police chief on speed dial.
Mama boys will always feel they are entitled, and sadly feel that way because after all the one person they trust in the world taught them to be that way. She has never allowed him to be his own man… let alone run his own life, which means he has never had to become a leader or be responsible for anything other than following her directions.
So that is why mama boys don't make good leaders or elected officials.
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