Women encourage men to be childish, then scold them.

In this aphorism Cooley sketches a familiar domestic paradox: one partner (here, “women,” in a deliberately generalized and provocative way) may reward boyishness—playfulness, dependence, irresponsibility—because it can feel charming or nonthreatening, yet later resent the very immaturity that was indulged. The line points to a cycle of mixed signals and unmet expectations in heterosexual relationships, where caretaking and attraction can blur into enabling. As with much aphoristic social commentary, it is less a literal claim about all women than a compressed observation about how people can participate in creating the behaviors they later condemn.