When the Jonas Brothers movie came out, it seemed that everyone was focused on the relationship of young men with their mother and potential girlfriends with the term “mama’s boys”. As an expert on mama’s boys and daddy’s girls, I have an answer on whether or not the Jonas Brothers are mama’s boys. The answer may surprise you.

There are a number of reasons people speculate on whether or not Kevin, Joe and Nick are mommy’s sons, but the number one reason that stands out is their purity rings, signifying their promise to be celibate until marriage. While many of their fans have only learned about purity rings from the Jonas Brothers, purity rings have been around for at least fifteen years among evangelical Christians.

The brothers’ parents are evangelical Christians and their father, Kevin, Sr., was a former Assembly of God pastor. Kevin, Sr. and his wife, Denise, have taken an active role in their children’s careers in an effort to protect them from the ravages of fame. Young people are receptive to their parents’ leadership and are respectful, following their parents’ religious belief system. Somehow, this has earned them the nickname “mama’s boys!”

For some reason, when a son wears a purity ring and makes that promise, instead of people seeing it as part of his relationship with God, they assume it says more about his relationship with his mother. Maybe it’s because they think such a promise should make the mother breathe a huge sigh of relief! Similarly, many look at daughters who take the purity oath and make assumptions about their relationships with their parents instead of looking at the girls’ relationship with God.

Purity and promise rings are seen as an extension of parental control over their teens rather than as part of the maturing process and a teen’s ability to have their own relationship with God that includes responsibility and boundaries. Of course, many parents must appreciate the advantageous nature of the promise of purity and even use it to manipulate their teenagers. All they are really doing is manipulating themselves into a comfort zone where they can feel that their children are safe! Whether or not a teen accepts that promise first or delivers second is ultimately a decision made by the teen or young adult.

That said, I don’t make a connection between Kevin, Joe, and Nick taking the purity oath and potentially being mama’s boys. That commitment stems from their religion, family tradition and loyalty.

Another thing that makes people think of the Jonas Brothers as mama’s boys is the extent to which their parents are in their lives and careers and on the road with them. However, both parents are present, not just mom. Nick reportedly said, “We’re just normal kids. We’re not perfect. We’re just living each day as it comes, trying to make our mother proud.” He reminds me of what everyone, male or female, tends to do the first time a movie camera is pointed at them and that is to smile into the camera and say, “Hey, Mom!” Between childbirth and all the ways mothers reach out and sacrifice for their children, mom tends to come first in all of our hearts.

So this is not a case of a mother on stage hanging around and supervising. Both of Jonas’s parents are involved in protecting her children. In an interview with Rachel Ray last May, Denise said, “What’s been so great for us is that we’re still a family unit and we’ve been able to stay intact as a family. And I’ve been able to be a mom and in her life and her dad are there…” Denise says that she and Kevin, Sr. practice gratitude, teaching their children to do so as well. What that means is that whenever something good happens to them as individuals or as a family, they take the time to thank God for it.

Denise’s enthusiasm for being able to be in her children’s lives, even as they pursue their rock and roll careers, is not the joy of an overbearing, overbearing mother. Rather, it is the pleasure of a responsible mom and dad who have spent more than two decades training their children to be responsible, too.

Mommy’s sons are created when the father is unable to extend the invitation to his sons to get out of their mother’s sphere of influence and into her sphere of influence where they can learn to become men, focused on the safety of their own masculinity. That invitation is not given when the father is absent either physically, emotionally or mentally. Also, a father who is a mother’s son usually cannot extend the invitation because he remains in his mother’s sphere of influence.

The children who receive this invitation from the father respond to it over a period of years from the age of ten to adolescence. Having spent time in their father’s sphere of influence, being challenged by the rites of passage and the competitive advantage of keeping up with their father in conversation and intellect, the sons are free to enter the sphere of influence of both. fathers, creating balanced and down-to-earth young men. that they have more options for love and success in life.

In families where parents extend the invitation to their children to come into the father’s sphere of influence, five things must happen.

1. The father (or significant male role model) must be physically available.

2. The father (or male role model) must be emotionally available.

3. The father (or male role model) must be able to “see” the son as a man.

4. The mother must honor and respect the father and masculinity in general.

5. The mother must deliver the child to the father.

Briefly and for the sake of the fathers of the daughters, it is a similar situation where young women who rely on their femininity have received an invitation from the mother to leave the father’s sphere of influence for a while and re-enter the father’s sphere of influence. mother. So for that to happen, five things need to happen.

1. The mother (or important female role model) must be physically available.

2. The mother (or female role model) must be emotionally available.

3. The mother (or female role model) must be able to “see” the daughter as a woman.

4. The father must honor and respect the mother and femininity in general.

5. The father must deliver the daughter to the mother.

Apparently, the Jonas Brothers’ parents are busy fulfilling these five requirements to raise sons who are rooted in their masculinity but respect women. They are, in essence, old-fashioned young gentlemen!