When people are told that they should do whatever makes them feel good…

… Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.
— King Lear, Act IV, Scene 2

Laura Wood tells us that single mothers “are preying on younger men in front of their daughters…. The fact that many women reject these low standards does not alter the fact of their constant glorification in our culture.”

This is from the article Laura linked on “Cougar moms” and the effect of their behavior on their daughters:

Still, girls who are cool with cougar moms are the exception: The majority of girls who shared their stories with Seventeen wished their moms would change their embarrassing ways. Take Erica, 17. After her parents split up two years ago, her mom dyed her hair blonde and started wearing clothes “so tight they could be mistaken for a second skin.” But that wasn’t as traumatizing as what she says her mom started doing next: partying all night at clubs and sometimes not even coming home. After a few months, Erica says her mom even drained Erica’s college tuition money to buy herself breast implants. “One night, a friend called to tell me she saw my mom leave a club with some guy,” Erica says. “Hours after the call, my mom still wasn’t home, so I made my dad drive around town with me to look for her—I was worried she could be hurt or in an accident.” When Erica arrived at the club to look for her mom, she found her—in a car, hooking up with a guy who’d recently graduated from Erica’s high school! “I was so humiliated and angry. I shouldn’t have to be a 17-year-old babysitting a 40-year-old woman. It’s not cool at all to have a cougar mom. I feel totally robbed of being a teenager.”

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Kilroy M. writes:

Something that strikes me as rather offensive from a male point of view: (a) the college tuition fund was most probably put aside by the ex-husband, whose labour during the years when the marriage was intact has now been used to fund his ex wife’s tittie-job; (b) the fact that the daughter is forced to get the ex-husband to look for his missing ex-wife who is found in flagrante delicto with a boy—just imagine how emasculating that would be for the father. All of this is detrimental to everybody in this scenario: the father, who has just been once again castrated by the brave new world of female-empowered sexual liberalism; the daughter, who has just been degraded as a young woman in the face of this spectacle; and the boy, who has just received a lesson in what is deemed acceptable behaviour in modernist society (fear the next generation of men, young lady!). I ask this: would it be too harsh to suggest that traditional patriarchy saves women from themselves, and in so doing, protects society from social chaos? I believe it does. If that makes me “sexist,” so be it.

LA replies:

Yes, if the “natural” behavior of women once they’ve been liberated from traditional religious, moral, social, and economic constraints is (as the Roissyites tell us) rampant promiscuity, hypergamy, and cougerism, that is as compelling an argument against modern sexual equality and freedom and in favor of traditionalism as one could imagine.

And wasn’t Shakespeare saying the same in King Lear? Lear transfers his power to his daughters, and all hell—literally—breaks loose.

Gintas writes:

Did you read that whole article? At the end, there are tips for a teenage girl on how to deal with her promiscuous mother:

Get Your Mom Back!

Here are the keys to having a great relationship with your mom—no matter what.

Step 1 Have girl time: Instead of screaming at your mom or avoiding her altogether, ask her to set aside 20 minutes for the two of you this weekend—to go for a walk or for coffee or just to sit down in your living room.

Step 2 Tell her what you need. Say: “When you act like this [tell her specifically what she does that upsets you], it makes me feel uncomfortable.” Remind her that you need and love her. That will make her more open to your feelings, and less likely to feel defensive.

Step 3 Don’t give up. If you don’t feel like you’re getting through to her, talk to someone else. You may feel embarrassed or protective of your mom, and not want to make her seem like a bad parent. But in the end, any mom-daughter relationship will be stronger and more genuine if you deal with your frustrations—instead of ignoring them or resenting her.

This sounds like boilerplate mainstream advice for a mother on how to get her daughter back. So this is what it’s come to: teenagers are the mothers to their own mothers.

Baby Boomerism is evil, and the Baby Boomers must go.

LA replies:

Or, in the famous line of William Wordsworth:

The teenager is the mother to the mom.

(Just kidding. Here’s the original.)

A. Zarkov writes:

Just how prevalent is this “Cougar mom” phenomenon? Are young men attracted to older women in great numbers? Charles Webb explored this theme in his 1963 novel The Graduate, later made into a movie with same name. If the “Cougar moms” are really a trend, them we are witnessing the breakdown of society before our eyes.

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Mrs. K. writes:

LA wrote:

“Lear transfers his power to his daughters, and all hell—literally—breaks loose.”

It’s been years since I read King Lear, but as I recall, the daughters’ viciousness was one part of the problem. The other part was Lear’s blindness (figurative) and susceptibility to flattery. He asked his daughters to tell him how much they loved him, and based his decision on that. The two older daughters “talked a good show,” and each got half the kingdom. The youngest, quiet, gentle daughter was less glib and got nothing. (I can’t remember if she was good ruler material, either.)

Besides the self indulgent females who are out to grab power and use it, there are the men who respond to their flattery. Nowadays men seem glad to raise women’s children from prior relationships, or “solve” the women’s financial problems. They embrace inferiority, all the while telling themselves they’re dispensing favors. Didn’t Lear join one daughter’s household, subordinating himself, and regret it? I’ve seen two marriages end recently right after the woman’s kids reached adulthood. The man was no longer necessary. Heartless and selfish behavior on the part of the women, but nobody had forced the guys to marry them.

(Was Lear REQUIRED to turn his kingdom over to descendents? Could a trusted advisor have ruled instead? Questions, questions. And, now that I think of it, could an advisor who flattered Lear and told him what he wanted to hear, have been as unsuitable a ruler as Regan and Goneril? Again, Lear’s blindness must be taken into account.)

Thanks for your website. (That is not flattery.)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 25, 2010 08:47 PM | Send