"Men Just Want Mommy" -- Maureen Dowd opinion piece
 

What say you?

Hey, I know I'd rather say "I'm just too successful and brilliant for them!" than "I'm not so good at the dating..." :) More seriously, though, I've never liked seeing hackneyed social biology applied wholesale to entire swaths of the population, and see little difference between what Maureen Dowd is saying here, and what is so often said about women: "They're just looking for daddy."

I feel there's definitely biology involved. Yes, men would like somebody to take care of them ala mom. Why not? The traditional family unit was developed over eons for good reason. I'm not saying that it's the only good way,of course. Society has evolved to be supportive of many relationships, family, and otherwise.
I don't agree with the idea of the fear of a woman cheating due to a successful career or high IQ.
My wife is a college grad with what I believe is a high IQ. Definitely my equal if not more in that regard.
Her Mom was a stay at home as well. We made a choice together that she would be the stay at home, if kids ever came and I was the bigger bread winner in the foreseeable future. Yes, financial sacrifice. My dinner is made for me virtually every night, though I could do it myself. I work full time, including limited travel and the occasional week long trade show as well as pilot lessons thrown in. She, on the other hand has a great social life compared to me. Kids are not full time in school and have never been at day care or after care.

The point of having a partner who is less complex does have some merit in that my wife doesn't have a big career that she has to really worry about.
It also means that we can talk about my day occasionally and vent a little.
She, of course, talks about her day. I happily listen and offer support as they are a handful. And they're good kids too!

Unfortunately, I've definitely seen instances of women I know not being promoted because they may have children in the future. That just outright sucks, especially as most employees are treated as disposable anyway.
Anyone can be replaced in their job, unless it's the owner of the company. :sun_smile

I can only speak for myself. When I was married, I did my own laundry and more than half of the cooking, and my ex didn't work. Definitely not looking for mommy. OTOH, it could be that I'm so self-reliant that I'm not suitable material for a true partnership.

I tend to agree with the studies.

Men want to marry women who will take care of them. They are also afraid of women who either are or who they preceive to be smarter than them. It intimidates most men.

Why? Men desperately want to make their wives happy, and if their wife is smarter than them, it is intimitading, and smarter women are harder to please.

i cannot speak for all, or even many, men. I will say that in my case, I did not marry my wife because she was smart and successful, even though she was. I did not marry her because i admired her accomplishments, i.e. a black belt in tae kwon do, even though i do (she can beat me up... :eek: :D ). i did not marry her because she is beautiful or sexy, even though she is. I married her because she was all these things, yet humble enough to know that the world did not revolve around her alone and for this i fell hopelessly, helplessly in love with her.

i'm still not sure why she married me. I know that i married "up". I vowed that from the day we were married to the day we part, at the end of days, I would work hard to deserve her. I can only hope that is enough.....

Well, think about this for a while. Lets not get into the 5 letter words of right and wrong. When a couple has a child or children. Who do you think takes more time off before, during and after? Who is less likely to go back to work after the child? Who is more likely to take time off after that? Add all of that together and what do you have? IMO, you have an employee that has less longevity than a male. Put sex aside for a minute, if you have 2 employees, lets say they are both male for the sake of arguement. One of them has indicated to you that he might move out of state and the other you know has a very good chance of staying put. Who do you think you will promote?

Irony alert!
Isn't it the liberals ( like M.D.) who lecture the rest of us about not judging by the group? Yet, they are the very ones who practice "group judging" in thier daily activites.
You could call it hypocracy.

I'm not so fond of judging (or being judged) by the group I belong to. An employer doesn't know what his prospective employees' childbearing plans are, and I think it's none of their business. I think there is a right and wrong here.

True love, my friend :sun_smile

<snipped from the article>

The study found that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to get married, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop for each 16-point rise.

