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Just months away from changing into the mum of two boys, I’m excited for a lot of issues. A glass of champagne, naturally, however principally watching the sunshine of my life step into his new function as massive brother and assembly this valuable tiny one that will full our household.
My social media feed, nevertheless, appears intent on making ready me for one thing else.
Once the almighty algorithm learnt I used to be pregnant with a second boy, it unlocked a vault of one thing I wasn’t ready for: “boy mum” content material.
It began with stereotypical portrayals of a boy mum v girl mum house, serene calm pit in opposition to utter chaos. But it shortly escalated to depictions of precise violence, like one reel set on an escalator contrasting a pristine “girl mum” with a despondent and noticeably injured “boy mum”, black eye and all.
Arguably most annoying are the videos labelling boy mums as poisonous, and vulnerable to Oedipal levels of closeness with their sons, together with captions like, “born to be your lover. Forced to be your mother”. Or actor and author Jenny Mollen’s viral Facebook post from May 2026, with what some commenters thought-about intimate-looking pictures along with her 12-year-old alongside a joke evaluating a mom’s eldest son to a “toxic boyfriend”.
And in case you’re nonetheless not satisfied the label has received legs, the search: “Boy Mom” on Urban Dictionary spews out “a mom who is emotionally incestuous with her sons”.
Yikes.
According to those corners of the web, boys are both feral, violent brokers of home destruction or the nice love of your life, with each future girlfriend a menace to your relationship.
Naturally a few of it’s satire, stoking outrage to maximise engagement. After all, the web thrives on extremes and virality rewards exaggeration. But in line with Dr Joanne Orlando, professional in digital wellbeing, and creator of Generation Connected, this content material can nonetheless have a adverse influence on each mother and father and their youngsters.
“I think it does put preconceived ideas about what your role as a parent should be, rather than just nurturing your beautiful baby.” In half, she believes the pattern faucets into rising anxiousness about elevating boys within the age of Andrew Tate’s “manosphere”.
According to those corners of the web, boys are both feral, violent brokers of home destruction or the nice love of your life.
“The default message is that there’s something wrong with boys, and that we need to fix them,” she explains. “It’s really a damaging message.”
Essentially, new moms already carrying the large duty of elevating a toddler are additionally being informed that he’s a future downside to be fastened.
Orlando says it’s particularly regarding for brand new mums who don’t have loads of expertise with elevating boys. “I think they can go into this like, ‘What? I didn’t know I should be worried about having a son’.”
I can relate.
Before my second being pregnant, I had by no means considered elevating my son as participation in a specific maternal subculture. He was simply my lovely little one.
Dr Justin Coulson, co-host of Channel Nine’s Parental Guidance and founding father of Happy Families, says some intercourse variations highlighted in these reels are a organic actuality.
“Boys use their bodies more, girls use their words more,” he explains, citing the work of evolutionary psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams and a much-cited 1987 study during which preschoolers needed to cooperate to function a toy viewfinder. The examine discovered preschool girls and boys co-operated equally properly on a shared job, however received there in a different way, with ladies utilizing verbal abilities, and boys working it out bodily.
But Coulson says intercourse variations don’t imply mother and father of boys ought to anticipate or excuse violence: “Just because something is normal and natural, if you want to take an evolutionary psychology point of view, that doesn’t mean that it’s good, healthy, or to be encouraged.”
That’s the message in some memes depicting violence as inevitable or labelling it “typical boy behaviour”. In one viral TikTok, creator Anna Saccone calls herself a “toxic boy mum” expressing favouritism towards her male little one explaining, “he hits his sisters. He punches them. And I’m like ‘maybe he’s having a hard day’.”
In his newest e-book, Boys, Coulson unpacks the significance of oldsters educating and modelling wholesome masculinity. “As parents, we have an obligation to socialise our kids. For boys, that means we need to teach them how to use their energy and their additional size and power in healthy pro-social ways.”
But in relation to the viral content material that means an intimate or sexualised relationship between mom and son, Coulson labels it “disgusting”, explaining there’s a bigger clickbait factor at play.
“Social media platforms push us towards edges and boundaries and create a belief that what is edgy and on the boundary is mainstream. But it’s not.”
The actuality is that many people discover group and belonging on-line. And many new mother and father are using AI and social media for parenting recommendation and reassurance, leaving us susceptible to more and more provocative clickbait – the extra excessive, absurd or infuriating, the extra doubtless we’re to see it.
Orlando additionally factors out that new mother and father may be notably susceptible to content material that performs on parental guilt or the thought we’re not doing sufficient.
“It’s what social media does best, and it’s really doing a disservice to parents.”
As for me, in a number of months, I’ll change into the mum of two boys, one thing I couldn’t be extra enthusiastic about.
Being a #BoyMum? I believe I’ll depart that within the algorithm the place it belongs.
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