When Momma Ain't Happy - Writers Forum

Lester Burnham · 07-15-2008, 06:41 PM

Family Terrorism 101

There’s two sides to every coin, to coin a phrase. And there’s at least two sides to every coined phrase. Let’s take a look at one such expression from both sides of the coin, before I run out of monetary metaphors.

If momma ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. Use that expression in public and you’ll get a lot of good natured laughter and nods of the head. Underneath the humor and agreement is something we all know is a little darker. There’s a lot of women this doesn’t apply to. They take their knocks in life in pretty good stride, shaking off disappointments with grace and a healthy amount of humility. They have my respect.

There’s also men aplenty who can’t get through five minutes of everyday life without subjecting everyone to their complaints de jour. But this is just whining, Annoying. yes, but an annoyance on which neither sex has cornered the market.

What I am talking about here is the idea that when something displeases you everyone around you has to suffer for it. Not just listen to it, but pay for it. The legal tender for this transaction is usually the common peace. You’ll have peace when, and only when, momma is satisfied. In more extreme cases it means nothing less than abusive control. This is more about women than men. Most coined phrases get sent to the mint with at least a morsel of truth to them; this one wasn’t submitted with daddy’s name on it.

Women who hold their marriages and families hostage to their desires and whims, when they are even willing to admit to their actions, have the same litany of excuses and rationalizations. “If I don’t run things they won’t get done.” Or, “If I don’t run things my way they won’t get done right.”

As a matter of fact, you can just think of the “If I don’t...” line and fill in the blank with any number of imagined disasters that will occur if mommas way isn’t the only way. And pity the fool that gets in her way because momma will up the ante as much as necessary to ensure compliance. Up to and including dissolution of the family.

Of course this begs the question, what is the morality of anyone so bent on control? I’d argue that the moral foundation of these women is as solid as balsawood and twice as porous.

The depth of damage these women inflict on those around them has been well documented. Erin Pizzey founded the world’s first battered women’s shelter in 1971. She dedicated her life to the study of domestic violence and to the study of women in violent families. Her ultimate findings, although scientifically sound, were less than politically correct. That explains why you probably haven’t heard of her or her work.

Here is a clip taken from her 1988 book, “The Emotional Terrorist & The Violence Prone.”

“The family of the emotional terrorist well may be characterized as violent, incestuous, dysfunctional, and unhappy, but it is the terrorist or tyrant who is primarily responsible for initiating conflict, imposing histrionic outbursts upon otherwise calm situations, or (more subtly and invisibly) quietly manipulating other family members into uproar through guilt, cunning taunts, and barely perceptive provocations. (The quiet manipulative terrorist usually is the most undetected terrorist. Through the subtle creation of perpetual turmoil, this terrorist may virtually drive other family members to alcoholism, to drug-addiction, to explosive behavior, to suicide. The other family members, therefore, are often misperceived as the 'family problem' and the hidden terrorist as the saintly woman who "puts up with it all.)”

If this sounds familiar, it is because Pizzey’s “Emotional Terrorist,” is just an extreme illustration of not so uncommon behavior in women. She can be Mrs. Anyone, your missus, or you.

And the points Pizzey makes about these women are of monumental importance if you think family violence is a problem. For what she concludes is that emotional terrorists are at least as much of a threat as the batterer, and are often the driving force behind his rage.

Solutions are not so simple. Having counseled a number of families affected by emotional terrorism, I can tell you that getting through the denial of these women makes getting through the denial of an alcoholic seem like child’s play. Often the other victims in the family will rush to her defense, and while it makes treatment more difficult it is easy to understand.

First, the family members of domestic terrorists are often so beaten down and servile that they share the woman’s denial. They perceive her just as Pizzey describes, the saintly woman who puts up with it all. Second, confronting momma makes her really unhappy. It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to figure out who will pay for it when the session is over.

And denial isn‘t just a river that runs though dysfunctional families. It flows through the collective consciousness of our culture, drowning us in illusions that undermine the common good, washing away countless opportunities to ease suffering and ameliorate problems. In this case it is a denial that most of us share about the nature and behavior of women in the first place. Answers will be painfully slow in coming, if ever.

Many people of both sexes take the attitude that however women act, that’s the way they are. We might as well accept it. And therein lies the greatest of enabling fantasies about women. We robotically issue them a pass on almost anything, no matter how egregious, and seldom think of who we are helping them damage in the process.

One good place to start is in each of us. This doesn’t mean bashing women. But it does mean holding them to higher standards than is currently the social norm. Women who undermine their marriages and families for the sake of controlling them are far from funny. Snickering at their behavior is like finding the humor in a man that pummels his wife because she burned his toast.

In that, emotional terrorists have gone undetected and unaddressed, bringing harm to themselves, their children and spouses; to the culture as a whole. We have little but ourselves to blame for it.

Thanks for reading. Suggestions appreciated.

Chessrogue · 08-13-2008, 05:04 AM

Remind me never to get married....