Redefining Manhood as Boyish Immaturity

Male and Female perspectives on masculinity.

Readership: Christian Men
Reader’s Note: This is Part 1 of a series.
Length: 2,000 words
Reading Time: 7.5 minutes

Introduction

In a previous post, Ladies Should Respect the Man and Love the Boy (2018 June 28), I described a conversation I had with a student who was engaged to be married. Her primary complaint about her fiancée was,

“Sometimes he acts so immature, like a little boy!”

She found this trait to be so ridiculous and annoying that she talked at some length about how much trouble it is for her to deal with this trait, and the disappointment she feels as a consequence.

Deep Strength commented,

“This is actually a good trait to have to be a good father. Interacting and playing with kids requires a certain amount of ability to set aside the seriousness of life and just enjoy being silly or crazy.

Also, Michal thought David was being “immature” (undignified) when he was dancing as the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem. Look at how that turned out for her.

The issue is not maturity though. A woman’s preconceived notions of what they think is “mature” or not is their will manifesting as pride: they think they know what is better than the man they are with and are setting themselves up as the judge of that.”

This brilliant observation is certainly true. But nevertheless, most women do carry this opinion of most men.

In order to discuss the nature of this phenomenon, I’ll review several articles which expand on this female perspective, and add some commentary. These articles are older, liberal, and feminist, and are thus not to be regarded as Red Pill truth. However, I do think they express the general viewpoints of women very well.

Case Study 1 – Babyman

Psyche Central (feat. Samuel López De Victoria): Babyman… Is This Your Guy? (October 4, 2009)

This article begins with an embarrassing appeal to romantic chivalry, which Red Pillers know is not what women really want in a man. Then there is a short anecdote reviving the overworn trope of the harried housewife and the checked-out father. The author then makes three points that women struggle against.

1. She argues that men “put on an act to get you”, that men are selfish and immature, and that it is natural for women to resent men whom they cannot respect.
2. She claims that men have “developmental deficits”, and are spoiled from their youth.
3. She explains how women are forced to take control of everything in order to survive, and that this is caused by her being “emotionally abandoned by her man”.

The article closes with some arrogant advice to women to either accept the role of being his surrogate mother, or dump the dude.

In a word, this whole article is simply solipsistic. She makes men out to be immature, but I strongly suspect that this is psychological projection. She is the one who is immature and out of control. I question the overall intelligence of women who take this stance.

Case Study 2 – Women Incite Emotional Drama

This article is a little more interesting.

Psychology Today (feat. William Berry): When Men Are Boys and Wives Are Mothers (February 14, 2011)

It attempts to explain that one reason why relationships become dysfunctional is because the male partner becomes “the child” in the relationship, while his female partner becomes “the mother”.

“Some men turn into boys and their wives into mothers.”

The article cites 5 ways the mother-child dynamic happens, which I’ve paraphrased and summarized here.

1. From a woman’s perspective, men seem to approach dating and marriage differently. While dating, his impulsiveness, playfulness, and childlike charm are attractive and endearing. But when the responsibilities of marriage kick in, he becomes more serious and responsible.
2. From a man’s perspective, women also seem to approach dating and marriage differently. While dating, women join men in “having fun” (e.g. drinking, dancing, and clubbing). But after marriage, women eschew these behaviors, especially after having children.
3. Men suppress certain emotions, and the woman thinks it is her job to extract those emotions.
4. According to ¡Science!, mothers and fathers approach childrearing differently. Mothers take on the role of caregivers while fathers take on the role of playmates.
5. The article also claims that after having a child, men feel slighted or jealous of the woman’s time and attention given to the child.

All this is a nice little summary of men and women’s general behaviors in a relationship. But only point (3) addresses the issue of the mother-child dynamic. In fact, point (1) undermines the overall argument. Point (2) could be offered as a motivation for women to become nags, and if you think nagging is the same as mothering, then I can see how you might agree. Point (4) is about parenting roles, not about husband-wife roles.  This point could be extended to say that women have an instinctive nature to be mothering, but the author didn’t say this.

I strongly disagree with point (5). I think men feel this way because the wife is not making herself accessible (i.e. emotionally, sexually) to the man, and she uses the child as a justification for her withdrawal.

