If you’ve ever heard anyone being called a ‘worthless son of a bitch’, I am sure it provoked as much thought in you as it did to me. The issue with this insult is that it doesn’t just call out a person for their bad behaviour, it cuts deep and addresses the very roots of their supposed ‘worthlessness’. The ‘bitch’ who did not do her job.
Everyone seems to be familiar with this insult but only a few actually dare to dish it out. And I am glad that I don’t know anyone with such courage. I believe it is by far one of the most hurtful insults ever, though I must admit it is one of the most popular insults in the world. Each time I hear this insult being rained down on someone, I never stop to wonder, who coined it, and what was going through their minds. Why did they choose to make the mother, the root of a man’s worthlessness and not the father who the boy (man) should ordinarily look up to?
I don’t watch as many movies today as I did in the good old days but I do vividly remember a few of my favourite shows where this insult was used over and over again. Do you remember T-bag in Prison Break? I am sure you’ll agree he epitomised everything this insult tries to convey, he was everyone’s greatest nightmare. He was a killer, a rapist, a liar, he doubled crossed anyone and everyone. He hurt and killed old and young with the same obliviousness in his actions. His very own clique of criminals wished to see him locked up in a cage and the keys thrown away. No doubt he was called a worthless son of a bitch countless times in the action-packed drama. There was some withheld excitement in me when he was called by the infamous General ‘you worthless son of a whore’. T-Bag did not just epitomise the core of these insults, he earned it through his every action.
We don’t get a glimpse into T-bag’s childhood, but similar characters in other movies are usually associated with a childhood of abuse, pain, lovelessness, hurt, anger, and bitterness. From their dads but especially from the ones they hoped would love and protect them the most – their moms. There seems to be a psychological pattern associating a great man with the love and treatment he received from his mom and a man with such little character as T- bag to the abuse he received from the same.
An insults aimed at women
What stands out in this insult is that it puts the woman at the centre of a man’s failure. I don’t know if this is being judgemental and unfair to women but what I know is that most of the highly successful men I have interacted with always attribute their success to their mothers. “My mom gave me much love, she was very strict on me, she prayed for me, she taught me honesty and integrity, she taught me how to treat a woman”, and the list goes on. Is this to suggest that the T-bags in our society had no moms? Maybe, maybe not. The reality is there’s no one formula to life. Things don’t always go as planned and I’m sure many moms gave their best but things simply did not go as planned, society took its toll. And there are just as many moms who made quite a few mistakes and can’t believe the calibre of sons they produced. Grace is always sufficient too.
The bottom line is – a man’s life is complex and it will be naive to think one element makes a man. But let’s assume for a second that the love of a mother is a fairly important element, that the love of a mother and the education she provides sets the foundation on which most other factors could or should ride, let’s agree to this as a foundational element of a man’s life.
I have deliberately held back on doing any real psycho-social research on this. I wonder exactly what Freud and other theorists have to say, but I wanted to communicate the thoughts that this has provoked in me, in their most shallow but authentic and unadulterated form.
My rusty thinking landed on the theory that a mom is like a son’s first love, in the same way many would argue a dad is a daughter’s first love. When a son is severely broken by the woman in whom he invested all his trust and love, especially through the early years of his life, it is probable that he takes all that bitterness, pain, and disappointment to society. Preying on women as a matter of revenge for the hurt and pain, for the love he failed to get. Through violent abuse, and other monstrous acts. A few of my favourite crime dramas seem to agree with this theory.
It even seems to be the case that when men get so much love from their moms, tough love included, they go through life having love to give. This even applies to men who had run-away, drunk and broken dads. It does seem like the love of a mom compensates for it all, the scars of a fatherless childhood seen not to run as deep for men? But the scars left by a mom ‘bitch’ just seem to put the final nail on a man’s prospect of living a life of love.
Is there any iota of truth to this theory in your view?
Is it true that if a man is treated like a king and given an endless measure of love by his mom, he goes through life feeling like a king, treating others with kingly decorum and demanding to be treated as one? Does it also apply to women that if a daughter is treated like a queen by her dad she goes through life feeling like a queen and demanding to be treated as one? I would really like to hear your views.
For the sake of finishing this piece, let’s assume there’s just a fragment of truth in this thinking. There is obviously never one truth, every story is so unique and the context is always so different that even the exact action could produce different results. But let’s assume for a moment that there’s even a slight psychological collocation between a son’s actions and the treatment he received from the woman who bore and raised him. Let’s assume there’s just the slightest measure of truth in that reasoning, so we can address the next question as we reflect on the role of women in building a better society in this week of International Women’s Day.
Are we women truly reflecting on our role in nurturing great men in society, through our relationship with the boys around us – biologically and those who seek that maternal comfort from us even if not biologically – or are we relinquishing this duty in the quest for the bountiful opportunities that we can now embrace thanks to the successes of the feminist movement?
What have we done?
Feminism has had its merits and demerits. It has given many women today the needed relief to demand child support and alimony when men choose to desert as they sometimes do. It has opened up opportunities for a fair distribution of responsibility, so everyone can pursue their dreams without a particular gender being tied down to perform all nurturing duties. But with that has come obvious challenges. As women take up more and more responsibilities outside the home, our children risk being estranged from us, in many cases, it means men must step up as house-husbands or single parents.
The long-term effect of a society where women relinquish their nurturing and maternal role is not clear. We can only hope for the best, that the opportunities we take up and the growth we pursue do not come at the cost of our collective desire as women and mothers to raise men that are worth the name.
