We know from neuropsychology research that a man’s brain isn’t fully developed until he’s in his early twenties.1 That means that he will still be experiencing malleable cognitive and emotional changes until he reaches about twenty-five. This is good news and bad news for a mom. It’s good news because if, for example, you are struggling with a strong-willed, defiant fifteen-year-old, you’ve got ten years left to rein him in. It’s bad news because you’ve got ten years more of hard work ahead of you. If you’re at that stage, part of you is already exhausted and you wonder if you can make it that much longer. Let me encourage you by saying that you absolutely can; you just need to pace yourself. A common problem for zealous, committed mothers is that we parent with so much intensity and enthusiasm when our boys are young that by the time they hit the challenging years of adolescence, we’re burned-out. So if you are reading this with a two-year-old son at your knees, heed my advice and relax a bit. You have many years in front of you to get things right.
Take a moment to picture your son when he is twenty-five. What do you hope he’s like? If you are like me, you look forward to him wanting to spend time with you. How wonderful to have a grown son who calls you and says, “Mom—what are you doing tonight? Would you like to meet for dinner?” In fact, not only does he call, but when the two of you sit down at a restaurant, you have a good time. You talk about his life and hear that he’s enjoying his job; that he has good friends and a new romance. He is kind and caring, and he asks your opinion but feels perfectly free to accept or reject it because you have taught him not only to make his own decisions, but to feel secure in doing so. When you leave the restaurant, you kiss him on the cheek. Both of you are happy to have seen each other. Your heart sinks a little at saying goodbye, but not because you yearn for him to be four again. You’re satisfied that he is content with his life and feels no compulsion to go back and rework any part of his childhood. Those who live with an incessant inner urge to go back and rework what was broken so that they can create a different outcome didn’t have a complete childhood and aren’t in a healthy place; but your son doesn’t need new outcomes because the ones he got were just fine.
Let’s continue with the picture of your son at twenty-five: You want him to respect his colleagues. You want him to be kind but firm, stand on his own two feet, and not have to ask you for financial help. In fact, you hope he feels that your job is done and in the future, he looks forward to helping you out if circumstances call for that. You don’t feel needy toward him and neither does he feel needy toward you, as he did when he was younger. He enjoys life, is socially active, and has a few good male friends. He knows that you fully accept and admire him for who he is.
The million-dollar question for you in this moment, whether you have a six-month-old or ten-year-old or eighteen-year-old son in your home, is this: How can I raise him to be a great twenty-five-year-old?
First of all, you absolutely can steer him toward being a great adult. Regardless of how challenging he may currently be, there is time to improve your relationship. Time is on your side. To get him there requires focus both on changing your perspective of who you are to him, and on believing in yourself. Once you learn to see yourself as he sees you, learn to parent based on his needs rather than what you think you should be doing, and learn to listen to your instincts, you are well on your way to shaping a good man. But there is one final step that you must master in this journey, and that is the art of letting him go.
This is a sensitive process that requires careful thought and intention, and caution must be taken because it can be very easily misunderstood.
One of the healthiest beliefs that we can have as a mother is that ultimately, we are not in charge of our sons. Call it providence, fate, luck, or as I believe, God: Something or someone else holds the life of our sons in their hands. We can’t decide when they are born or when they die and we can only partly control what happens to them in between. Most of us live with the illusion that we are far more in control of many aspects of their lives than we actually are. That’s why, I believe, the more truthfully we live, the happier we are. Especially when it comes to raising our kids.
The process of letting go of our sons begins the moment they are born. It is at that moment that we realize our helplessness in the face of what we desperately want to do—protect them from all pain and make only good things happen in their lives. But even in those first moments, we recognize that we need to let go of our deepest wishes and understand that we can’t always protect them, that we have to let them face the world, and perhaps get knocked around by it. And the letting-go process continues from that moment. We hand them to their fathers to feed. We let their siblings push them on their swing. We let neighbors drive them to school and we let babysitters watch them while we’re away. When they go to school, we let teachers show them how to add and subtract. When we tell them they can go out to play, we let other children influence their thinking. We let our sons choose whom to be friends with, and whom to date. When they learn to drive, a stranger teaches them to parallel park. Does he do it right? We don’t know. We hope so.
Having children means learning that parenting is 10 percent control and 90 percent letting go. Fortunately for us, there is a gentle, step-by-step approach that we can follow to lessen the pain of the process.
Many of us understand intellectually that boys must grow into men and that along the way they need us to gently push them from the nest. But we also need to realize that letting go is designed for our benefit as well as for our children’s. When we let go in a healthy, timely way, our lives become richer and our relationships with our children deepen. But surrendering our sons doesn’t always feel natural. I dare say that there are times when it feels downright unnatural. We have been taught that being close to our sons is a good thing, but what, exactly does that mean? As we’ve discussed in previous chapters, many of us believe that it means we should share our feelings and thoughts and enjoy depending on one another; that’s true to a certain extent, but many times we cross the line and our closeness becomes unhealthy. We are also taught that good mothers stay involved in all aspects of their sons’ lives—academics, sports, dating, friendships—and all decision making. Again, some participation is good, but mothers shouldn’t always be intimately involved with all of their sons’ activities. Finally, we have come to believe that we are so important in our sons’ lives that our own activities must always revolve around them. They need us, so we must always be available. At certain points in their lives this is true, but many, many times it isn’t.
