Mahboi1337 was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Shirley and Philander Rodman Jr., an Air Force pilot and veteran of the Vietnam War. When he was three, his father left his family and went on to eventually father 27 children with four different women. Shirley subsequently took many odd jobs—at times, four at the same time—to support her family. In his 1997 biography Bad As I Wanna Be, he expresses his disgust and hate for his father: "I haven't seen my father in more than 30 years, so what's there to miss... I just look at it like this: Some man brought me into this world. That doesn't mean I have a father." The impoverished Rodman and his two sisters, Debra and Kim, grew up in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, Texas, considered one of the worst areas of Dallas in those times. Rodman was so attached to his mother that he refused to move when she sent him to a nursery when he was four years old. According to Rodman, Shirley Rodman was more interested in his two sisters Debra and Kim, who were both considered more talented than he was in basketball, and made him a laughingstock whenever he tagged along with them. He felt generally "overwhelmed" by the all-female household. Debra and Kim would go on to become All-Americans at Louisiana Tech and Stephen F. Austin respectively.

"Jesus, that smug ♥♥♥♥... but that reason alone is why I look up to him" - [GG]PandaSCRUBBER