Jenny Mollen's "Boy Mom" Article Said the Quiet Part Out Loud

[00:00:00]In May of this year, actress Jenny Mollen published a very concerning Substack article on her experience as a boy mom. Just a couple of weeks later, she also posted a very intimate-looking photo of her and her son with a caption, "Your eldest son will be the most toxic guy you ever date." Since then, it's been announced that Jenny and her actor husband are now divorcing, and I've covered the psychology of boy moms on my channel before, but I thought it was a really unique opportunity to look at her Substack article because it really says the quiet part out loud. We really get to hear from a boy mom in her own words where this comes from, basically. So, let's talk about it.

[00:00:36]>> [music] >> So, the article starts with Jenny writing, "Call me old-fashioned, but I only want my sons to marry women with dead mothers. It's my only shot at staying relevant, of seeming useful, and of winning by comparison." Interesting way of framing human relationships as a competition that a person wins and loses. She goes on, "Having boys is a mind [ __ ] It builds you up only to tear you apart." And this kind of confirms a suspicion that I've had for some time now, which is that sometimes when women have sons, they get this feeling of like unconditional pure love from a male for the first time in their life. And if that mom is like very male-centered, she kind of gets high on that validation, and then it's almost like she feels the come down when that validation is getting taken away by another woman who they're socialized to see as their opponent due to the patriarchy. Jenny goes on to write that she used to find it insane that her husband's mom freaked out when he told her that they were getting married, and she now understands it's because it felt to her like I was eating her son straight out of the fridge without even asking for a plate.

[00:01:49]Right off the bat, this is very objectifying language. She sort of frames it as like a mom viewing her son as a possession and a wife stealing said possession from her. And beyond just objectifying, it's also like borderline predatory sounding. Like a human being is an object to be consumed, like this hunter and prey dynamic, like an exploitation. Jenny says that up until very recently, her kids really needed her, but now these emotional vampires, the most emotionally high maintenance men I've ever dated, are growing up, and eventually I will lose them. I think I've said in the past that boy moms, um but permissive leaning parents in general, kind of get off on their kids needing them. It almost fulfills like a self-esteem gap, that I am important, I am wanted, I matter, there's someone who cries for me when I'm gone. I think this is why some parents struggle very hard with an empty nest when their kids go off into the world, because a lot of their self-worth previously came from their kids needing them. And this is a very normal human need for all of us.

[00:02:47]It's important for us to feel needed by other people. But anytime we make our kids in charge of fulfilling our needs, we veer into the territory of something called emotional in The definition of emotional in is when a parent emotionally puts a child in the role of a partner, either by leaning on them for emotional support, by using them to boost their ego, by treating them like a best friend or therapist.

[00:03:11]And the outcome of this type of behavior is often pretty similar on the victim to the consequences of like actual What makes this discussion of emotional in even more pertinent is how she then refers to her kids as men I've dated, which like is very odd. I do not understand what she means by this. I also don't understand why that was like in the caption of the photo she posted where she was like cuddling her son. I have no idea what this means, because a dating relationship should be very different from a parent-child relationship. Unfortunately, she's kind of saying the quiet part out loud here, which is that a lot of boy moms mentally see their sons as like quasi partners to fulfill certain romantic needs, such as the need to feel needed, something that a romantic partner is typically the one to fulfill. That is the literal definition of emotional in This is why a lot of women who resort to this type of behavior are either women who don't have a romantic partner, like single moms, or women whose romantic partners are emotionally checked out.

[00:04:12]Because a woman who's getting her self-esteem needs met by an adult usually doesn't need to put that responsibility on her children, unless there's like some very deep young trauma where one person's attachment to her is simply not enough to fill like her self-esteem pit of emptiness. But that's also why it doesn't really surprise me one bit that Jenny and her husband are now getting a divorce because, you know, like I said, typically boy moms don't have very solid relationships. While I was reading this article, my husband actually walked in the room and I told him about what I was reading and he was like, "Who is this person?" I told him he she's like some zealous celebrity, I don't know. And I said, "Oh, she's married to this guy, this actor whose name I also don't know at the top of my head, but like has kind of a familiar face." And I pulled up their photo and my husband said, "Oh, yeah, I think I've heard of this guy. Wasn't he like really heavily addicted to drugs?" And I was like, "Oh, wow, yeah, that makes a lot of sense." Because people who are addicted to drugs are not always the best partners. I want to be clear, I'm not saying that if a wife starts behaving in this like boy mom-esque way, that it's her husband's fault. We're all responsible for our own behavior. And I don't even know if this is the case in Jenny's specific marriage that her husband didn't meet her emotional needs.

