My Son Only Wants Me
Young sons are either preferable to their moms (#mommasboy) or love their dads (#daddysboy) so much they don't want to be around their moms. Either way. Somebody needs more love from their son.
This is not uncommon. Most sons look up to their dads and want to do everything they do. Pee standing up, swing a hammer, drive a car real fast, throw/hit/kick a ball, etc. Some sons would prefer to be around their mom and just want to be hugged all the time, among other activities.
It is worth noting that sons also learn how to treat women (all women including siblings) from their fathers (father figures) so there is a lot of responsibility on fathers to be some type of good example. My idea, and what we promote on this website, is to treat women with respect and love them in word and deed. My wife is on a pedestal as a goddess.
My Son Loves Me More Than My Wife
If you feel the title of this section to be true, consider talking with your son one to one about why his mom is so important to him. Our blog post entitled How To Teach Children Early has some great communication strategies for parents if you need some talking tips. We also have another blog post to help parents communicate based on a childes age and talking about the tough topics in our post entitled Effective Communication Strategies For Parents.
Remind your son who feeds him, bathes him, washes his clothes, kisses his wounds, etc. If your son is older, make the topics age appropriate and specifically focused on what their mom does for them. If you do all of these things, good on you! Come up with things that his mom does that he would recognize as something that you do not do.
The goal is to get your son to think about the love that he gets from both sides of the relationship.
How do I help my wife feel love from my son?
As a dad in a relationship with a spouse/girlfriend/fiancé/ex, what is your role in helping your sons mom feel like she is part of the relationship?
I understand the bitterness that comes from separation and divorce from a child's perspective. In my case, my dad left without looking back and I rarely saw him. I didn't have a great role model in home when my mom got remarried of what a dad should be so I looked for that elsewhere and found plenty of bad examples and very few fine examples.
If you have a great relationship with your son and you are looking for advice on how to expand that to your spouse, here is what we got.
My wife gets the brunt of a lot of things from my kids. Especially when I am not there. They see her all the time. The only time she gets the attention I get when I come home is when she goes out and does something without the kids.
The whole time I am at home without her the kids ask, "when will mom be home?" Try getting your partner out the door by herself and see what happens. If she is gone more than ten minutes, the kids will start questioning why you do something that way. "That isn't the way mom does it," they say.
This has worked for us for our kids to give more respect to my wife. When you have something without limitation, it loses its excitement. When you take that thing away, the people who depend on it really start to miss it.
The Dad Son Bond (#daddysboy)
This is a special bond for dads and dads really don't have to do anything to get the bond from their son. Son's look up to fathers. They want to be like them. They want to do what they do. They look up to the men in their life on how to be a man.
They are interested in you shaving. They want to go with you to check the mail. They ask you to play with them the second you get in the door. Do it!
The dad side of this is the side that is lacking. This is true of me too. I can't count how many times I have said, "just a minute" to my son. All he wants is his buddy dad to watch him jump on the bed! Oh yeah, COVID killed a lot of entertainment so we let some things go...
Be A Dad Today and enjoy the special moments that your son wants to spend with you. Your son is growing so fast and soon will be on his own and not interested.
The Mother Son Bond (#mommasboy)
Some people see a momma's boy as a sissy or weak. I remember the kid that cried at a Halloween party the school put on. He was scared out of his mind and saying how much he needed his mom. He just wanted to go home and feel loved and not scared. That was me.
I also remember crying at an award event in High School when I was awarded a achievement for a P.E. class. All I could say was, "I just want to thank my Mom," was all I got out before starting to cry in front of 500 people.
I don't recall anyone making fun of me for either of these but I felt weak and like a sissy. Society is in a bad way with how they project stereotypes on people. With no one being critical, it still resonated that crying made me weak.
While the bond with a dad may be physical in a lot of ways, the bond with a mother is emotional. Touch the emotion side and let your son do the same.
Creating Bonds With A Son
If you are the dad and need a better relationship with your son, work at it. Start with the small things and work into being the father figure and an example of what a dad is. Treat the women in his life right. He is learning the most from you.
If you are the mom and need a better relationship or need to help him realize that he needs a better relationship with you, work at it. Give him some distance and let him work out the emotion of it. Help him understand that he can talk to you and be supportive of his decisions to go on adventures.
I know my wife has a million things to do every minute of the day and he mind moves that fast but her sons mind is only focused on one thing at a time. Playing! Be it watching or taking a video or being impressed with his new trick, he just needs validation that he is doing something cool.
One of the best ways to help build bonds with someone else is to spend time with them and get them to talk about them. Ask them pointed questions that let them know you are interested in them. When they are talking about themselves they are bonding.