Taken together, these five points introduce some confusion about what it means to be “mothering” in this context. Does it mean being supportive, nurturing, warm, and caring, or does it mean being a scrupulous, hen pecking scold? I tend to think of the “mothering wife/adult manchild” dynamic as being more like the latter, but I can see how there might be elements of both.

In total, the takeaway from this article regarding the matron/manchild dynamic is that men are not responsible nor emotional enough for women’s tastes, and that it’s up to her to introduce the necessary degree of responsibility and incite emotional drama into the relationship. In order to change the interactional context into one that is congruent and conducive to this end, she must assert her dominance in the relationship. One common way women do this is to revert to the role of a mother, and treat the man like a child, which I’ll add, is extremely disrespectful. I covered this aspect before in Why do Women Incite Others to Emote? (2018 June 19). Although men are less emotional, this is hardly evidence that men are immature.

Case Study 3: The Giant Baby

Huffington Post (feat. David Wygant): 5 Reasons Why Men Are Giant Babies in Relationships (November 21, 2011; Updated Jan 20, 2012)

This article actually has some good suggestions about how women can love and respect a man by serving him drinks, giving massages, displaying boobs, and offering motivating compliments and encouragement. However, this advice is condescendingly framed as coddling an immature baby, and is therefore very disrespectful to masculinity in general.

And this is written by a “man”?  My word…

Case Study 4: The Grown A$$ Man

Madamenoire (feat. Julia Austin): Are You Dealing With a Real Man Or A Little Boy? 7 Signs You’ve Got a Grown A** Man (June 19, 2012)

This article does us a real favor in clarifying that when a woman says she wants a “Real Man” she does not mean a beer guzzling, football watching, gym-obsessed brute that will start fights over her. She means someone who is mature, will treat her like a queen, is ready to be treated like a king and not take it for granted, and most importantly, who respects the sanctity* of a relationship.

Apparently, a man must not take any interest in drinking, sports, fitness training, or territory marking behaviors, because this would be “immature”. Instead, he must be somewhat chivalrous to m’lady. She goes on to list 7 habits of “mature” male conduct which I have interpreted as follows.

1. He must not call her impulsively. Instead, he has to fit himself into her schedule.
2. Regardless of the circumstances, he must accept all fault and admit that she is right. His priority is to make her haaappy! (Of course!)
3. A real man wants to give to, not take from, a woman. He must offer commitment as a matter of course and be faithful without doubt or question. He cannot have any emotional or sexual needs that would require her to give something of herself to him. His only purpose is to make her feel “hot, unique, loved and all that good stuff”. (Naturally!)
4. He must be willing to talk about his emotions and work things out on her terms. All the while, he must not get upset, raise his hand, turn away, hang up the phone, or shut down the conversation. He must also wholeheartedly agree with her, and not just agree for the sake of getting her to shut up. (Groan!)
5. A real man never raises his voice or asserts his authority, but only does what is necessary to continue the relationship harmoniously. After all, the partnership is equal!
6. He must never talk about his own problems, fears, or desires. As she wrote, “A real man takes responsibility for his own life and realizes it doesn’t suck because his boss is mean, his landlord is a jerk, he is overweight or whatever. It sucks because he made those choices and put himself in those situations, and only he can get himself out of them. And complaining is not the ticket.”
7. He must bow down and worship her as a true, independent, equal.  As she says, “A real man likes a strong, opinionated, confident woman with a good head on her shoulders. He likes a woman who is the leader of her own life (and body) and is ambitious, has an active social life, is curious about the world, dresses however she wants and lives however she wants. A real man does not look in any way to control a woman. But a real man also understands that sometimes a real woman becomes emotional, and that he should never make her feel silly or bad for this. Instead, he should comfort her, let it pass, and let her get back to being her strong, bad@$$ self as if it never happened.” (LMAO… Is this “strong”? I’d say it’s typical feminine weakness.)

* Translation of “respecting the sanctity”: He must defer obeisant fealty to her royal pain-in-the-@$$ imagined feminine dominance.

I think we’re starting to get the picture now. Anything extraneous to the feminine imperative is boyish immaturity.

