My son is 2 1/2. He is the sweetest, cuddliest thing around. Way more cuddly than my daughter was at this age – he still wants to get into bed and snuggle in the morning, which usually gains me an extra 30 -45 minutes of sleep – which I am all for. He also just comes over to me during the day and wants to sit on my lap – with his pacifier in mouth and his head on my shoulder, he is still my little babe…
I want to remember this time for when he is 15 and 16 years old and struggling to put as much space between me and himself as he possibly can, and I don’t want to remember this in order to embarrass him, but instead to remind me that he isn’t all gruff talk and gangling limbs – that underneath all that adolescent awkwardness and angst – he remains a sweet, and sensitive, and confused child. I think too often we just let our boys drift – we go all psycho on our daughters and all of a sudden over analyze their every move and action once they hit about 14, but somehow boys are able to drift right along.
As I teacher I heard over and over again “Oh, he’s just acting like a boy”, “Boys, will be boys”, which are such hollow empty phrases – when our boys really do deserve better. This attitude is like giving a child a free pass to behave however they want. I don’t agree. I think as a whole we need to hold our boys to higher standards and also keep them closer…
My mother recently acknowledged that she should have spent more time worrying about my brother. She wishes that she had made more time for him, to get to know him better. He is 36 now and married, and while he and my mother do have a relationship, so much of it is simply cordial – there isn’t that knowledge there that comes with asking the deep questions and taking the time to listen.
My brother turned out fine and all that, but it was always my sister and I who were the recipients of those “talks” – which lasted well into adulthood and for the most part which I guess I finally outgrew when I became a mother myself – maybe it was because I finally started behaving better, who knows. However, my mother and I still talk a lot, about everything under the sun, and maybe part of it can be explained away because as women we do go through similar experiences, but I think if you take that position it is too easy of a cop-out.
The point is my mother regrets all those years when my brother was lost to her – he was always a good kid, played hockey, stayed above water in school – but if he tended to drift around on the weekends, or missed his curfew, or slept most of the day – there was nothing…
I don’t want to be in this position with my son…
