Mother's boy, also commonly and informally mummy's boy, mommy's boy or mama's boy, is a derogatory term for a man seen as having an unhealthy dependence on his mother at an age at which he is expected to be self-reliant (e.g. live on his own, earn his own money, be married). Use of this phrase is first attested in 1901.[1] The term mama's boy has a connotation of effeminacy and weakness. The counter term, for women, would be a father complex.
In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex denotes a child's desire to have sexual relations with the parent of the opposite sex. Sigmund Freud wrote that a child's identification with the same-sex parent is the successful resolution of the Oedipus complex.[2] This theory came into the popular consciousness in America in the 1940s.