We have come by these beliefs honestly; we want to be great moms and so we ponder the mistakes our own parents made, and vow that we won’t make those mistakes with our own children. If our parents were distant, we decide we will be close. If they never showed interest in our activities, we will take pains to do the opposite, regardless of the cost. We attempt to sort through the plethora of available pop-psychology and parenting literature; some is excellent and some is terrible. We talk with friends about how they parent so that we can glean what works and rid ourselves of bad habits. We want to be open and honest. We want to be a great friend to our sons. In fact, I think that there have never been better mothers than we are today. But all of our earnest and good efforts make it that much more difficult to pull back and let our sons go at the appropriate age.
Letting go of control over our son is important for three primary reasons. First, he can’t become a man without it. He can get older, but he will stay a perpetual adolescent if the process doesn’t happen. Second, you can’t have a healthy adult relationship with him if neither of you lets go. Finally, the completion of the process allows each of you to be an emotionally healthier person. I’m sure you have known friends who are so enmeshed in their children’s lives it’s as though the child has never even left the house. Or you may have been that enmeshed with your mother or father and know firsthand how suffocating it is. This won’t happen if you allow the letting-go process to unfold.
John Riccardo grew up in a wealthy suburb of Detroit. As the son of a corporate CEO, John lived a life envied by many. When I asked John about his childhood, I realized that it had been extraordinary, but not because his family was wealthy or had so many opportunities. It was because of his mother.
From the time he was born until he was seven, John’s mother was an invalid. Multiple back surgeries forced her to spend her days bound to a hospital bed parked in the living room of their home. Her pain prevented her from participating in John’s life the way she might have liked: driving him to school, baking treats for him, and throwing him birthday parties.
When he was seven, John’s mother experienced a miracle. John’s sister had been to a church event and heard the preacher talk about a person who had terrible back problems. He told the audience that the woman was going to be healed from her pain. John’s sister was sure the man was speaking about their mother. She went home and told her mother what the pastor said. John’s mother read the Bible and had faith in Christ, but she wasn’t particularly charismatic in her faith. Still, she decided to believe her daughter. Maybe the man was talking about her. One month later, John told me, God performed a miraculous healing and his mother was playing tennis.
For the next fourteen years, his mother not only lived an active life; she was heavily engaged in his life, his sister’s life, and the lives of others. The great miracle wasn’t just in the restoration of her ability to walk pain-free; equally important was the fact that John had a mother who could now walk beside him. Emotionally, she experienced a restoration, which allowed her to be engaged with him, not consumed by her pain. She loved helping others and her kids and with her health renewed, she could really live.
I met John through his work as a priest and he agreed to answer some questions for me about his relationship with his mom. At the beginning of our interview, I asked him, “What was one of the most important lessons your mother taught you that helped you become the man you are today?” A thick silence hung over the phone. I wondered, had she taught him too many things? Too few? Or perhaps he couldn’t articulate what she taught him? Instead of answering directly, he began telling me about life with his mother.
“When I think of my mother, I think about the word class. She had it in every sense of the word. She spoke beautifully; she dressed beautifully. She wasn’t stuffy; she was lovely. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table reading the Bible every morning. Sometimes she would tell me about what she read; sometimes she wouldn’t. Our kitchen table was always covered with things she was reading or working on. But it was also always open for others to sit at. Friends came to see my mother all the time.”
As I listened to his middle-aged voice, I could hear the tenderness and adoration he still felt toward his mother. Many of his inflections had a lilt to them. Clearly, this was one special woman.
“Many times I felt, as a kid, that folks would beat a path to my mother’s door. As a boy, I watched them come and sit with her. She would listen and talk. And regardless of how they felt when they came to see her, they always left feeling better. She had this ability to help people feel at peace, to feel blessed, if you will. I marveled at what she did for them. Was it what she said to them? The food she offered? I don’t think so. She just had a way of helping people of all ages feel better about life. People could sense that she loved them and genuinely cared for them.” I could hear his smile. I was so moved by what this man said about his mother, I wondered if my own grown kids could say the same about me. What effect did my kids see me have on my friends? Had I been the kind of woman who helped them feel better about life?
“I need to tell you something about my dad, too,” he added. “As a CEO, he traveled a lot. Many days he had to work in Washington, D.C. The amazing thing about him was that he came home every night—even when he had to spend the day in Washington.”
“You mean he flew home every night?” I marveled.
“Yup. If he had to work for the week in D.C., he would fly home and fly back the next day just to be with my mother at night.”
Now I was thinking about my own husband. Would he do that for me? I decided not to go there.