FWIW, I am definitely marrying "up"....I'm hoping for a Mr. Mom scenario :crowngrin

No, but playing the devil's advocate here, which is the better investment when you see a woman of childbearing age and a man?

webwench:

The last time I was single I was 40. Sure, I dated a few 23 year olds and a few nitwits of various ages, and out of disgust for these types developed a couple of policies. First was the policy against my dating "20 somethings." I called it my "no trainee" policy. :) Second was my "no incompetents" policy. Women who did not have some sort of career going for them and who did not live in a presentable place and drive presentable cars were out! She didn't have to be a CEO or live in a mansion or drive a Ferrari or anything like that, but just presentable. IMO, guys who do what your initial post says they are doing are getting into a real "high maintanence" situation, and I don't think they will like it in the long run.

Thanks,
Richard :) :) :)

I married the first woman who'd have me just as I am. I've wanted to be better than that ever since. For both reasons, I owe her my life.

Well put

Web Wench,
Which group would that be? Mercedes-owning intelligent women who are pilots and jump out of airplanes
I am sure there are a few more qualifiers, but you get the point--you are unique.

Depends on the woman and the man.

Here's a case in point: I was on 24/7 call for my job for a couple of years. Not a big deal, I get the occasional phone call about something that is broken, and I have a laptop and high-speed connectivity to log in and deal with it. At the time this started my son was a toddler, and I was a divorced mother. I suppose you would look at the situation and say, I'm not likely to be a good employee in that situation.

Not long into that time period, we hire a guy whose role includes being on call sometimes on a rotating basis with me. We hire him, and shortly aftrewards he marries his fiancee and they start spawning. What do you know? He 'couldn't be on call' because it would interfere with his family life. He was often out because his (nonworking) wife was ill, or one of the kids was ill. He was always coming in late or leaving early for doctors' appointments, or contractors coming out to the house. You almost have to wonder what the stay-at-home wife's 'job' was.

Who was the better hire? Who was more reliable? Who was available off hours?

A couple years later, he was laid off, and I'm still there, so I guess that's my reward. If my boss had put me on some 'mommy track' because I'm female, already a parent, and could marry and start spawning again any day now, well, I'd have been on to a better job opportunity quickly, and I and my new employer would have been glad for it. *shrug*

Yes, it's one instance, and not a sociological study. All I'm saying is, you cannot judge a book by the cover, at least not if you want to have the best people work for you. You take people as individuals, and judge them based on their own behavior and qualities, otherwise you're just running a good old boys' network and hiring people who are just like you, because that's what you're comfortable with.

Allow me a small rant: It's funny; we laud dedicated fathers who make time for their families. We slap a guy on the back because he leaves work early a day or two a week to coach the kids' soccer team. We make a big deal out of single dads, how hard it must be for them 'doing it all on their own'. I listened to male middle-managers pat themselves on the back strangely often for working flex time to accomodate their families in speeches to their groups and divisions. But we have this thing in the workplace against mothers who do the same thing, or who we think might attempt to do the same thing, and I know I wouldn't dream of taking some of the liberties or advertising my parental status the way some of my male coworkers have in the past. The same actions from me would be perceived differently, and I expend a fair amount of energy avoiding any hint that my parental status or marital status may affect my job performance. It's a double standard, and I get tired of it on a personal level.

Heh :) I appreciate the compliments. On the other hand, I know women who are smarter than me, who are more experienced pilots than me, who can ride bigger motorcycles than I can in circles around me, who own nicer cars or have bigger salaries or houses, or who have expertises and talents far beyond anything I have. I am unique... just like everyone else.

And my life insurance precludes skydiving, so I never have! But I wanted to!

There's unstated grief from my supervisor when I take my turn with time-off for sick kids or school activities. I think that's two-fold. One is that time-off affects everybody's workload who must take-up slack. The other is that I think people believe the mom should take time off, not the dad. This is especially true when the kids are very young. Folks tend to think that dad is babysitting the kid but that mom is the 'real' caregiver.

I have a good friend, a single parent man, who had to explain tampons to his daughter. Eeeek! Thank goodness I had a wife for that chore. I have gone to the store for, 'supplies' and am pleased that I know who gets what.

