"I am not your mother!"



Finding and Becoming Mature Men in an Immature Culture

Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame,
but I think it’s my own damn fault.

Jimmy Buffet, “Margaritaville”


Why do so many men seem insensitive to their partner's needs, cheating on them with younger women, for example, and expecting them to put up with it? Why do so many men avoid or chafe against commitment, harboring considerable insecurities and unrealistic expectations? Why do so many men look to women to "save" them, including from having to make their own decisions?

The reason for all these symptoms is that not only our modern culture but our entire civilization is still in its adolescence. The problem is not that we live under patriarchy but that we don't. A patriarchy would be the rule of the mature masculine; what we live under now is a puerarchy, the rule of the immature masculine. The puer aeternus in Jungian psychology is the "eternal child." Like Michael Jackson or Peter Pan, many men in this culture refuse, to some extent, to grow up. Growing up means taking responsibility for your life. Instead, our entire civilization is built around the "mother complex," the idea that women and the Earth should be our slave and spoon-feed us. This "passive dependent" relationship soon turns into a passive-aggressive one, for men both expect and resent this perceived arrangement. This frustrated sense of entitlement leads to acting out, i.e., misogynist and misogaist (earth-hating) behavior.

How can we get past our "terrible-twos?" How can we, as men in a male-dominated culture, grow up? Join us as we explore what it means to slay your real dragons: to be "initiated," i.e., to come of age. Women who want to understand the men in their lives and better support them are encouraged to attend.