“My mom was, and is, a woman who prays. She told me from the time I was a little boy that I wasn’t hers; that I belonged to God. I wasn’t afraid of this. It made me feel safe. She told me that she carried me in her heart and prayed for me constantly. Of course she prayed for my four older siblings as well, but I had a sense that she prayed differently for me.” He paused. “Are we close today? I can say this. I believe that there is a mystical bond between a mother and son. Since I don’t have a wife, my mother holds a place in my heart that other men may not understand. We continue to pray for one another. If someone in my parish is ill, she prays for them. We are connected spiritually that way.
“I know that I made my mother grow old faster than she should have. While I was at the University of Michigan, I lived a lifestyle that might not have made her proud. But after I graduated, I felt a tug from God to go into the priesthood. He got hold of my heart and began to change me.” After John graduated from college, he did go to seminary and became a priest. At that point I asked him something I was afraid to ask, but really wanted to know. “Was it hard for your mother when you went to seminary, knowing that she wouldn’t have grandkids from you or see you married?”
“Giving me up to God was a sacrifice and she knew that. She knew that once I became a priest I wouldn’t be home for Christmas dinners and many family events. That grieved her. But this is what you need to know: After my mother handed me over to God, something in our relationship dramatically changed. We became closer. There was an intimacy between us that had never been there before. I can’t describe it. All I can say is that in surrendering me to God, it’s as though she gave God a chance to see we were hurting and He gave us a deeper closeness in return, and I believe that we think of one another more often than most sons and mothers. We carry that closeness today. She writes me, and I tell her about people who need prayer and she prays for them faithfully.”
My original question to John now felt trite to me. What had she done to help him become the man he was today? They carried each other in their hearts and the very essence of her life became the essence of his. She taught him how to give people peace without saying a word about it directly to him. Her demeanor and faith, lived right in front of his eyes, shaped him into a great priest. Men and women come to Father John in droves to listen to him and to ask his advice. His parish is bursting at the seams. I think that in large part this is due to his mother.
Letting go of our sons, even if it isn’t giving them to God like John’s mother did, draws us closer to them in a mystical way. Maybe it’s because the letting go rids the relationship of unhealthy neediness. Maybe it’s because we learn to live as separate adults who are free to love one another without strings attached. One thing that I have realized for sure, though, is that we mothers must find the courage to be like John’s mother. We need to understand, down to the very core of our being, that we don’t own our sons. We can’t be their everything, nor should we be. In this short life, the best we can do is to love them like crazy, steer them gently but firmly in the direction we think they should go, and then pray our hearts out for them while living our own lives. Then, when they are adult men, we can offer advice (when asked) and encourage them to be strong and independent. Most important, we can tell them that we believe in their ability to succeed on their own—without our help.
Dr. William Pollack, author of Real Boys and perhaps the most learned professional on boys in the country, writes that boys need their mothers’ love throughout their entire lives. In fact, he asserts, boys who don’t have a secure attachment with their mothers are at an enormous disadvantage. “My research shows that the absence of a close relationship with a loving mother puts a boy at a disadvantage in becoming a free, confident, and independent man who likes himself and can take risks, and who can form close and loving attachments with people in his adult life. In their early years as well as during adolescence, I think boys will benefit enormously from spending time in the loving environment created by his mother and her friends—the happy nurturing world of women.”2
In other words, letting go of our sons isn’t about pulling our love out from beneath them—rather, it is about transferring responsibility for themselves from our shoulders to theirs. For example, think of the first day he goes to school. If you have passed this milestone then you know that when he goes off to nursery school or kindergarten, your heart goes with him, but your body doesn’t. This is what letting go is all about. It is the constancy of love amid all the changes and separations that life brings. As he matures, the process intensifies because he goes farther away—emotionally, mentally, physically—and our love for him deepens. It is the parallel growth of these two phenomena—the growing distance and the deepening love—that makes the letting go feel so tough for each of us. The dynamic of these two phenomena seems paradoxical. Why should it be that our love deepens when our sons distance themselves from us? Quite simply, because when they become independent, we experience the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of our sweat and all the hard work that we invested while we raised them. When we see them mature and succeed, we see the cycle of life as it was meant to be. Unfortunately, because it feels so hard to let go, many of us opt to forgo the process, which creates a very unhealthy situation for both our son and ourselves.
Letting go occurs primarily on two levels. First, we psychologically let our sons gain independence. I think that this is the hardest process for mothers, because it involves separating ourselves from our own need to micromanage, hyperparent, or overcontrol our sons. Early on, such managing is a good thing, because they need that kind of help. Micromanaging a three-year-old is fine. Hyperparenting a child who is being bullied isn’t always a bad thing. The trick is to learn when our management is healthy and when it oversteps bounds and hurts our sons. The good news for us is that we have a long time to practice, and if we do catch ourselves overstepping boundaries and driving our sons nuts, we usually have another chance at stepping back and letting them do the decision making. For instance, I have had friends who are so anxious for their sons to date or marry just the right woman that they will play matchmaker. This is a big no-no, because not only does it rarely work; it also usually causes a lot of tension in the mother’s relationship with her son. I have to admit, I have been tempted to do this for my own son, and each time I mention having him meet a woman, one of my daughters reminds me to back off. We mothers reason that since we know our sons better than they may know themselves (this may be true), it is our job to make sure they date someone who is a good fit for them. The problem for our sons is that they resent our interference, and they should. As young men, they need to learn to trust their instincts about women, and as their mothers, our job is to encourage them to trust their instincts. When we swoop in and play matchmaker, the message that we send to them is that we can do a better job picking out dates than they can, enforcing the notion that they need us to make such important decisions as much as we want to be needed to make them.