Once I was a chaperone for an overnight event of preteens and young teens. I had to make 3-4 trips one night, LATE!, to get supplies for girls who hadn't planned things with much forethought. The night clerk, was not a woman who found humor in my visits. I have no idea what she thought, but it wasn't pretty.

B

I'm completely with you and have similar rules. You know, if a man reaches my age and doesn't have some sort of a career and a home of his own, I have a hard time taking him seriously or imagining him to be a responsible person. It's not about his income or his car or the size of his house, it's about demonstrated responsibility, stability, sanity, and showing some sort of capacity to be a partner.

I can see that. And it's another example of how being judged based on your group membership isn't a good thing.

And the tampon stories were pretty funny :)

....ooooh, no, a tampon thread? :eek:

Left it hanging, did you?

this thread is plummeting.... :D

so webwench, what say you? are men looking for mommy? this is a freudian dream!

Freudian slip, when you say one thing but mean your Mother.

Hee hee :)

I think humans are generally too complex and individual to be able to say, half the population is looking for 'x', or these kinds of people only want 'y'. I've encountered men who seem to be looking for a mommy, and I've seen men who are looking for the exact opposite of mommy, and acting the least bit mommylike sends them running for the hills. And I've encountered several who I have no idea what the hell they're looking for ;) If you could know everything about a person just by looking at them, the world would be a very boring and predictable place.

I wonder whether the whole 'mommy'/'looking for mommy' thing is desirable or not? Perhaps that sort of dependancy leads to long, stable, happy relationships. It's so far out of my personal range of experience, I just wonder what others think...

It must have had a very strong natural selection impetus. Set aside the free-will thing.

If a man were to look for a woman to be the mother of his children, what model should he use? Well, the man survived to adulthood, therefore he knows one model that worked for him. He might also have aunties and sisters, etc. So he has an array of models to choose from. Chances are the models with which he is most familiar are kin and/or have clan/kinship ties. So these will be his proper definition of successful women.

etc.

:D :D :D :D :D :D :eek:

WebWench,
re: your "rant" regarding the double standard.
I think the reason men get "credit" for doing family things is that its still against type. Mothers are typically the "nuturer". I'm over 50, and very different from my father. he worked to earn the money to support the family. That was his contribution. Anything else wasn't expected and he didn't do it.
I determined to be a different kind of father to my 2 sons. I worked ( 50+) a week, but I also made time for them. I spent a few years coaching baseball, attending plays and concerts, and just spending time with them. I wasn't like my father; I made other, different mistakes. My sons will not be fathers like me. We all react to the situation we were in, and determine not to make the same mistakes; we make other ones.

Damn, you are seriously "whipped"! ;) :D

That post sounds like a Hallmark card! hahaha....

Seriously, it sounds like you're very happy. More power to ya'. :)

Mike

I resemble that remark! :)

Mike

I will have to agree that humans are far too complex to lump them into personality categories such as "mommy hunters". But there is a bit of truth in the intimidation factor of powerful successful women.

There are at least three here at my job that fit the category of successful single women. My closest business associate is a very attractive 39-year old woman, who seems to scare off potential candidates as soon as they find out she is an intellectual match for them.

I think it's more the domineering aspect of males that drives their choices for mates and not the need to be coddled by a surrogate mom.

I personally found women that weren't my intellectual equal to be extremely boring, regardless of whether her other attributes were attractive to me...

As far as being "served" by a mate...only if she WANTS to do so...

All of you are missing the point . . .
 

Most men, on some unconscious level, look for a woman to have their children. (There are exceptions.) *Of course* he's going to look for a young healthy woman who will be able to bear children. Forty-year-old "career" women won't be able to do that.

Plus, said forty-year-old has spent four decades being indoctrinated into the nonsense that women are automatically damn near perfect, and men are damn near useless except as wallets. She's going to be pretty tough and cynical, and have high expectations -- in fact, she's probably going to want to marry someone who makes more money than she does. For each step up the compensation ladder (for either gender), there are fewer and fewer people who make more than you do, so her dating/marriage pool is vanishingly small. She's finding, all of a sudden, that she can't have it all, and the knowledge is eating at her like a cancer.

