When Momma Ain't Happy

When Momma Ain't Happy


There are two sides to every coin, to coin a phrase. And there are at least two sides to every coined phrase. Let’s take a look at one such expression from both sides of the coin, before I run out of monetary metaphors.


“If Momma ain’t happy, ain't nobody happy.” Use that expression in public and you’ll get a lot of good natured laughter and nods of the heads. Underneath the humor and agreement is something we all know is a little darker.


Of course, there are a lot of women this doesn’t apply to. They take their knocks in life in pretty good stride, shaking off disappointments with grace and a healthy amount of humility. They have my respect. There are also men aplenty who can’t get through five minutes of everyday life without subjecting everyone to their complaints de jour. But this is just whining, Annoying, yes, but an annoyance on which neither sex has cornered the market.


What I am talking about here is the idea that when something displeases you, everyone around you has to suffer for it. Not just listen to it, but pay for it. The legal tender for this transaction is usually the common peace. You’ll have peace when, and only when, Momma is satisfied. In more extreme cases it means nothing less than abusive control.


And yes, this applies more to women than to men. Most coined phrases get sent to the mint with at least a morsel of truth to them; this one wasn’t submitted with Daddy’s name on it.


Women who hold their marriages and families hostage to their desires and whims, when they are even willing to admit to their actions, have the same litany of excuses and rationalizations. “If I don’t run things, they won’t get done.” Or, “If I don’t run things, they won’t get done right.”


As a matter of fact, you can just think of the “If I don’t...” line and fill in the blank with any number of imagined disasters that will occur if Momma’s way isn’t the only way. And pity the fool that gets in her way because Momma will up the ante as much as necessary to ensure compliance. Up to and including dissolution of the family.


Which makes you wonder, what is the morality of anyone so bent on control? I’d argue that the moral foundation of such a woman is as solid as balsawood and twice as porous.


The depth of damage these women inflict on those around them has been well documented. Erin Pizzey founded the world’s first battered women’s shelter in 1971. She dedicated her life to the study of domestic violence and to the study of women in violent families. Her ultimate findings, although scientifically sound, were less than politically correct. That explains why you probably haven’t heard of her or her work.


Here is a clip taken from her 1988 book, “The Emotional Terrorist and the Violence-Prone.”


“The family of the emotional terrorist well may be characterized as violent, incestuous, dysfunctional, and unhappy, but it is the terrorist or tyrant who is primarily responsible for initiating conflict, imposing histrionic outbursts upon otherwise calm situations, or (more subtly and invisibly) quietly manipulating other family members into uproar through guilt, cunning taunts, and barely perceptive provocations. (The quiet manipulative terrorist usually is the most undetected terrorist. Through the subtle creation of perpetual turmoil, this terrorist may virtually drive other family members to alcoholism, to drug-addiction, to explosive behavior, to suicide. The other family members, therefore, are often misperceived as the 'family problem' and the hidden terrorist as the saintly woman who "puts up with it all.")”


If this sounds familiar, it is because Pizzey’s “Emotional Terrorist” is just an extreme illustration of not-so-uncommon behavior in women. She can be Mrs. Anyone, your missus, or you.


The solution to this is not so simple. Having counseled a number of families affected by emotional terrorism, I can tell you that getting through the denial of these women makes getting through the denial of an alcoholic seem like child’s play. Often the other victims in the family will rush to her defense.


Indeed, many times I even had colleagues react with a defensive knee jerk when I approached the “co-dependent,” usually the wife and assumed victim in an alcoholic family, with the idea that they were a primary source of many of the families problems.


Many times I had to conduct my work over the chants of “blaming the victim.” Often the family was more obstructive than my co-workers.


First, the family members of domestic terrorists are often so beaten down and servile that they share the woman’s denial. They perceive her just as Pizzey describes, the saintly woman who puts up with it all. Second, confronting Momma makes her really unhappy. It doesn’t take Freud to figure out who will pay for it when the session is over.


The combined forces of denial in the family and denial in mental health professionals create a minefield to walk through when treating these families.


So, solutions are not so simple. The behavior of the domestic terrorist is reinforced by the collective support most of us offer for their actions. Answers will be painfully slow in coming.


One good place to start is in each of us. This doesn’t mean bashing women. But it does mean holding them to higher standards than is currently the social norm. Women who undermine their marriages and families for the sake of controlling them are far from funny. Snickering at their behavior is like finding the humor in a man who pummels his wife because she burned his toast.


Many people of both sexes take the attitude that however women act, that’s the way they are. We might as well accept it. Therein lies the greatest of enabling fantasies about women. We give them a pass on almost anything, no matter how egregious, and seldom think of who we are damaging in the process.


In that, emotional terrorists have gone undetected and unaddressed, bringing harm to themselves, their children and spouses, and to the culture as a whole. We have little but ourselves to blame for it.


And blame ourselves we should.


From the work I have done with families I can tell you that boys who grow up with emotional terrorists for mothers generally end up in one of two ways.


They may end up weak and defeated, latching on to women who will continue Mother’s work. Or, instead--and this is the worst--they grow up angry and couple with women who are insecure and possess low self esteem. It is many of the latter we eventually hear screaming on 911 calls on the nightly news. They get the crap beat out of them or much worse because their guy was destined to grow up and take out his abuse on someone weaker.


If it ruffles the feathers of people who just don't want to hear women cast in a negative light for any reason, I am willing to take the heat for it. Better me than the defenseless.


When society raises both its awareness and its standards, women will likely do the same.