Girls and sons who have not been loved by their fathers seek attention once teens and adults to compensate for what they didnt have originally. Fathers either left them alone, or were distant most of the time and not encouraging them. Some even despised them which would shape their personality and the way they d interact with others for the rest of their life.
They are extremistic in everything they do, always looking exageratly for attention, and have troubles adapting to society's rules, because they also have troubles defining their own identity and respecting authority and hierarchy.
Also boys who got picked on by others during childhood and adolescence -often sons without a father figure- try to compensate by lifting weights, to develop muscles and survive in ther male world. They re insecure because they re girly, childish, feminine having been raised by a single mom. They lift obsessively hoping it will transform them into men, to compensate for their lack of influence from a father figure that was not there. Unfortunaltey they can get as big as they can it doesnt cure their insecurity and who they truly are, how they grew up being raised by a single mom. They re no as manly as other men whatever they do, and they often have a big lack of masculine presence they dont know how to balance, hence often being borderline homosexuals while trying to get their manhood back thru various manly activities (mma, cars, weight lifting etc). They are often the ones that, in order to get respect from other males will go the steroids route to get even "bigger" attemptint to cure their insecurity , but being natural not being "enough", they still feel "too small", insecure, amongst other males. The lack of a father figure also often means they didnt have guidance to continue studies and are often working shitty manual jobs.
Really? All this from being raised by a single mom? Seems a bit extreme to me.
There are certainly some truths here though for some folks. I just don't think that everyone responds to every situation exactly the same way.
I was not raised by a single mom, but my mom was certainly the dominate parent in my life. My step-dad was a great guy, but he couldn't stand up to my mom. So, obviously, he didn't often, if ever, come to my defense. I was skinny and not very good at team sports although I was an excellent swimmer and good at track too. Although I recounted my one failure of a fight as a teenager, I cannot say I was picked on anymore than any other kid is. Usually, I had a fair number of friends which for a kid that moved around a lot when I was young, is kind of unusual I think.
I was a smart kid who fucked off in school and didn't do my homework so my grades sucked. I only excelled in subjects I liked. Granted, neither of my parents paid much attention to my school work or my grades. This resulted in my getting a rather slow but early start in my work life. However, by the time my contemporaries were finishing college, I was already earning good wages in an art field where my talents seemed more important than my education. Not that I don't have an education, but I've taken my whole life to get it. I have probably logged more higher ed hours than most folks with a masters or perhaps a doctorate. It seemed like there was always something that caught my interest enough to want to learn more about it. Yet, I never bothered to get a degree. By the time I'd earned enough credits in any one area of study, I didn't need a degree to advance at work any longer. Now I am retired, so I really have no desire to add some letters to my name.
I started lifting weights when I was still a very skinny kid. And yes, I wanted to be bigger, more muscular and masculine seeming. As it turns out muscles and masculinity have almost nothing to do with one another. But, I did enjoy the one time my size seemed to scare what I thought was someone up to no good off without my so much as having to throw a punch at the fellow. I remember thinking when I was a teen that there was some secret my dad was going to share with me that would make me a man. Either there is no such secret or he didn't know what it was, because I never heard it from him.
Sometimes I am unreasonably insecure. I worry about going bust. Although I never have as my wife likes to point out. Actually, I have a much more secure life than many of my friends who have done pretty well. Maybe, my feeling of insecurity made me more conservative with money. Who knows.
The bottom line is we are who we are. Some of who we are is a result of who we were as kids and our relationships with our parents and a lot of who we are is what we made of ourselves as adults. Adults who blame their miserable failing lives on their parents annoy me. Get over it, I say (usually to myself).
