Mama's Boy.

I remember, when I was four years old, waking up early one dark winter morning, with my father making breakfast. Mama had left for work unusually early that morning, for some special business that she had to do as a writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I started to cry, because I had missed her, and my day was to start without her, and I missed my mama. I remember being aware, even at four, that it was childish to kneel with my face in the couch cushions, saying "I want my mama!" repeatedly. I was old enough to be worried that my tears would offend my daddy, but my eyes still stung.

I was a mama's boy.

While walking home with my best friend Sean McDougal at age 5, I picked a bouquet of Indian paintbrush out of the ditch and presented them to my mother (complete with the intact root system of every flower).  Sean was mystified, until he saw my mama's reaction. Then he ran home, stopping in the ditch to pick his own bouquet, dropping dirt clods behind him as he went into his house. Every boy that age wants to make his mother happy.

When I started messing around with a  neighbor girl at far too young an age, said neighbor girl plainly directed me not to talk to my mother about our trysts.  I laughed and asked the girl why she thought that I would, and she answered in all seriousness, "Because you talk to your mother about everything." I guess she was right, though I did instinctively know that there were some things that one does not discuss with one's mother at age 12.

As I grew older, I naturally turned toward manly things, and probably turned away from my mother as a result. I started doing more father-oriented things. If this hurt her, Mom never said anything that I recall. She had grown up as an only child, and I was the first boy that she had seen grow up. She was by this time a single mother rearing two boys, working on her master's degree. She paid me the compliment of letting me be, and treated me basically like an adult pretty early on.

Mom put a few thousand dollars that she couldn't afford into my freshman year of college, and then it was understood that I was on my own, which was more than fair. She provided me with a place to stay when I came home, and the refrigerator and cabinets were kept full of food, but at 20, it was on me to make ends meet.  At the time, I struggled, but in retrospect, my loving mother was actually coddling me just a little. I got the message, and got to work. When my car broke down and I couldn't commute to work, I went to "temporarily" live in my dad's spare bedroom in town.  Mom had a weepy moment that I didn't understand. She said, "You're leaving." This made no sense to me. I was coming back home, surely!  I never did. From Dad's, I rented a house with an old high school buddy, and finished college.  Then marriage, and such.

When Mom sold the old homestead, I helped her move into an apartment in town. It was during this period that I first really felt like I was taking care of my mother, this woman whom I had towered over for over a decade. I rented a truck, and moved things. I organized. I directed my brother. I took charge and was urgent (and was probably not very pleasant) because it was my mother's business that we were attending to.  This was serious. This was my mama.

My mother applied herself to her work as a CPS worker. She was earnest, and probably took it all too much to heart.  Seeing my mother's heart so heavy with the weight of her case load, I begged her for years to retire from this gut-wrenching job. She finally did so.

My mother, retired in her mid-sixties, was without a job to go do for the first time in almost half a century. It's funny how addicted we become to the structure of a job. I discovered that my mama could need her son some more. I discovered anew how much I needed my mama.

These days, my mother has a busy schedule. It turns out that she came home to me; she now lives next door. Mom picks up my girls from school every day. She is busy with the church, and works at a homeless shelter. With a degree in family counseling, she confidentially helps people in the community, and never lets me know who or how or why.  I looked in the newspaper the other day and discovered that she's on the municipal library board. At 70, Mom is more vital and busy than she was at 60. She looks after the neighborhood, sometimes from that porch of hers, and sometimes from her neighbors' porches. She takes care of me and my family, and we take care of her right back.

We look after each other.

I love my mama. 

Just that easy.

A commenter in my previous post suggests that I could probably get the best loan rate from a savings and loan. I sure don't dispute it, though we don't have an S&L in my community.

Perhaps I could have shopped around and gotten a better rate. But I think I'd have ended up within a 1/4 percent of what I'm getting, and in this case, the banker saw me walk in, called me by name, offered some services that will permit me not to make a round trip into the Dallas area and which will hurry things up, and also permitted me to not have my wife come in from work to do some paperwork during the business day.

Small town banks and honest small town bankers are part of what makes things happen. This guy bent over backwards to grease the wheels for me, because he knew that I was a member of his community, a patron of his bank, and a good risk, even when I got out of a 15 year old Honda and walked in wearing a bad haircut and a rumpled shirt. He also knew that I needed to hit that coffee machine before sitting down.

The last time that I'd seen him, he'd been sweating over a grill, selling cheap burgers and hotdogs at a community event to raise money for the community youth activity fund, in this town that he grew up in.

I'll pay that extra quarter percent, I think, and never look back.

Will I be so comforted?