When our sons are born, each of us finds a fresh sense of purpose as we look upon those chubby cheeks for the first time. We begin to understand that we were born to care for and protect that little bundle. That sense of purpose feels wonderful. As he grows, however, it is the relinquishing of that need to be needed, as wonderful as being needed is, that must take place, so that it can be replaced by a fresh relationship with our son. This can be nothing short of traumatic. Some mothers suffer a crisis when they realize that their son, at age thirteen, no longer needs them the way he did when he was five. What now, we wonder. Who am I and where do I go from here?
Mothers experience this separation at different stages of their boys’ lives. Some feel it most strongly when their sons enter first grade, some when their sons leave for college, and yet others when their sons get their first apartment, say at age twenty-three. But most mothers experience emotional tearing at some significant point in their sons’ lives. I believe that, as difficult as it is, it’s an integral part of the whole parenting plan for us; if we don’t experience it, it might mean we’re too detached from our sons. Healthy letting go may cause us grief at first, but then we learn to live with a greater sense of freedom. When this happens, we aren’t the only ones to feel the terrific effects of this freedom—our son does as well, and it is at this point that our relationship with him strengthens.
The second part of letting go is more concrete than psychological: It is simply the transference of dependence; it is your boy learning to rely on himself rather than you. When he is three we teach him to ride a tricycle. When he is five he goes to kindergarten, and when he is sixteen he drives a car. Year after year, we find ways to teach our son that he can do things on his own, without our help. To many of us, this transfer of dependence feels good because it means less work for us. Even still, we struggle with our deep desire to be needed and perhaps subconsciously refuse to transfer responsibility entirely. For instance, some mothers encourage their sons to hold a job while in high school but won’t let them date. Each of us brings our own bias to this letting-go process and we can do some pretty peculiar things because of it. One friend encouraged her son to make enough money to buy his own car and pay his own car insurance, but never asked him to make his own bed or pick up after himself at home. She constantly complained about his being irresponsible and sloppy. There is a great irony in that. Truth be told, she admired his solid work ethic but never enforced it at home because she wanted to feel that he needed her to pick up after him. Of course, she probably didn’t recognize this inconsistency because her parenting (like each of our parenting) was peppered with her own insecurities and personal history.
The art of letting go is a delicate balancing act. Doing it in a healthy way requires that we first recognize it as a natural part of a strong mother-son relationship. It then requires that we act intentionally. This is tough because it forces us to do some soul-searching regarding our motives in all aspects of our parenting. Do we do things for our sons because we need to (for ourselves) or because it is actually good for our sons? I am the first to admit that much of what I did for my son stemmed from my own desire to feel like a good mom. My mother always did my laundry when I came home from college and I adored my mother. So guess what happens when my son brings home a pile of laundry while visiting during college? Yup. I first separate the colors from the whites, because he never does. When it’s clean and dry, I fold everything neatly for him to pack. And even though my son began doing his own laundry when he was fourteen, I still feel like a better mom when I do it while he’s home on vacation. You may not do this precise thing, but if we could chat over coffee, chances are great that you, too, do some things for your son that you know you probably shouldn’t; you just do them because they make you feel good. I won’t tell.
Slipping up here and there is okay, but it is important to recognize that in order for a son to turn into that wonderful twenty-five-year-old man, Mom must confront her feelings and ask herself, particularly as he moves into his teen and young adult years, Am I doing what I’m doing because it makes me feel like a better mom or because it makes him a stronger man? If the answer is that it makes him stronger, go for it. If, on the other hand, you sense a twinge of self-serving hidden in your motives, you must give it up. Both you and he will be a lot happier. I promise.
Every once in a while we can accomplish both. We can do what is best for our son and we can feel better about our parenting at the same time, but this is more the exception than the rule. The point is to always search our motives for doing what we do with our sons. If we are honest in doing this, it’s startling to see how many times we make decisions based on what makes us feel like better mothers, not on what makes our son better men.
Because we are painfully human, many of us tip the fine balance of letting go and maintaining control to one side or another. Some mothers suffer in the struggle to release any measure of control over their sons. On the other hand, some mothers let go of their sons far too soon. Often, mothers are pushed to become more emotionally detached by husbands who fear that their son will be a “mama’s boy.” I have heard fathers say that their son needs to “man up” in the second grade and not cry to his mother over every little thing. But these fathers are wrong.