[00:05:25]What I'm saying is that it didn't at all surprise me to find out that her husband had serious mental health issues of his own because something like an addiction can absolutely make someone a less present partner, take a toll on the marriage, and dealing with those sorts of marriage problems can definitely contribute to the pathology of being a boy mom. Now, the article gets much worse, like honestly, probably worse than you're imagining. But speaking of motherhood, I wanted to share something about my own experience. When kids are very young, it's difficult as a parent to find time for much of anything. Every single moment is either spent working on something that needs to be finished or looking after your child, especially if you are both a work-from-home mom and you're taking care of your child from home. And my husband and I have not really had any time for ourselves. No time at all to like fill our cups, so to speak. In my case specifically, I have been procrastinating the release of my third novel, The Splintered Parts. I haven't written any fiction since before my child was born over a year ago. I haven't had time to journal or hike or have my like quiet morning ritual. So, something needed to change. I signed up for career coaching on strawberry.me, who are kindly sponsoring this video, and I cannot recommend them enough. I need to tell you about my experience. As you know, I'm very hard on uncertified coaches who just take people's money with zero to minimal training, no credentials, no ethics code. But strawberry.me is the real deal. It connects you with certified coaches at an affordable price. I met with Dana, who is very personable, skilled, attentive. Right away, she introduced me to career coaching, to her own credentials. She specified that career coaching is not the same thing as therapy, and she will refer me to a therapist if what I'm actually coming in for is more of a mental health concern, and that really put me at ease cuz it made me see that like she's very well versed in her code of ethics. And on top of that, she was also a working mom to a toddler. So, it was a really good match.

[00:07:11]I didn't feel like I needed to overexplain my situation because of it.

[00:07:14]Dana gave me a lot of uh solution-focused questions that helped me see things from a new perspective, cuz it's crazy like you think in your mind, "Oh, I've thought this through.

[00:07:22]I've brainstormed all the possible solutions." But it really is very different to have an outside perspective, somebody else giving you these questions and making you think about things that you might have never considered. Since starting career coaching, I finally realized I need to stop putting off the publication of my third novel. I did my last major round of edits by working on weekends and evenings, and I set the release date for August 14th. My husband and I also started doing 2-hour self-care shifts on weekends where like the other person is looking after our child so that we can like get some time for ourselves to recharge. And it's really made a huge difference. I cannot tell you like how much of a difference it's made just to like be able to journal again. I really feel like I'm not my best self when I don't have time to journal. And none of this would have happened if I hadn't met with Dana for career coaching. Career coaching can help you identify professional goals, develop a personalized plan, keep yourself accountable, and create measurable success. People in like higher positions typically already have a team helping them achieve success, but it should be accessible to everyone. Whether you're looking for a job, looking to switch careers, or you just need to shake something up about your work life, I highly recommend career coaching. You can meet however many times you want, once a week, once every 2 weeks, once a month, maybe just once if you need it.

[00:08:33]And if your coach isn't the right fit for you like Dana was for me, you can always ask to switch them. Take control of your career today with expert coaches from strawberry.me/anapsychology, that's a n a psychology, for 50% off your first coaching session. Back to Jenny's article. So then she starts talking about how she used to be every mother's nightmare when she was younger because she would kind of use men for validation. The way she describes it reminds me again of that consumption metaphor she used. It's almost like she would sort of like chew men and then like spit them back out. I dismantled boys by accident. I destroyed their lives, wrote about it extensively, then got personally offended when they no longer wanted to be my friend. I said I love you when I didn't mean it. I sometimes kiss people just to make them go away. I've never been broken up with.

[00:09:16]I've never been into someone who wasn't just slightly more into me. And then she writes she fears that karma is going to get her back in the form of some crazy [ __ ] I find this to be a really interesting revelation, but it's not clear to me that Jenny understands what she just revealed about herself. All humans tend to assume that other people think and feel the same way that they do. That's called projection. So, if you yourself tend to objectify partners and consume them without regard for their well-being, it stands to reason that you're also going to assume other people do the same thing. And you might even start accusing innocent people of doing that or constantly being hyper-vigilant to signs that people are going to be doing the exact thing that you have done. In essence, it kind of sounds like an admission of projection. Then she also [clears throat] gives us an insider perspective into why a lot of boy moms feel so threatened by their daughter-in-law's mothers. Her mom will be the one to watch the grandkids and join them for family vacations. I'll be the lonely old woman wandering the grove on Fairfax waiting for my 5:00 p.m.

