Mothers view sons as instruments to justify their own existence

Evidence

Living by proxy is always a precarious expedient. Things may not turn out as one wished. It often happens that a son is no more than a good-for-nothing, a hooligan, a failure, a lost cause, an empty promise, ungrateful. The mother has her own ideas about the hero her son is supposed to embody. Nothing is rarer than a mother who authentically respects the human person her child is, who recognizes his freedom even in his failures, who assumes with him the risks implied by any engagement. One more often encounters mothers who emulate that over-glorified Spartan woman who cavalierly condemns her son to glory or death; on earth, the son has to justify his mother’s existence by taking hold of values she herself respects for their mutual advantage. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1724

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Beauvoir’s broader ‘woman as Other’ thesis — the mother lives vicariously through the son rather than as a subject; parallels the lover dynamic elsewhere in the book. — connects to: Mothers who live through their children still depend on another for justification. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1535; Motherhood is framed as a sacred obligation rather than a natural need; Motherhood is traditionally assigned as the wife’s avenue to autonomy and self-realization
• DEFINE: Illustrates the mechanism behind ‘living by proxy’ as a form of bad faith/immanence, central to Beauvoir’s existentialist framework.

Broader Connections

• Motherhood is traditionally assigned as the wife’s avenue to autonomy and self-realization #corroborates (0.85)
• Motherhood is framed as a sacred obligation rather than a natural need #complicates (0.75)