I will unequivocally say, and I believe that Dr. Pollack would agree, that young boys require emotional closeness with their mothers. No, a mother shouldn’t drive a wedge between a son and his father, but the truth is that many mothers offer a level of comfort and security to sons that fathers can’t. And many fathers detach themselves from sons because this is all they know. Their fathers probably did the same to them, and while they hated it, they repeat what they know, not necessarily what they know is right. If you find yourself in this situation, I encourage you to do what you can to help your son’s father reconnect with your son. The best way to do this is to tell your husband (or ex-husband) that your son needs him and wants a closer relationship. Tell him that, while he may not know exactly how to be close to your son, he can start by simply spending more time with him—even if it means just doing small things like chores together. Remember that men bond through activities while women bond through communication, so all he needs to do is start spending more time with your son, doing things to get the ball rolling.3 Often fathers feel inadequate and we mothers need to boost their self-esteem and be a source of encouragement to them. Our sons need us to do this because they need stable relationships with their fathers, too.
Numerous studies have shown that when a boy has a secure attachment to his mother, he is psychologically healthier, stronger, and even braver. He will have higher self-esteem, do better in school, and have lower rates of mental and behavioral disorders.4 As we have seen in the chapter on giving boys an emotional language, letting go of our sons does not mean becoming emotionally detached. Boys need to know that our love for them is strong, unshakable, and always present. Thus, refusing to let our sons cry (regardless of their age), forcing them to figure their emotions out on their own, or abandoning comfort when they are afraid is not only wrong, it is cruel.
When we properly teach our sons how to identify and be comfortable with their feelings and then teach them what to do with those feelings, we help them learn to make sound decisions as they mature and to rely less and less on us to direct them. Letting our sons have strong and independent emotional lives means that they have an emotional repertoire, feel comfortable with it, and can handle their own feelings in a healthy way. Letting go means teaching them to trust their instincts. What it doesn’t mean is refusing to tell them how we feel or rejecting or negating their feelings by telling them that they shouldn’t have them in the first place (which is what happens when eight-year-olds are told not to cry).
Letting go also means teaching boys to not only act independently but also take responsibility for their behaviors. But in order to do this, it is important not to give them too much independence too soon. When we give them responsibilities that are too much for them to handle, our boys suffer. For a variety of reasons, this typically happens during the teen years. We hear our son’s voice change, watch the facial stubble thicken, and start to assume that because he looks like a man, he must think like a man. But this isn’t so. Especially when you consider that new research shows puberty occurring earlier in boys than ever before; some boys are entering it as young as nine years old.5 That’s third or fourth grade! Not only do these boys have difficulty dealing with bodily changes; their parents have difficulty as well. So, it is extremely important for us to understand that what we see with the naked eye and hear with our ears isn’t necessarily reflective of what is happening in our son’s brain. We must always match our parenting to his mind’s development, not to his body’s development.
Many of us give too much responsibility to our teen boys because of social bias. We tend to worry constantly about our daughters when they are teens, but when it comes to our sons, many mothers worry less. Sons can’t get pregnant, and probably won’t get assaulted as a daughter might, so we give them more leeway. We make their curfews later (if they even have curfews). We see that they look strong, responsible, and tough and so we treat them as though they are these things. But letting go of our boys in a healthy, timely manner means not giving them free rein to do what they want whenever they want, just because they are boys and we think they can handle it. Sadly, I see this all the time in well-meaning moms who trust their sons because they are generally “good kids.” What we fail to remember is that while our son might be a “good kid,” he has an acquaintance or two who isn’t. And bad eggs love to wreak havoc in the lives of good kids. Lena learned this lesson the hard way.
Lena is a single mother and has three sons, all of whom play soccer. Her oldest, Eddie, was always close to her. His father died of pancreatic cancer when Eddie was eight, and since that time he had felt like the man of the house. Lena even told him that he was, on occasion. One weekend when Eddie was seventeen and a junior in high school, he had a soccer game in town while his two brothers had soccer games away from home, so Lena sat down and discussed the situation with Eddie. She didn’t want to leave him home alone, she told me, not because she didn’t trust him, but because it might put him in an awkward situation with his friends; they might want to take advantage of a house with no supervision, seeing it as an opportunity to drink or party and forcing Eddie to have to say no to them. But he was a great student and had never given her trouble, so ultimately they decided together that he would stay home alone for the weekend. He promised her that he would be fine.
On that Friday, he invited a friend to stay with him and they watched a movie. Saturday the soccer game came and went and Eddie was excited because his team won. The victory qualified them for the state tournament. He went home Saturday night, put a frozen pizza in the oven, and invited another friend over. By nine o’clock the two were watching a movie when the doorbell rang. Two girls were at the door, one of whom had a crush on Eddie’s friend. The girls heard that the boys were home alone and had decided to stop by. Within a half an hour, five more juniors and seniors were at the door because one of the girls had texted her friends and invited them over. She knew Eddie wouldn’t mind; nice guys never mind. Within a one-hour period, forty kids showed up at his home, drinking beer, playing pool, and parking on the lawn. At midnight the police were called by neighbors and when they showed up, the kids scattered. The police ran through the house and found kids in every bedroom. They handed out more than ten citations for underage possession of alcohol—even to Eddie, who drank very little. He hadn’t brought any of the beer into the house, either, but that didn’t matter because it was his house.
