Rector of Victory Christian College, Rev. Jonas Coffie, has shared his definition of who a mama’s boy is and why some males grow up as mama’s boys.
On season two of Men’s Lounge with host, Nana Yaw Odame, Rev. Coffie defined a mama’s boy to be a male child who is closer to his mother than his father and all other members of the family. He expressed that mama’s boy is not restricted to adults only because it starts right from the child’s infancy and with time, he gets tied to his mom. The mother’s influence clouds his worldview and ideas and he sets her as his point of reference, the one who guides and counsels him, and his standard for anything pertaining to the opposite sex.
‘’He is clouded by the way mama is, so much that wherever he is, all he sees is mama and it even informs his choice of spouse. The choice of his spouse becomes mama’s standard; she must look like mama, must cook like mama, must dress like mama, must wear some characteristics of mama, without which that spouse is disqualified’’, he said.
Replying to how one can differentiate a mama’s boy from a regular boy who is just fond of his mom as theorized as the Oedipus Complex, he replied that when it comes to a mama’s boy, its the choice of the mom because she may have other children but cultivate love for one male child and invest herself in him.
He furthered, ‘’In a family situation, the men wield power and the women wield influence so when the mother has picked on this male child, she then transmits that influence on the child and there is this connection such that the boy knows no one else but his mom. That is where the mama’s boy thing is formed’’.
With time, the male child cannot do anything without consulting his mother and he stops talking to his dad. He consults his mother for her opinion on everything and whatever decision she takes is what he goes by.
He concluded that even as sometimes seen in local movies, mothers having control over their sons and marriage life is not just a figment of one’s imagination but the reality of the mama’s boy game.
By: Maureen Dedei Quaye