my mom grew up in a house where the man ate first to the fullest and when food scarcity hit she and her sisters were the ones being underfed :( she once told me she put a rule to always prioritize children and that's how she chose my dad out of other men - he 100% agreed to that rule. and i can honestly say they were both amazing parents to me and my brother growing up! i think your observation about putting rules and boundaries being so important because that's the biggest thing we can filter people with was so so true. i cannot imagine putting a man first, but also - how a man could even agree to that.

This is a symptom of our rape culture. Where it’s acceptable to be seen as a commodity because it’s the culture we live in: it’s expected, accepted, pursued.

A mom like this and an emotionally absent father is the NASTIEST combo...

My mom is a very dangerous brand of male centered. She didn’t just look the other way when abuse happened. She covered it up! She also became a foster parent to gain access to more kids.

I used to think every mom was like mine, but I realize now how rare she really is. When my dad left her pregnant, she poured every ounce of herself into me. No dating, no outside distractions just building a safe world for her child. 29 years later, I finally see the true weight of her sacrifices for my happiness. I wish everyone knew what it felt like to have a mother like her. 🥺

My mom was so male-centered that she wasn't just putting romantic interests in front of me, but even male coworkers she didn't intend to date. I once sent her a picture of myself in a pair of jeans to ask if she thought I should buy them. I was 16. She showed the picture to a male colleague, who proceeded to make objectifying comments about me, which she texted to me. When I said he was a creep, she defended him.

My birth mom is so male-centered I don’t even know if she has another personality or not. She popped several of daughters (I’m the eldest) and had us all immediately adopted out because she never got a son because none of her boyfriends wanted to raise girls. She was 15 when she had me. My adoptive mom adopted three of us siblings and there’s two other sisters out there somewhere. The realization that my birth mom thinks that her daughters failed her as babies because her men wanted sons still bothers me to this day and I’m 40.

My husband is what helped me not become male centered. We started dating in high-school and he saw my mom telling me that I basically had to be his slave because we were dating. The incident that really made things clear was him coming over for dinner and I was trying to finish doing something (I  can't remember what it was over 20 years ago ) she insisted that I stop what I was doing to make him a plate of food. He told me to finish what I was doing because he was perfectly capable of making his own plate and that He would make me one too. It was the first time I had been treated like I mattered but my mom insisted that I make his plate because he was a man and it was my job to serve him. He talked to me a lot about that to help me understand that I was just as important and my needs, wants, and opinions were valid.

The gaslighting is CRAAAAZY.

My mom always complains to me about my dad - his mess, his sloth, the fact he decided to “retire” only after she married him and had his kid [me], his failure to pay taxes, his cheating, and on and on and on - but she won’t hear anything about how to fix the situation, much less to leave, takes out her frustrations with him on me, and when I openly berate him about his obvious flaws she will YELL at me that I’m wrong and that I should stop. WTF?! Get out of your own way, woman!

The only escape I see has been to remain single and celibate, involving NO MAN in my life whatsoever. Second best decision I ever made.

Male centered women make the worst mothers, grandmothers, sisters, friends, Aunts. But they make for sure they're the best girlfriend/wife in the entire world, even if that man doesn't give a flying shit about her🙄

My mom had a boyfriend when I was a teenager, and often left me at the house alone for days and weeks so she could be with him. Leaving me without enough groceries, and I couldn’t drive anywhere bc I didn’t have a car or my license. We also lived in a food desert and I couldn’t walk anywhere to get groceries. So I would have to depend on my friends (also teenagers) to help me get around and get groceries and take me to school and doctor’s appointments etc. Anytime I complained about it she gaslit me so hard, like “I’m an adult I can do whatever I want and you don’t have the right to control who I spend my time with”

Years later after I went to college they broke up and afterwards my mom was telling me about how awful he was to her the WHOLE TIME they were together and how she should have broken up with him years ago, blah blah blah.

So my own mother would have rather been with a man that she didn’t even like that much than her own child 🙃

My bio mother straight out said “I got married so it wasn’t a sin” She’s Roman Catholic.
Same woman that called the cops on me when her boyfriend at the time (he was in his 40’s I was 11) slapped me, so I stabbed him with a steak knife. Same woman that gave me to foster care on my birthday because she was “just ready to start life again “

I made it very clear to any man (and my now husband) I can do without you, my children will ALWAYS come first.

My grandmother grew up in ussr after ww2, and since so many men died, everyone believed that any man is a blessing. And no surprise my mom inherited the same bs as an unquestionable truth. So when I broke up with my fiancée, who was not a bad man, we just weren’t good for each other, she told me “he is such a decent guy, you might not find somebody better”. I was so shocked and I told her that I wasn’t the worst myself (in Russian we say “I didn’t find myself in a dumpster either”, I love this saying lol) and I deserved to be happy in my relationships instead of just settling for any man who is not abusive. It was her time to be shocked, I think she never even considered that. She never mentioned the guy again.
I turned out not to have the same pattern because my father was and still is very present in our lives, so I know that bare minimum is not enough. Weirdly despite her upbringing and what she told us, she picked an emotionally available man who saw her as his equal, which, trust me, was very rare in Soviet province in the middle of 80s.

So what's absolutely hilarious now, is that my mother expected me to be male-centered without ever teaching/showing me what that looks like. Her flavor of verbal abuse was male-centered. Which was super funny because why should I care if I never get married? Why should I care if I never attract a man? Why should I care if they think I'm ugly???

I was trying to survive my childhood, I didn't give a f about MEN

The most detrimental aspect of pick me moms is the neglect and abuse they often allow to transpire with their own children either by the hands of their partner or themselves. Not being allowed to eat at home if the partner is the reason for food or groceries being in the home, allowing the partner to emotionally, verbally and physically degrade their children, making the child out to be a scapegoat or a problem child without taking any responsibility for their own actions. So many children don't even get to grow up when put in this position and it's so heartbreaking

My mother when I was 15 (on her third husband): “I can’t believe you’re trying to make me choose between my husband and my kids, I’m just gonna “unalive” myself if you leave me”.

I emancipated her within the year

My uncle once said to me, "Why do you have so many tattoos? No guy is gonna like those," and my mom agreed with him.

She also tried to get me take my ex boyfriend back because she swore it was normal and perfectly acceptable for men to check out other women directly in front of their partners.

I was a disabled kid and my mother prioritised my stepdad over my disability support and medical care, which I've had to pay lifelong consequences for.

tired of my mother always making excuses for her deadbeat, disrespectful partner. he deserves nothing. 💔

I knew a woman who's husband sold the house they were living in and bought a new house without telling her. His name was the only one on the deeds. He told her that they had 30 days to move to the new house that was only 3 blocks away. She was a stay-at-home mom and had to coordinate everything with the surprise move that was foisted on her and the kids. When she called her mom, her mom said that she should be GRATEFUL that her husband could buy her such a beautiful house. Her mom was also the one that convinced her to be a stay-at-home mom because, "it's every woman's dream". She had confessed to her mom before she got married that she was concerned about marrying him because she saw how his dad treated his mom and he didn't seem to see anything wrong with how controlling his dad was. Her mom told her she would be insane to let the "opportunity" to marry such a wealthy and good looking guy pass her by.

I learned all this because the MOM is the one who told me all of this. She was an accountant at my work who was currently engaged to a man that was going to be lucky husband #4. She would talk about her 5 kids and all the awful advice that she gave her 3 girls.