What’s a “mama’s boy”? A wimp, of course, a child tied too tightly to his mother’s apron strings, overly sensitive, incapable of detaching, ready to “run to mama” at the slightest hint of adversity. Norman Bates. Oedipus. Robert, the awkward brother on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” The men are ineffectual, the “mamas” domineering — and if you’re looking for an analogous stereotype in the world of fathers and daughters (think father-daughter dances and “Daddy’s Girl”), you won’t find one.
It sounds like a myth of yesteryear, but Kate Stone Lombardi, frequent New York Times contributor and author of “The Mama’s Boy Myth,” says the hangover from generations of gender preconceptions affects us all, and that in many families and communities, mothers still find themselves urged to push their sons away at exactly the moments (like starting school and becoming a teenager) when our boys need us most — and that even when we don’t, we find it hard to talk about how close we are to our sons.