By Michele Yeo
If you’re one of the many people who watched the new Gabby Petito docuseries on Netflix something may have stuck out to you: Brian Laundrie’s mother, Roberta. Quick catch up for those who aren’t diehard true crime fans: in June of 2021, 22-year-old Gabby Petito and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie set out for a cross-country road trip in a van Gabby purchased and refurbished. She planned to document the journey on social media and she was keeping in regular contact with friends and family along the way. Then, at the end of August, communication abruptly stopped. Brian then returned home to his parents’ home in Florida with the van but without Gabby. Eventually it was determined that he strangled her and left her body near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Brian committed suicide and, in a letter, confessed to killing her.
American Murder: Gabby Petito, the three-episode Netflix series chronicling the story, reveals there were signs all was not right in the Laundrie family before the rubber hit the road. Gabby, originally from New York, moved to Florida to live with Laundrie’s parents in their home while they saved for their adventure. It didn’t take long for things to get awkward in that house. In the docuseries, Gabby’s mother Nichole Schmidt recalls her daughter telling her that Brian’s mother seemed to sour on her. “Brian’s mom was having problems with how much time Gabby and Brian were spending together,” she says. “Her jealousy was definitely very odd.” Nichole also recalls her daughter recounting a story of how Roberta threw a fit at the dinner table because “nobody was focusing on her pie,” and that “she got mad and wasn’t even talking to them.” Text messages retrieved from Gabby and Brian’s phones show they were walking on egg shells around his mother with Gabby texting Brian, “I’m just nervous to walk out of the room, I feel like I did something,” and him explaining, “a lot of days were like this when I was growing up and it always just blows over.”
What didn’t blow over was the search for Gabby and when local police turned up at the Laundrie home to ask if they had heard from her or knew of her whereabouts, they found the Laundrie’s had already lawyered up and weren’t speaking to anyone about anything. Eventually, Roberta Laundrie blocked Gabby’s frantic mother from all communication. Now, it’s not weird for parents to want to protect their child, but there was something inherently sinister about the Laundries and about Roberta, in particular. She was giving major “Boy Mom” vibes. The same vibes that wafted off another mother whose son committed a heinous crime profiled in another American Murder Netflix installment: Cindy Watts, the mother of Chris Watts – the Colorado man who, in 2018, murdered his pregnant wife Shannan and their two daughters, Bella and Celeste. You see, Cindy never cared much for Shannan. She and Chris’ father skipped their son and daughter-in-law’s wedding and, after her son confessed to annihilating his family, Cindy gave an interview in which she said, “I would never in a million years have thought something like this could happen to him.” You read that correctly, TO him.
Cindy Watts and Roberta Laundrie are the “Boy Mom” final bosses. Now, to be clear, a “Boy Mom” does not simply mean a woman who happens to be a mother to a male child or male children. No, “Boy Moms” have come to mean something different, something unsettling. It’s mothers who make having a boy or boys their entire personality and who frame the relationship with their sons in a creepy, almost romantic way. Searching “Boy Moms” on TikTok will give you a taste of this: women creating content about how they’ll always be their son’s first kiss, about dreading the day another woman takes their son away from them, about how their sons are their first loves. One woman took to the internet to tell us, “I love my four kids equally, but that last little boy just hits different.” She went on to explain that “he hits his sisters, he punches them, I’m like, ‘maybe he’s having a hard day.’” Apparently her precious boy child literallyhits different. Can’t wait to see what he’s like as a teen and a young man. And if that wasn’t disconcerting enough she doubles down telling us that when she thinks of her daughters getting married she gets excited, but “when I think about my son’s wedding, I wanna cry.” It’s worrying to say the least, but what’s the psychology behind these women?
“In some cases, a mother may unconsciously use her son to fill emotional gaps left by a distant or absent partner, making him her primary emotional confidant,” says licensed family therapist and YouTuber Denise Brady. “Some mothers develop an obsessive attachment to their sons, fearing the loss of control when he forms romantic relationships.” Imagine having one of these women as your mother-in-law? “This can lead to hostility towards the son’s partners,” she confirms.
Another #BoyMom posted a video with her infant son saying, “raising a boy who is obsessed with his mama so his future wife doesn’t say they’re going to ‘her side’ for the holidays.’” Yikes. So it’s all about you, mom? “A mother withnarcissistic tendencies might idealize her son as an extension of herself, reinforcing his superiority while stifling his independence,” says Brady. Not to mention this kind of narrative is extremely heteronormative which is a conversation for another day.
It’s all troubling but it’s especially egregious when the “Boy Mom” in question also has a daughter or daughters. “Feeling less valued than a brother can lead to deep-seated self-worth issues,” explains Brady. “Daughters may develop resentment toward women or struggle with their identity as women.” The effects of an emotionally incestuous relationship between a mother and her son(s) can be severe and long term for the daughter in the family. According to Brady, a daughter “may unconsciously seek out partners who mirror the emotional neglect she experienced or struggle with trust and intimacy,” and “this dynamic can create lifelong tension between siblings, especially if the favoured son also internalizes the favouritism and looks down on his sister.”
So, back to the Petito/Laundrie case and how does this all relate, you may ask? Well, Roberta Laundrie is a classic, albeit extreme, example of “Boy Mom” culture. After Brian was found dead, a letter to him from his mother was discovered. In it, Roberta tells Brian, “I just want you to remember I will always love you, and I know you will always love me. You are my boy. Nothing can make me stop loving you, nothing will or could ever divide us no matter what we do.” It may sound innocuous enough at first, but she continues, “if you’re in jail, I will bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags. If you fly to the moon, I will be watching the skies for your re-entry. If you say you hate my guts, I’ll get new guts.” Roberta also instructs her son to “burn after reading.” Chilling.
Denise Brady has covered the Petito/Laundrie case on her YouTube channel and says, “if Roberta prioritized Brian’s protection over Gabby Petito’s safety and justice, it could point to an unhealthy dynamic where the mother-son bond eclipsed moral and ethical considerations,” adding, “if a mother sees her son as an extension of herself rather than as a separate person, she may feel entitled to control or overly shield him from consequences. I think we will never know how much Gabby went through while living there with his family.”
While all “Boy Moms” may not ascend to Final Boss status like Roberta Laundrie or Cindy Watts, let’s stop pretending “Boy Mom” culture isn’t problematic, toxic, and misogynistic and let’s start calling it out when we see it.