When I have to make that last trip out the front door, I hope I have someone like EpiJunkie to help me on my way.

Bringing up Men in an age of sissies.

I've a good friend (let's call him Red) who has married a good woman, with two boys. At ages 12 and 9, they're decent kids, but they've been reared for the previous several years by their mother, alone, and before that, with an ufortunate man. Red's new bride is delighted to see the boys now have a positive male role model, and my buddy Red is more than happy to step in and provide them direction in that role.

Long before Red proposed to her, he began helping the boys. After they got married, he began working in earnest to show them how to grow up to be Men. There are little things, like how to shake hands like a man, and how to wear clothing. Then there were bigger issues, like not coming inside and just sitting on the couch to watch television all day long, simply because it's hot outside. (It's Texas. You can expect triple digit temperatures in the summertime. Drink lots of water, and get back to playing outdoors.)

The younger boy has shown an uncommonly strong love of WebKinz. Okay, says Red. Fine. But try not to be silly about it-- boys at some point shouldn't carry around dolls. And when that doll is a wolf, a boy traditionally names it "Fang," or "Spike," or "Timber"-- not "Jenny." Red isn't trying to impede the boy's creativity, but he does insist that the doll get left home in the boy's room when they're out and about town.

Wailing and gnashing of teeth were observed.

Looks like Red has his work cut out for him.

The other day, Red reported to me that his boys were coming in the house, whining about what to put on an ant bite that each had sustained. He was incredulous. "You could rub some dirt on it," he answered. "If that doesn't work, maybe we could find you some cream for it, from your Mother's bathroom!"

Red isn't intolerant. If the boys grow up to actually be gay, he's fine with that. But he will be DAMNED if he will let them grow up to be wussies.

We have discussed how the world has changed since we were kids. Nowadays, boys are taught that there is zero tolerance for violence, so that even throwing a punch back at someone who has punched them in the face is grounds for expulsion. Boys are taught to cry more readily, and come seeking the ready attention of their mothers, rather than learning to deal with adversity themselves. Red's wife is a very, VERY good mother. She gives her boys lots of mothering. The problem is, they've been receiving double doses of mothering, without much fathering, in the past. Red is trying to overcome that. He figures that he doesn't have much time.

The good news is, the boys have taken to him like a duck to water. They will literally follow him around, doing work with him. They learn lessons from him about telling the truth (this has been an issue with them), treating their mother and other women with respect (also an issue), and speaking plainly. Of course these aren't exclusively the providence of men, but some lessons seem to take better to boys, when taught them by a grown man whom they respect, and who walks the walk. Talk is cheap.

I reckon that Red is just doing what's right, and no more. But because so few seem to do just that, it makes him stand out some. I'm proud to call him my friend.

We've been talking about culturally manly things to do. He takes them fishing, and they do the sports thing. I mentioned that he needs to watch some John Wayne movies with them. Maybe The Cowboys, and The Searchers, and The Sons Of Katie Elder. I like The Wind And The Lion, partially because it's actually a movie about men, rather than just cultures.

Any other ideas I can pass on? Favorite books? Important activities?

I myself was fortunate to have been reared with a definitive positive male role model.

Hugs.

Boys seem to be hugging more than I remember. More than I'm used to, actually.

Not that this is a bad thing.

When I was a kid, a boy hugged his mother, his female relatives, and his dad on special occasions. Girls hugged whoever they wanted, I guess.

For the last few years, I've noticed that it's common for high school and even college-aged boys to give a quick hug when they meet. These hugs are clearly just good fraternal hugs-- I'm not trying to say that there's a creeping androgyny going on-- but they absolutely are unlike anything that occurred in the culture that I grew up in, just 20 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that I've hugged my best friend just twice in the quarter century-plus that we've been best friends, and on both of those occasions, one or both of us had tears in his eyes.

As a police officer, I've noticed that some kids will hug a cop, whom they've met but rarely. As an adult male, I'm reluctant to hug even a little girl. As a man in uniform, I think I'm doubly self-conscious of being hugged. It's sweet. But, you know. I'm not the daddy.

More awkward is the boy who spontaneously hugs me. And the older he gets, the more awkward. Today I had an eleven year old boy walk up to me and hug me before reminding me that we had met once, a year ago. I didn't know what to say, or do with my hands. He was a sweet kid, but. . . at eleven years of age, I was hunting with my dad, and trying to get a kiss from the neighbor girl, and... I don't know-- Hugging the neighborhood cop just out of the blue would NOT have occurred to me. The instance when I met him was in no way traumatic or life-altering, any more than a visit with a grocery clerk would have been so.

Curiouser and curiouser.