When Lena came home Sunday morning, Eddie had cleaned the house fairly well but the living room couch and carpet were stained. The pool table top was torn and the lawn had deep ruts in it from the cars that had parked there. Lena was furious. She was angry with Eddie and all of the kids who had shown up. She phoned every parent of every teen who had come, and she told me that nine out of ten parents defended their kids with statements like “John would never have ruined your carpet” or “Alicia was at her friend’s house so I know for a fact that she wasn’t there.” All told, Lena spent hundreds of dollars and many days cleaning up the mess, but she only received five apologies from her son’s classmates and their parents.
So who’s to blame? Eddie? Lena? The girl who had the crush or the parents who refused to admit that their children would do any damage? All of them are to blame. Even good, smart, conscientious kids need to be protected. So, first, Lena was to blame for not putting safeguards into place for Eddie and for giving him too much responsibility. Second, Eddie was to blame for allowing the girls in the house. He knew they had cellphones and he knew that when kids get together, they party. Third, the girls were to blame for taking advantage of a nice guy like Eddie. Fourth, every kid who came over is to blame because they acted poorly. Even solid, responsible kids act crazy and disrespectful when they drink beer amid a pack of their partying peers. Finally, every parent who refused to hold his or her child responsible for the damage at Lena’s house was guilty. Of course they should have owned up to their kids’ faults and helped set things right.
But Lena was the first to blame because she allowed the whole mess to get put in motion. She did so because she was only thinking about how well-behaved her son was, not about how young he was. Yes, her son was a great kid, but being a wonderful and wise parent means recognizing that we’re living in a tough world where any kind of kid can get into all sorts of trouble, trouble that can hit our own doorstep in a second. The wise move would have been for Lena to find an adult to stay with Eddie that weekend. If she had had someone who was much older than Eddie stay with him in their home, all of the trouble could have been avoided. Or she could have closed the house and had Eddie stay at a friend’s home (provided the parents were home). One simple move like that would have spared all of them a lot of pain.
Lena thought, like most of us mothers would, that since her son was a “good kid” she had nothing to worry about. This might have been true a generation ago, but sadly, it isn’t today. Teenagers should never be left alone at home for weekends—regardless of what part of the country you live in or where your son goes to school—because the world we live in provides too many temptations for them and for their friends to act in ridiculous, irresponsible ways. Again, I must reiterate that our sons, regardless of their character, GPA, maturity, or good intentions, mustn’t be left alone for days. Not because they can’t be trusted but because they are surrounded by others who are looking for opportunities to party and will jump when they see one. And there’s one more reason. Boys who are left alone repeatedly get very lonely. We often see them as tough and strong but the truth is, many who are left behind by their parents feel anxious when left. Don’t let your son experience this.
On the flip side, as dangerous as it is to give our kids too much freedom too soon, the same is true when we stay overly involved in their lives. We need to find the balance between giving them too much room and smothering them.
Several well-respected authors have composed checklists for sons and mothers to help us understand if we’re hitting the balance right. For example, Dr. Kenneth Adams, author of When He’s Married to Mom (ouch), poses the following questions, aimed at the son:
“Do you often feel preoccupied about your mother’s unhappiness in her life?”
“Are you the most important person in your mother’s life?”
“Are you distant from your father?”
“Do you often escort your mother to social functions, or have you in the past?”6
At first glance, these questions can seem innocuous. What’s the big deal about a mother going to an event with her son? Or, why shouldn’t a son feel as if he’s the most important person in his mother’s life? Shouldn’t we all want our sons to feel that important?
The answer is, no. We want our sons to feel important, but when they feel that they are the center of our lives, that they consume us, we have crossed the line. I have often asked boys in my office about their mothers, and within moments of talking to some of them, I can sense that enmeshment is a problem. That is, the line between where they emotionally end and their mother emotionally begins is blurred. Boys who are enmeshed with their mothers find themselves feeling their mother’s feelings and worrying about her needs above their own. Also, they may think that they need to please their mothers or perform well for them in order to keep them happy. But boys can quickly become troubled if they feel that their mothers depend on them too much.
For example, I was recently at a speaking event and a tearful mother raised her hand after I had finished talking about parent-child relationships. “Dr. Meeker,” she said, “my husband and I divorced a few years ago when my son was seven. After my husband left, I was worried about my son, and my daughter who was five at the time. My son told me not to worry too much because he would be the ‘man of the house.’ When I heard him say that my heart broke, but then I told him that he was right. He could be the man of the house. I thought that by saying that, he would feel better about himself. Was I right?”
As hard as it was to cause her more pain, I told her that while her intentions were undoubtedly well-meaning, she had been wrong. Encouraging a son to be something that he is too young to succeed at puts far too big a burden on his shoulders. It sets him up to fail because there’s no way he can deliver. And it is not a son’s job at that age—nor should it be—to take care of his mother. While this woman’s son might have volunteered for that position, he was too young to understand what it would really mean, to be the man of the house, and she should not allow him to try. It would only cause their relationship terrible harm. I told her she needed to take back the reins and tell her son that she was in charge, not him, and that he should stop worrying about her. Equally important, she needed to stop leaning on him for support.
You can see how enmeshment creeps up on us when we’re trying to do the right thing. Her motives were right and she’s no doubt a great mom—but she needed to free him, let go of needing his support, and tell him that it was okay for him to let go of wanting to take responsibility for her.
