The rising popularity of Instagram and TikTok briefly excluded older generations, but now that Millennials and some of Gen Z are becoming parents, we’re seeing a trend of mothers profiting off of their children. Family channels on YouTube have always been around, with lots of speculation around this potentially being child abuse. Profiting off of their kids, in my opinion, is something to be frowned upon. We’re seeing women profiting off of their children, especially neurodivergent, male, or disabled children. We see them complaining about them if they’re autistic, coddling, and favoritizing them if they’re boys, and asking for pity when they’re physically disabled.
In cases of male children, mothers often say things like, “Born to be his lover, forced to be his mother.” Cases of emotional incest, such as this, are more harmful than they may seem. On social media, young and impressionable children are seeing these videos of mothers saying these kinds of things, and fathers saying the same sort of things about their daughters. While we are only onlookers, it can be assumed that it’s worse in real life. Teenagers who are just beginning to see their roles in the world are seeing that women should coddle their boyfriends, or else they “can’t compete” with their significant others’ parents. Along with this, there are trends of mothers saying things like, “teaching him how to cook so he won’t be impressed by your daughter’s sub-par cooking skills,” which just continues the patriarchal view of women in the world.
When we are seeing posts that imply that women should stay in the kitchen, it’s not only teaching your own child this toxic ideology, but also any other children who may not realize that this isn’t a healthy thought process. Some influencers use their platform to poke fun at these self-named “boy moms,” such as TikTok user @sarahklait, titling her video, “ POV: the toxic boy mom who’s overly obsessed with her son.” These videos poke fun at the boy moms, but it is also a serious issue which creates toxic family dynamics and “momma’s boys.” Including your son in these videos is also a problem, such as in @thehardiesx video on tiktok, titled
“when you realize youtre gonna have to share the love of your life (my baby boy) with another female one day…”
This video not only calls women “females,” which has been considered offensive to say when unnecessary due to the reduction of women to their sex, but also shows the mother hugging her very clearly elementary school son.
This behavior is not only creepy, but predatory, and should be cut off as soon as possible. We’re unknowingly creating a new generation of children who will be overdependent on their parents, and view their parents and partners as rivals to each other.
