Jewish mother stereotype

The Jewish mother or wife stereotype is a common stereotype and stock character used by Jewish comedians, usually when discussing (fictionally or not) their mothers. The stereotype generally involves a nagging, overprotective, manipulative, controlling, smothering, and overbearing mother or wife, one who persists in interfering in her children's lives long after they have become adults.

Origin

A possible origin of this stereotype is anthropologist Margaret Mead's research into the European shtetl, financed by the American Jewish Committee. Although her interviews at Columbia University, with 128 European-born Jews, disclosed a wide variety of family structures and experiences, the publications resulting from this study and the many citations in the popular media resulted in the Jewish mother stereotype: a woman intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering and attempting to engender enormous guilt in her children via the endless suffering she professes to have experienced on their behalf. The jewish mother stereotype origins in the American Jewish community, with predecessors comming from eastern Europe. In Israel, where the geographical background of Jews is more diverse, the same stereotypical mother is known as the Polish mother.

Stereotype Characteristics

Stereotypical activities of a Jewish mother are said to include:

• Worrying about the day-to-day experiences, relationships and income of her offspring, even (and usually) when they are fully grown adults.
• Getting involved in and intruding on other people's business, including the business of non-family members or distant relatives.
• Overprotecting, and taking a concern in the welfare of, her offspring to an extent that her involvement becomes ridiculous; activities may range from sending strudel in the post to children at university, calling them on a daily basis, expressing interest as to whether they are 'eating well' or if they have 'done their washing,' and not letting them do anything that she perceives as 'unsafe,' or 'dangerous,' even if the chances of real danger are ridiculously small.
• Preparing meals in excessive proportions.
• Getting in the way of her offsprings' relationships, including expressing distaste and bitterness towards a daughter's boyfriend unless he is earning a large income and expressing jealousy and resentment towards a son's girlfriend.
• Setting up her children with partners she deems fit, whether or not these partners suit her children's personalities and interests.
• Taking excessive and boastful pride in the achievements of offspring and even inflating their achievements. This is most apparent when in conversation with other Jewish people of the same generation and often includes references to "My son, the lawyer... ", or "My son, the doctor...".
• Persistent nagging of her children if she considers them to have underachieved academically or financially or if they remain unmarried.
• (S)mothering her children, even when they have reached adulthood and are independent and self-supporting. The effect, according to Philip Roth in Portnoy's Complaint, is that "a Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until the day he (or his parents) dies."
• Insisting on being respected and honored by her children. Hence, the classic dismissal of Freudian theory: "Oedipus shmoedipus! A boy shouldn't love his mother?"
• Wanting their sons to be doctors or lawyers when they grow up.
• Often interrupting people.
• Manipulating children via guilt, as in the old joke:
  • Q: How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
  • A: (with mournful Yiddish accent) Don't worry about me; I'll just sit here in the dark.

It is not unlikely that this "Jewish Mother" stereotype is in part a result of the traditional Jewish (and non-Jewish) social philosophy in which the man runs the "external" world of business and politics and the woman runs the "internal" world of family and household.

Appearances in popular media

• Perhaps the best-known modern example is sitcom character Ida Morgenstern, Rhoda's mother, who first appeared in a recurring role on the iconic 1970s sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and later as a regular on its spinoff Rhoda. Ida dearly loved her two daughters, but was not above using guilt to gain their sympathy; she was also forever scheming to get them married off.

The character plays a role in many of the works by filmmaker Woody Allen, including Oedipus Wrecks, his contribution to New York Stories. Prime examples also include:

• Sophie Portnoy in Portnoy's Complaint
• Mike Meyers recurring character in SNL, Linda Richman
• Sylvia Fine on The Nanny
• Doris Tupper on Dream On (the latter two both having been played by Renee Taylor)
• the mother of Kyle Broflovski (Sheila Broflovski) in South Park
• the mother of Jerry Seinfeld (Helen Seinfeld) and the mother of George Costanza (Estelle Costanza) on the television series Seinfeld.
• Unnamed characters in various Adam Sandler comedy routines.
• Sophie Cohen in the O.C.
• Wolowitz's mother in The Big Bang Theory.
• The ghost Jewish mother, Yetta Feldman, haunting the Rokeby household in the British sitcom So Haunt Me.
• The mother of Korben Dallas in the 1997 film The Fifth Element.
• Karen's mother in Goodfellas.
• Fern Rosenthal, a Boca Raton retiree, on Tracey Takes On
• Grace Adler's mother Bobbi, in Will and Grace

The topic is also mentioned by Lewis Black in his 2005 Carnegie Hall performance. The internet strip Alien Loves Predator features an Alien Jewish mother character. Adverts for British Telecom in the 1980s featured Maureen Lipman in the role of Beattie, popularly accepted to be such a Jewish Mother.

See also

• Jewish humor
• Stock character
• Jewish-American princess
• My Yidishe Mama
• Nice Jewish Boy
• Ethnic stereotype
• Co-dependence

Bibliography

• How to Be a Jewish Mother: A Very Lovely Training Manual by Dan Greenburg; published by Price, Stern, Sloan; distributed by Pocket Books [New York (1964)] ASIN: B0007EN0II
• You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother by Joyce Antler; 336 pages; published by Oxford University Press [USA, (February 26, 2007)]; ISBN-10: 0195147871; ISBN-13: 978-0195147872
• The Jewish Mother, Slate slideshow, June 13, 2007