As our sons mature, we must be tough enough to ask ourselves some hard questions like the ones posed by Dr. Adams. When your son is four, ask yourself, does he have a close relationship with his father? If not, are you what is keeping them apart? If the answer is yes, then you are fostering an unhealthy dependency; good mothers don’t isolate their kids from other relationships—especially relationships with the other parent!
When he is seven, ask if he worries about you too much. Many boys in first and second grade worry about their mothers dying, and this is normal. But when they can’t let go of their worry about your health or happiness, a red flag should go up in your mind, especially because there are ways a mother can subconsciously feed into this problem. When a mother wraps herself entirely into her children’s lives, she begins to blur the boundaries between her kids and herself. Many zealous mothers surrender all their free time to hauling their kids all over the country to athletic events, or spending every night helping them with their homework. This eventually puts a great burden on the son because he begins to feel that he is his mother’s whole world. He feels that she needs him in order to be happy and this burden is too great for boys.
If your son is older, perhaps married, you can ask yourself other questions, like: Does he ask my advice before asking his wife’s? If so, he may be telling you that your opinion is more important to him than hers, and that is dangerous territory. Does he call you for long chats three or four times per week even though he’s in college or working? Young men with healthy relationships with their mothers don’t lean on them to this degree. If they do, it’s because they feel awkward and isolated from their friends or other family, and that isn’t the way it should be.
In addition to asking questions about how our sons are doing, we can ask more personal ones concerning how we are doing. Dr. Margaret Paul, author of How to Become Strong Enough to Love, poses the following excellent guidelines we can use to find out if we are too enmeshed with our sons. Read the following statements below and see how many ring true for you.
• Your children’s good or difficult behavior and successful or unsuccessful achievements define your worth.
• Your children are the center of your life—your purpose in life.
• Your focus is on taking care of your children rather than taking care of yourself.
• Your happiness or pain is determined by your children.
• You are invasive—you need to know everything about what your children think and do.7
Dr. Paul concludes that if you identify with one or more of these symptoms, you might be enmeshed with your children. So, what do you do if you think you are overly controlling, overly “close,” or enmeshed with you son? The most important step you can take is to admit it. After that, I will tell you that it takes work. The good news for you is that once you get going in the right direction, life gets a whole lot better and a lot more fun—for you and for your son.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of how to accomplish the process of a healthy letting go. The first rule is to put in place (at least in your mind) a few safeguards. Here are three that I think work well.
As your son matures, find ways to give him independence, but always make sure that what you’re asking him to do is age appropriate. I frequently tell mothers of two-year-old boys that if their son is alive at the end of the day, they have succeeded as mothers. Anything beyond that is gravy. It seems that the sole focus of toddler boys is to try to find as many creative ways as possible to kill themselves: a light socket to poke a wet finger into, a drapery cord to wrap around his head, or a pot of boiling water on the stove to tip over his little body. I had one two-year-old patient climb on top of the family swing set and then crawl across the top of the monkey bars from one end to the other. He was far more interested in getting as high up as he could than on swinging in his swing. Fortunately, his mother got him down before he fell and broke his arm. Young boys can be walking tornadoes looking for ways to create chaos.
When he is three, teach him to ride a tricycle on his own but never let him go out into the street alone. When he is four, give him a chore to do in the house that isn’t dangerous. You’d never let him mow the lawn, but you might have him help you sweep the kitchen floor after dinner. When he is five, you could ask him to feed his baby brother, but make sure you are always in the room when he does. The key to giving him independent activities is to assess what his physical and cognitive skills are, and then gear his responsibilities toward that while keeping an eye on his progress. This can be tough because you may not always know what is an age-appropriate freedom. It might be helpful to ask a friend with an older kid or even a professional. And I recommend that you always err on the side of caution. If you aren’t 100 percent sure that your son can handle the task, wait awhile. And when you aren’t sure, pick projects or chores with little risk. Showing him how to do his laundry when he is eight may be a challenge, but he’s not going to hurt himself or anyone if he doesn’t get it right.
As he moves into the middle elementary school years, he’ll start to want more independence. He’ll want to go to a friend’s house to watch movies. He might want to stay with a friend alone while the friend’s parents are away. He is moving into a time of psychological growth where he feels invincible. This feeling intensifies as he moves into junior high; he will be so sure that nothing bad can happen to him that he will try to convince you of the same thing. It’s your job to remember that he isn’t indestructible. And just because your son reaches twelve or fifteen without any damage, that doesn’t mean he’s invulnerable. You know why the state won’t give him a driver’s license at thirteen. You know that even though he’s got a smart head on his shoulders, he’s still perfectly capable of doing really stupid things. So when you are giving him latitude, always ask yourself, What is the worst thing that can happen to him if he makes a mistake while doing this? If nothing life threatening or psychologically scarring can occur, then let him try it.