There’s no arguing that a good mother is a hope for society, a good mother is a hope for every man. If a woman is so central to the life of a man, what kind of men are we putting in society? What kind of men are we raising? Are we investing – at least in our immediate sphere of control – to ensure that there are more of the men we desire men in society?
Have we become the bitches that this insult makes reference to? Fact is, there’s no life without a woman’s consent. And a woman’s share of responsibility in nurturing life can never be overstated. We can only hope that the best efforts of our generation will spare us the headache of an insult that cuts so deep, an insult that goes beyond attacking the offender, but calls out the very roots of his ‘worthlessness’. May our actions give no justification to the mother of all insults.
Women have the power to build society to whatever they want it to become. The most fundamental of our power is inextricably linked with our responsibility to build a happy and harmonious society for all.
An Evolved Feminist seeks to be the best contribution she can be to society and to be happy. She understands that building a happy and harmonious society requires much more than the equality of the sexes. She knows her power and uses it for good.
Happy International Women’s Day!
7 replies on “The mother of all insults”
I will need to read to better digest
Thanks my sister
What an interesting and exciting write up on a day we celebrate the women who make things happen in the home, family and society. It is unfortunate to label the blame on the mother when a child misbehaves.
There are mothers who invest time, energy and resources to mould the character, mind and hearts of children who grow up and go their own ways. There are many reasons for children failing to live up to expectation. Someone has said that if young people behave badly it is because the society has failed to live up to its obligations and behaved worse.
The father figure, family, school and society have roles to play in raising responsible children. Irresponsible behaviour should not be blamed on the mother without giving a thought to the above areas and persons who interact with the children. The words “bitch” or “whore” are too hard to he used on hardworking and industrious mothers.
The writer has a point. Even in our Cameroonian society when a child is misbehaving you often hear the question “na who be ya mami” “wosai e mami dey” when the child does good, you’ll hear comments like, “pa make a gee you one man ????, you don do fine. I detest the insult because it automatically assumes it’s the mother’s fault and it tries to absolve the individual from the consequences of their choices. What I know for sure, having been a child and now a parent, is that being present in your child’s life, is more important than all the money in the world and that despite your best efforts as a parent you really have very little control over what your children will do and what decisions they will make as adults. You do the best job you know how, and then how and pray they grow up to be good, kind and productive adults
Wow. Really never understood the insult SOB like you analyze in this write up. Hopefully our contribution to our children beings benefit to the society. We don’t want to be recipients of the insult. Eye opener. Great write up????????????
I just had a deeper thought about this insult. WOW.. There’s never just one truth like you said but the part played by mothers cannot be overemphasized. Funny enough, the title reads “Mother of all insults” another allusion to the mother.
In another analogy, the mother can be seen as the pillar and the father, the roof in the life of a child. Thus a wayward child is one who didn’t have a strong pillar and an upright child is one who had a solid pillar. Finally without the pillar, the roof can hardly support itself. This just shows the important role mothers and women have in society today.
Thank you once again for another thought provoking writeup.
Hi Mbong, I started reading this write-up when you just posted it but two paragraphs into it however, I realised that I had to save it for when I could savour it better. Save it for dessert, so to speak lol.
Going through it today, I’m glad I did so. I just love how many twists and turns you bring to the story. Before I go any further though, I’d like to ask why you chose to caption it ‘Mother of All Insults? Seeing how offended you are by the use of ‘mother’ in the insult, why didn’t you use, ‘Father, or Biggest of all insults’ for example? I’d like to hear your thought process as you decided on this title. I bet you must have debated on it awhile? While you think about my question, let me share my view point: I suspect that it could simply have been a subconscious use of the word, since society generally tends to put ‘mother’ at the centre of all major life-bearing matters?
While a mother’s role can never be overstated in the upbringing of a child- male or female, I believe you sum it all when you state that “A man’s life is complex and it will be naïve to think that one element makes a man.’ The same upbringing- good or bad, often produces quite opposite results in two children who receive it. I have a close friend for example, who will go to the ends of the earth to be with his children, no matter the relation he has with their mother. His driving motivation is the very fact that he was abandoned by his own father at a tender age. In the same token, we have lots of men in our society who justify being absent in their children’s life on the fact they were themselves abandoned.
Like you, I’ve aways been offended by this insult and all the other insults that seem to land more on some poor mother in the background than on the person who provoked it. I was even shocked to find out that the one insult that I often hear taxi drivers in SA haul at people, literally translates to the same one used in my home country! On my part, when I was bothered enough to think about the reason behind this common denominator in all insults- mother, the only reason I could come up with was that the insult is intended to hit the recipient where it hurt the most- their mother? I’ve seen instances where people choose to remain silent while being insulted, but at the mention of their mother in the insult, they loose their resolve and react violently. If there is any truth to my reasoning, then perhaps that in itself testifies to the role of a mother in a person’s world?
Well, your theory has gotten me thinking again and I’ll be sure to find out what my friends think on the subject.
All in all, I wholeheartedly agree with all the viewpoints raised in your article and my parting remark is that, as much as there is no single formula to life, the world will definitely be a better place if children were raised better. Yes, there are the exceptional instances where a child who was poorly raised, turns out to be a shining example in adulthood, and vice versa. Without doing any research, one can safely say, I think, that most people are a product of their upbringing in a very direct way. Dare I say further, that a mother’s role in a child’s life has far greater consequences than a father’s? To be honest, there’s just this thing about a female touch that could never be replicated by any male being. Yes, fathers may be present and may play their roles to the optimum, but a mother’s guidance… or lack of it will always be felt deeper.
I hope this knowledge nudges us feminine creatures to take our God-given task of raising the future generation a little bit more seriously.
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