LIVE: Raising the Mandingo Man Child (Mother's Relationships with their Sons)

Raising the Mandingo Man Child ( Mother's Relationships with their Sons)With or without a husband or man in the household, raising a male child can be challenging for a woman. She wants to protect him from the world, prepare him to be a positive and responsible member of society, provide him with opportunities to succeed, pamper him with her love. 

She has to deal with the forces and influences of society, whether the force is the school administration, officers of the law, the general community or her husband or her man or her family members.In his younger years, the bond is strong and they have a wonderful relationship. As he gets older, in his early teen or teen years, when he starts to feel himself, he begins to challenge her authority, act like the "man of the house" (that's what she called him) and suddenly there is conflict. When dad or father figure is in the home, some times, mom has protected her son against his advice, now the drama begins.

When dad is not in the house, many times mom will say in a militant tone, "I am sending you to your father," some times after having spoken negatively about his father all these years - a formula for disaster also.

How do we prepare our young men for success without emasculating them? Teach them survival skills so they will not depend on a woman or be desperate to find a woman to fill the place of mama? When should you stop breast feeding your son, allowing him to sleep in the bed with you, or allowing him to see you in the nude? When do you or should you teach him to cook, dance, hem his pants, wash and shop for his clothes?

Have a single mother, mother with a step father and mother with the birth father; also have a single father raising his son, father/exhusband without his son and a 30 year old raised by his mom on the show to discuss.