My mom and I have the house to ourselves for a while since both my dad and brother are out of town.

My mom and I have always had an up and down relationship.

The crux of our issues was that she was a very overbearing parent. Not only did she naturally have a loud voice, but she used it. She spoke very direct and cutthroat, like an old school football coach would do. If you weren't doing something right, she would tell you in simple plain English, no sugar coat, no protecting your feelings, no holds barred.

Of course, this style of parenting made me dislike her.

When you pair a classic nice guy beta blue-pilled screen addicted weak boy (me, ages 8-22, I'm 23 now) with an honest, truth telling, tough, and sharp person (my mom), the former starts to resent the latter.

In recent years, the relationship has been more on the up and up due to my own maturation, time, and honestly a couple red pills I had to swallow, but that doesn't take away from the fact that for a large period of my life, my mom and I have been at odds.

After our talk last night, along with the hours of self eval and thinking I've been doing over a few months, I realized why she had to be how she was

The reason is because my dad showed no leadership during my childhood.

As part of my masculine journey I have been reading many books, and in two of them (here and here) it talks about how absent fathers are a big problem for today's young men, and have been for two generations (sine 1950-ish) now.

My dad may have been financially and physically present in the home, but as far as being there and RAISING ME, DISCIPLINING ME, GUIDING ME, he was not.

He was off in his own world.

Most of his idle time was spend in front of the TV or smoking cigarettes. He made good money and provided us with vacations, two properties, and all that stuff, but his lack of PARENTING forced my mom into the overbearing role.

It's almost as if my mom had to be double aggressive and double strict, to make up for my dad's lack of leadership.

Below are some points of my conversation with my mom, where these ideas were talked about:

  • My dad was this way because HIS dad (born 1940) was this way too
    • this "father stays aloof, mother takes the lead" style of parenting is all he knows, so he followed that style too
  • My mom said sometimes she felt like a single mother, despite having a high earning husband in the home
  • My mom said she was originally not an aggressive, overbearing person but her need to step into the leadership role with no backup made her that way
  • My mom said my dad was a typical "nice guy"
    • No backbone, no opinion of his own, gets carried away by whatever he hears from others (including his kids!)

"But u/red_blood_cells, what does this have to do with me? I'm not a dad, I'm only twenty-something. I don't care about kids, I just want to spin plates."

Because masculinity and leadership applies to both parenting and dating.

Females want men to be masculine and take the lead, both when being a dad to your kids, and being her daddy in bed

She wants you to be masculine so she can be feminine.

She may start out as a sexy submissive babe who loved bending over for you and letting you bury yourself deep into her wetness, but if you stop leading the way and get lazy, she will be less feminine and more masculine. If you don't lead, she will be forced into that role when she doesn't want it.

She doesn't want to pick the restaurant, she doesn't want to plan the trip, she doesn't want to pick up the check or split the bill. She doesn't want to tell you what shirt looks better on you, she wants you to know where to eat, where to go, and what to wear.

It's like a power vacuum in war. If there is no powerful ruler, you get a power vacuum, and other groups come to fill that vacuum (Iraq 2003, Afghanistan 2021).

You are the powerful ruler. You failing to take the lead creates a vacuum, she is the 'other group' filling the vacuum.

She won't be attracted to you being lazy, you won't be attracted to her being assertive.

Attraction stops, sex decreases, resentment increases, and you become like every other average couple that does more fantasizing about others and less fucking, let alone cheating

I'll finish this long winded but hopefully high quality post with two points, one declaration and one thought exercise:

  • declaration: Be a MAN. Be a LEADER. Take a STAND. LEAD trips, LEAD dates, be in charge not in a controlling way, but in a controlled way
  • thought exercise: Think about your family. Ask yourself whether one of them was too over/under bearing, and ask yourself why.
    • Trace back some roots, think about your own childhood and if/how family relations affected it.
    • Something from your childhood or family could be locking you into self-sabotage type behavior and holding you back