Case Study 5: Men are like Babies

Cosmopolitan (feat. Hannah Smothers): 24 Ways Men Are Just Like Babies (April 14, 2016)

This article is full of subjective assessments, but I’ll try to interpret these as best as I can. These are all purported to be symptoms of male “immaturity”.

1. He doesn’t eat what she wants him to eat without any objections.
2. He expects an immediate response.
3. He asks her opinion about what he should wear.
4. He gets sick.
5. He expects sympathy and care when he is sick.
6. He won’t go to the doctor when she decides he should do so.
7. He expects praise for small accomplishments.
8. He loves to suck on boobs like a baby.
9. He prefers hamburgers over fine cuisine.
10. His sleeplessness and the carnal urgency arising from his nocturnal erections keep her awake at night.
11. He doesn’t like to be “cuddled” (c.f. disrespected) when she wants to “cuddle” (c.f. disarm his defenses with feminine wiles).
12. He isn’t a die-hard shopaholic and is insufficiently resolved to find ways to spend his money.
13. He has particular tastes (e.g. his mom’s spaghetti sauce).
14. He is insensitive to her more refined tastes in his choices of clothing.
15. He gets obsessed with new tools, toys, gadgets, and hobbies.
16. He puts ketchup on his steaks.
17. He speaks in monosyllabic grunts.
18. He leaves his clothes on the floor.
19. He wants to keep some of his personal items in her purse.
20. “They skip hungry and immediately go to hangry, and hangry involves a lot of temper tantrums.”
21. He has certain expectations of her that she doesn’t agree or feel comfortable with. For example, he won’t do things he doesn’t want to do (e.g. wash dishes) with the implicit assumption that she will do it.
22. His habits of cleanliness are not up to her expectations.
23. He has constant ego needs which manifest as restlessness and impatience (e.g. channel surfing during commercials).
24. He asks questions about where she keeps things.

The general message here is that if a man has any need for love, affection, or encouragement, then he is a baby. On the other hand, mature men are inhuman!

Some items on this list are merely differences in taste. In fact, these seem like a laundry list of assorted economic class differences that might show up when a jaded, post-wall, UC snob is dating a younger, hawt, LC boytoy. Other items on this list are the simple daily annoyances commonly experienced by those who are incapable of extending any common graces to the other. I suppose we could truly call this immaturity, but if we are going to adopt this perspective, then the article is completely one-sided. I imagine her partner could come up with an even longer list of complementary annoyances about her. But I’m sure that as long as she’s putting out, it’s mostly irrelevant to him.

Conclusions

The lessons we’ve gained from these case studies are given here.

1. Case Study 1 – Women are solipsistic.
2. Case Study 2 – Men suppress certain emotions, and the woman thinks it is her job to extract those emotions.  Playing the mother is the most satisfying way (for her) to do this.
3. Case Study 3 – There is a marked display of disrespect towards men and masculinity in general.
4. Case Study 4 – Anything extraneous to the feminine imperative is labeled boyish immaturity.
5. Case Study 5 – Any symptom of human frailty is boyish immaturity.

Now I’m beginning to understand why most women think men are immature boys!

As you can see, the general opinion of the Feminazified social culture is that men are wussified simps, who are totally emotionally inept. The humanity of men is portrayed either as an intrinsic, contemptible flaw in males, or else a failure of men to develop their emotional sides.

Give me a break. Isn’t there another theoretical option besides ‘flaw’ or ‘failure’?

More positively, this review could have a few other conclusions, or be extended to other applications:

1. The easiest way for a man to become an immature boy is to let wimmin set the frame by redefining manhood and what it means to be mature.
2. The above lists could be revamped into a male version of the $h!t test — Just do all the things on those lists, and see how much she truly loves you!
3. To those thoroughly annoyed men who are looking to tick a frumpy wimmyn off, he could “agree and amplify” the “immaturity” just to test her limits and keep her on her toes.
4. To those men who want to shed the pesky love of a bothersome wimmyn, indulging in “immaturity” (as described above) could be a passive-aggressive way to get her to dump you. Just be more “immature” and count the milliseconds to see how long she’ll last.

Best wishes~!

Related

• The Rational Male: Remove the Man (2013 May 6)
• The Rational Male: Male Authority – Be a “Man” (2018 November 13)