Who in his right mind would want to marry a bitter creature who -- even if she will consider you as marriage material -- will probably find fault with everything you do, and blame you for all the world's ills?

I'm sure there are exceptions to this scenario . . . but I don't think that most men are marrying their secretaries because they "want a new mommy."

(On the other hand, what's wrong with being taken care of, if that's what you like, and the other person finds satisfaction in giving it to you?)

In your case, you do have a point. What I was saying is that which case is more likely to have a problem. Yes, an MB is better than a Yugo however, MB has produced a few cars whose sole purpose in life is to be crushed into scrap metal.

No one is saying to judge a book by the cover. However, if you see around you that Brand X tends to have 2 breakdowns per year and Brand Y has 1 breakdown ever 3 years, which are you more likely to buy? Assuming you want as little trouble in your lifetime and are not a massochist or someone who enjoys tinkering.

Shakespear in the Taming of the Shrew.

I think they go for their secretaries because those women are close at hand and they see them everyday at work, those women might want someone established to take care of them and they want someone who needs them.

I don't think comparing individual humans to makes of cars is a winning strategy here :)

Nice bumpers though.

Well, seems to work for the insurance companies and they are making money so while it is not politically correct, it must make sense on some level. Take 2 men with the same things in their background but one is married and the other is not. The married man gets the lower insurance rate. Now, if going by statistics is not good, why are insurance companies using it and making a profit? Yes, it is not perfect nor is it PC but it is better than nothing.

On the other hand, aklim, bad drivers do pay higher premiums than good drivers, regardless of age or marital status. How is this accounted for in your analogy?

For that matter, black men are more likely statistically to go to prison or be shot by an acquaintance. Does this make it acceptable in your mind to discriminate against black men when hiring?

They pay higher premiums because they are more at risk and thus more likely to cause an accident and cost the company money. It is not one factor but a bunch of factors that come together with different weights and scores for each thing that make up the risk.

I am not talking about right and wrong at this point. Insucance companies ahve "redlined" certain areas which are predominantly black because they are a higher risk. Once again, many factors come into play here not just one thing. IF you want to talk of hiring, let me ask you, is it acceptable to use someone's judgement of a person in hiring when you don't know any of them? I mean, what is a reference for? Just because he did well at another place or if he didn't, doesn't mean he won't here? Just because his previous boss thought he sucked or walked on water, doesn't mean the current system will work for him either. Here is a goodie. If you believe in psychology, they say that people who have been molested as children are more likely to molest children when they grow up. So, if you knew this person who came from a family where molestation has taken place quite a bit but he was clean, would you trust him alone with your kids?

Men don't want mommies, they want young women.

Please continue.

Also, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence till you jump over and find that you have just stepped in a pile of BS. Same stuff as on your side of the fence but different location and different spread.

On this note, am I wierd because I don't find younger women as attractive as older women? I mean, I'd jump an 18 yo girl's bones but as far as a relationship that leads to something serious, I'd rather find a girl (for now anyways) a few years older than I am. Of course, someday when I am 60, maybe I might feel different but for now, if I were to date a woman for a relationship, I'd go with 40 something since I am 38.

I want a woman that looks like Salma Hayek, screws like a whore, and treats me like Mother Teresa. :D

For that presumption, the Mods will curse you with a wife that looks like Salma Hayek and screws like Mother Teresa and treats you like a whore.

ROTFLMAO. :laugh3: :cheesy: :laugh4:

Q: What does Mother Teresa and 7up have in common?
A: Never had it and never will.

BTW, I wouldn't mind my wife treating me like a whore. She could pay me to have sex with her. I can live with that. Or she could treat me like a cheap slut. Mmmmmmmm.

You may be confusing a lover with a whore and vice versa. You have my permission to use that as the plot of your next novel.

I wouldn't mind my wife coming home and using my body for sex as often as I.... er... she wants to.

BTW, my novels don't usually have that much plot written into them.

I let my wife take advantage of my good nature as often as she likes. :)