[00:10:15]table for one at the [ __ ] Marmalade Cafe. So, here's the thing. If we're being honest, families are typically pretty matriarchal. In every family I know, the mother is the emotional and logistical centerpiece, even if her husband holds more financial or societal power. Maybe it has to do with the fact that females are socialized into prioritizing and maintaining relationships in a way that males aren't, or maybe it has to do with how mothers very literally on a biological level are the ones nourishing their children with milk, then with food. It's a very primordial image ingrained in us, the mother cooking by the hearth, which is the centerpiece of the family home because it provides nourishment for everyone. But regardless of the reason, be it biological or social, what the centrality of mothers usually means is that they set the emotional tone for the entire family. They're in charge of ensuring the well-being of their children. They decide which relationships to prioritize. And let's be honest, women who are close with their mothers, who have a good relationship with their own mothers, are typically going to ensure that their own children have a pretty close relationship with their maternal grandmother. Unfortunately, I just don't see it as often where men make that much of an effort to ensure their grandkids are also close to their paternal grandparents. A lot of men struggle to take initiative in relationships, to maintain relationships, to say, "Hey Mom and Dad, what do you think about coming over for dinner on Sunday?" Even when kids are close to their paternal grandparents, in a lot of cases it's because their moms are the ones that took the initiative to involve them. So, the unfortunate reality is that sometimes there's a truth to the phrase "A daughter's a daughter for life and a son is a son until he gets married."

[00:11:49]But, at the same time, if you genuinely want to be close to your son and his children well into adulthood, you're not going to accomplish that by treating your daughter-in-law like some kind of adversary in a zero-sum game where one of you wins and the other one loses, where you're trying to win at the expense of other people's loss. The women who remain emotionally important in their sons' lives are typically the ones who support their sons' choices, who welcome their daughter-in-laws with open arms, who, the way my own mother-in-law put it, don't feel like they're losing a son, but rather that they're gaining a daughter. But again, why is Jenny envisioning this future for herself where she's getting a table for one? Where is her husband in all of this? If you have a partner who you enjoy spending time with, you don't fear your kids becoming more independent as they grow up. Like, let me tell you a story. I was one time at this big party.

[00:12:38]My husband and I were kind of in our own little enclave looking after our baby at the time. And across the room was this other couple, and the woman was just kind of like angrily glaring into space.

[00:12:48]And this woman is somebody who very much wants to monopolize conversations, to be like the center of attention at all times. She's unfortunately someone that I know very, very closely. Like, she needs to walk into a room and for people's reaction to be like, "Hey, look who just walked in. Oh my god, we were just talking about you." And if that's not the case, she tends to get very upset and starts to feel like people are ignoring her. And I thought it was odd, you know, both of us were sort of sitting there with our husbands on our own, and I felt like really at ease. In that moment, I wasn't necessarily part of the games that people were playing. I wasn't, you know, having like group discussions with people at the party. I was just hanging out with my husband and our child, and I thought that was a very stark contrast to how she seemed so upset to just be hanging out with her husband. When you don't have a solid relationship with your partner and you don't enjoy their presence that much, or the two of you are like not emotionally present for each other in the way that you should be, you start to look for getting those needs met from other people. I actually can't wait to be an empty nester one day. I love the hustle and bustle of a full house, of kids running around, but I also miss being able to sit on the couch and binge watch TV on a Sunday with my husband, or going on long hikes on Saturday mornings, or going out to meals just the two of us.

[00:14:01]If the idea of your kids one day leaving you scares you, it's a sign that your romantic relationship is in dire need of help. You shouldn't be leaning on your kids for the type of validation that a romantic partner should be fulfilling.

[00:14:13]And then the essay gets much more disturbing. "Several months ago, my eldest was texting with a girl. She was 12, but I could already tell my brand of toxic. She was bossing him around and using big words, and he was utterly spun. I complained to Jason that I wanted to intervene before he got hurt, and that she wasn't even hotter than me." I'm not sure what she means by "I could already tell my brand of toxic."

[00:14:33]Maybe that was that she was identifying her own brand of toxic within this 12-year-old girl. If so, please refer back to my section on projection. I've spoken before about how boy moms are deeply misogynistic. They see other women as competition, and they resort to very misogynistic stereotypes as a way to put them down. The women are these like all-powerful harlots luring men to exploit them. But it is a whole new level to watch a boy mom project all these disgusting stereotypes onto a literal 12-year-old girl. Her crime is apparently using big words, and she's framing this as some sort of like intentional manipulation on the girl's part because her 12-year-old son has a crush on her.

[00:15:14]And I'm sorry, she wasn't even hotter than me? What? She really said the quiet part out loud with that one. About how she sees her son's romantic prospects as competition for sexual validation. It's yet another confession that she sees her son as a romantic proxy. Children are naturally very curious about bodies, especially their parents' bodies, especially their mom's body that like literally nourished them and created them. And a mother who weaponizes that curiosity by sexualizing it, by turning it into something dirty, I truly have nothing respectful to say about that.

[00:15:49]So, you know what? I'm just going to abstain from what I really want to say.

