A Son is a Son

“A son is a son until he takes a wife, a daughter is a daughter all of her life.”  As a mother of both a son and a daughter, I have both hated and loved this sentiment. I know this is not entirely true, my son will always be my son but I do understand. There is a difference. A daughter is an instant ally, a lifelong confidante. The relationship, while rocky at times, has an undercurrent of understanding. A knowledge that you are grooming your future best friend, a connection as strong and beautiful as a diamond, unbreakable by outsiders. A son? From the time he is born we are preparing him to leave us, to develop a relationship with a future wife, as sweet and secure as his relationship with his mom has always been. This is as it should be. So much is written about the relationship between father and daughter. She is Daddy’s little girl, his princess. It is a powerful and important relationship. But, no less important or as precious, is the bond between mother and son.

A son is wonder to his mother. A perfect and beautiful tiny man. A mother of a newborn pours all her love and attention into him, developing a solid foundation for his future. He stares into her eyes and looks for her whenever she isn’t holding him.  As a toddler, his mother claps when he walks, rejoices when he poops on the toilet, picks him up when he falls and cuddles him when he is sick. She is the first person he looks for when he skins his knee and he hides his head on her shoulder when he is afraid. As a preschooler, she prepares him for school, takes him to the park, and tries to swallow the fear that he is growing so fast as he climbs too high and rides his bike too fast. But, he runs to her at random times of the day, crashing into her knees and throwing his arms around her neck when she picks him up. He tells her that he wants to marry her when he gets big and she smiles while tears spring to her eyes.  When he goes to school, she misses him and wonders if he misses her. but hopes that he doesn’t, because she doesn’t want him to feel sad. She encourages him to invite his friends over and pretends to be annoyed when they eat all the food and break a lamp, wrestling in the living room. He lets her hug and kiss him still, but only at night and only if his friends aren’t sleeping over. By the time he is a teenager, his thoughts have turned to his friends, sports, cars and girls. His mother is there, in the periphery, hovering about, offering to make him scrambled eggs or asking if he put his uniform in the wash. She is most often noticed when she is not there, as she is testing out her new independence as he tests his. “where’s mom?” he will say to his father, when the friends are gone, or he will text,  “where are you? I’m hungry!”. She will hurry home or offer a myriad of choices over the phone, happy to be needed. She still insists on giving him a kiss when he leaves for work or school and he acquiesces, bending his head so that she can kiss the top of it. He goes to college, a baby boy in a man costume. She worries about him constantly. Is he eating enough, sleeping enough? She keeps up with him via texts and snapchat and creeps on his girlfriend on Facebook. He comes home on weekends, dumping his laundry on the floor, saying he’s hungry,  while a swirl of energy and nostalgia perfumes the air, disappearing as soon as he drives away. He marries, and his mom is careful and supportive of his wife. She defers to the wife on matters such as child rearing and her sons favorite foods because she would never ask her son to choose between them, partly because she knows she will lose and partly because she would never want her son to be feel the pain of making that choice. It is hard, and sometimes sad, but it is as it should be.

If this scenario seems depressing to young moms out there, know that it’s not. Just as you are there at every stage and for every pain, both mental and physical, you will always be there, and he will always look for you. On this, the morning after Good Friday, it makes me wonder how Jesus’s mother could stand to be there, when her son took on the sins of the world. She never left his side, she suffered as he did, watching her baby boy die on a cross. She had wiped his tears when he was a little boy and now could not, but she gave the only solace to him that she could, she was there. She never left him alone in his grief and his pain, just as we, as mothers would never leave our boys to suffer alone. You are no less important to your son  than you were when he was 5, just in a different way. You have done your job well, Mom. As he raises a family of his own, things have come full circle. It is as it should be.