[00:15:52]And to speak so disparagingly about the body of a girl who's likely either going through puberty or about to start puberty, it's just beyond disgusting.

[00:16:01]She says, "As a mother, you want to shield and protect and fiercely defend the thing you've devoted your life to shaping." Again, very objectifying language. And again, we get this notion of like, "I have to protect him. I have to like stop him from engaging with this other female." That we see a lot with like boy moms when they're dealing with their daughter-in-laws as well, that they start to become very controlling over their sons and they start to ask their sons to put their needs above their wives' needs. The abandonment we eventually endure as boy moms is uniquely cruel because it begins as worship. They arrive obsessed, dependent, adoring. They think we're magic. We think we are magic. And this goes back to what I was talking about earlier. For many women with sons who become boy moms, their sons are the first time that a man has treated them sweetly and innocently, that has seen their value in a non-objectifying way.

[00:16:47]But by her own admission, Jenny's had men be obsessed with her before. So, maybe this is not so much a deficit in feeling needed by others, but more of a chronic self-esteem issue where she needs excessive validation regardless of how much she gets it. And if that's the case, which I don't know if it is, I'm just offering a possibility here, no amount of validation will ever be enough. There are some personality types that are just addicted to validation.

[00:17:12]And again, framing it as an abandonment is the way that a lot of boy moms see it when their son finds a romantic partner because again, remember it's a matter of ownership. They care more about the loss of their possession than about the well-being of their child. And every time Jenny gets so close to getting it, the children make us feel needed and that we as parents need to grieve that eventually they won't need us anymore.

[00:17:33]She for some reason brings it right back to her competitiveness with other women.

[00:17:37]Maybe the tragedy of sons is also the gift, the temporary delusion that you can be all things to another person, that there is no competition for their love, no caveats to their devotion. Why sons? Why sons specifically? Why can you not also experience this with daughters?

[00:17:52]Why do you value male validation so much more than female validation? It's embarrassingly male-centered behavior.

[00:17:58]And then she ends the essay with, "I pray that at least one of them is gay."

[00:18:02]Meaning one of her sons. As if having her son stolen by a man would be less painful, less of an abandonment. Again making it abundantly clear that this is not just about wanting to feel needed but about viewing other women as competition, which is exactly what I [ __ ] said in the first boy mom video that I ever made, that it's about a pathological need for validation combined with misogyny. Now, the sense I got throughout this essay was that Jenny thought this was going to be like a funny haha moment. But the thing about humor is that things are funny when someone says something surprising and touches on something that's at least partially true on a deep level. It feels like Jenny thought this was going to be like a hilarious relatable read, but it didn't land as funny for most people because most of us don't see our kids this way. And in fact, it's pretty concerning to us that other people do.

[00:18:51]Was it surprising? Yeah, she made some pretty bold claims. She said the quiet part out loud and boldness can sometimes get a few laughs, but the relatability was lacking. It felt like she thought people were going to be laughing along with her when in reality we're just in disbelief that she thought this was a normal experience. Now, something that I always find interesting is the way people respond to feedback that they're getting. And obviously Jenny got a lot of feedback on this article that it's not a healthy way to view dynamics between a mother and son. And her defensiveness to that indicated a lot to me about whether this is something she's actually going to change and about her self-awareness in general. Apparently she said it's like because I'm getting separated, because I'm not protected by the institution of marriage, I'm suddenly a different kind of target in what I'm posting. Like this is absolutely jaw-dropping. A photo of me hugging my 12-year-old child is getting ridiculed. I'm sorry, but the backlash has nothing to do with her divorce. It's very possible that the divorce is related to her recent behavior, who knows, but the backlash from the public is due to the way she wrote about her relationship with her son. Because many of us recognize that the way that she thinks about the relationship is unhealthy. And it's not even about the photo. Like the photo a photo of a woman hugging her son is not necessarily inappropriate. It's the caption and it's what else she wrote in this entire Substack article that's inappropriate.

[00:20:11]It's such a straw man to say like this is what you guys are upset about when that is nothing to do with it. We are not upset that she's getting divorced or that she posted a photo of her hugging her son. It's odd because clearly she has a lot of self-awareness of her need to feel needed that she writes about not just in this article but in other Substack articles as well. But she can't take it a step further to consider whether everyone is upset with her because she did something wrong. It reminds [clears throat] me of this like quasi self-awareness that sometimes people have where they have an understanding of their inner experience but they're out of touch with the way it affects others and they don't want to work on it to stop hurting other people.

[00:20:48]And that's why personally I'm a little doubtful that she's going to learn from this cuz honestly a lot of boy moms end up being the way they are and having the type of relationship issues that they have precisely because they're unwilling to look at how their inner experience might be hurting others. What did you think about this article? Let me know down below and thank you for watching.

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