I’ve stressed this throughout the book: Mothers need to learn to trust their instincts more! Listen to that small whisper inside you, the one that tells you whether or not trouble is ahead. You know which of your son’s friends you trust and which you don’t. You know whether or not your son is ready to date, drive, ride a two-wheeler, or spend the night at a friend’s house. You may have other parents telling you to not be so afraid. They may tell you that you don’t want to be overbearing or too strict. Don’t listen to them. Listen to your heart. Many times, even well-meaning friends speak from their own insecurities or guilt, and you never want your son to have to pay the price for their issues.
If your fourteen-year old son wants to spend the night at a friend’s and you know that the parents won’t be home, forget what everyone else says. If your gut tells you not to let him do it, don’t let him go. Tell him that the reason you don’t want him to go to his friend’s house unsupervised isn’t that you don’t trust him; rather, tell him that the temptation for others to come over and make trouble is too great. Then find another way to let him do something independently. You could offer to drive him and the friend to a movie, dropping them off at the theater and picking them up when it’s over. Or you could have him invite some friends over and let them play pool in the basement without you hovering over them. If you recruit his opinions, you’ll be surprised what he comes up with. The two of you can find creative ways to help him go off on his own, but in a manner that sits well with you.
Sometimes it’s hard to know whether it’s our instincts we are following or something else. I have known mothers who allow their sons to travel every weekend for hockey or soccer tournaments but insist on staying with them, driving them everywhere and, in short, running the entire weekend. They say that they are simply enthusiastic and interested, but deep down they realize that they are controlling every detail because they don’t trust anyone else to take care of their son. These mothers might state with certainty that they act this way because they are listening to their instincts. I disagree.
Our instincts tell us when we’re doing the right thing for the right reasons, and they also tell us when we’re doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. Occasionally we will want to do the wrong thing for the “right” reasons—at least reasons that we have rationalized are right. But if we are honest with ourselves, we will quickly see that doing the wrong thing for the “right” reasons rarely justifies doing them. For instance, if we find out that one of our son’s friends bullied him, it would be wrong to post something nasty about the bully on any of his social networking sites. Sure, we may rationalize that the bully deserves it and that since our son won’t speak up, we must. But quickly our instincts (I hope!) should stop us from acting, because such a response would serve no one well.
In most situations we encounter with our sons, our instincts tell us how we should respond and what we should do. So when you are faced with a decision that you must make about your son and you feel confused, I encourage you to pull back from the advice of well-meaning friends and listen to what that small voice inside you is trying to say. Sometimes it is quiet, but if you pay attention longer, it will get louder. So many times you know what to do but you won’t because you doubt yourself. Don’t.
The best way to avoid this is to tell yourself that you understand your son better than anyone else. You know what he can handle and what he can’t. When situations arise where you need to give your approval, separate what others are doing from what you feel is best for your son. Then, and only then, make your decision. Finally, if you find yourself seeking advice from another but your answer is really in the question (“My son asked to go to a movie with his friend and I don’t approve of the movie. He really wants to go and all the other parents are letting their kids go, what should I do?”), then don’t ask it. You already know the answer; the real stumbling block for you is that you fear acting on your instincts. Be strong. Don’t parent from fear; do it from your sound thinking.
No matter what decisions we make for our kids, it is always important to make sure that our motives are pure. This is one of the safest ways I know to ensure that you are being a good parent. It is no secret that we are living in a culture that advocates selfishness. We are taught from the time we are young girls that we can have it all—we can be what we want, do what we please, and create a great life for ourselves. We learn that we should focus on finding out what makes us happy and then pursue those things. And if we find multiple things, we should pursue them all at the same time. For instance, when I was at a women’s college in the 1970s we were taught that we could have a demanding, stimulating sixty-hour-per-week career, raise four kids, and keep strong marriages alive all at the same time. So many of us tried but burned out and became unhappy because we found out the hard way that no human can do everything at the same time. Quite simply, we got tired trying to pursue happiness.
Careers, family, marriage, and hard work are all terrific things, and yes, they lead to happiness. But enjoying happiness in all these doesn’t necessarily mean pursuing them all simultaneously.
As far as creating the life that we really want, one with no obstacles and constant happiness, good luck! Yes, we can work hard and be successful at many things, but we can’t control our fate. It’s important to realize that we can be very happy despite not having that kind of power over our lives, that we can enjoy life by working hard and accepting what comes our way. We don’t need to control everything. Especially when it comes to our sons. As mothers, our job is to understand that our sons are a gift and that we have the privilege—for a short time—of loving them and providing all the positive things that we can to them. In order to do that, we must sometimes be willing to sacrifice our own desires and needs. Many mothers sacrifice for their sons easily, but for others sacrifice can be hard—particularly because we live in a culture that encourages women to do whatever they feel they must do in order to be happy, regardless of the cost. Selfishness in motherhood doesn’t work very well to foster healthy relationships with our kids because kids feel pushed aside and forgotten when a mother acts too selfishly.
Then again, acting like a martyr doesn’t help our kids, either. At the other end of the selfishness spectrum are mothers who believe that their only purpose in living is to care for their kids. We all know mothers like this. Mothers who throw themselves on the altar of martyrdom end up taking many down with them because kids don’t respond well when they believe that they are the reason for their mother’s existence. How can they separate from their mothers? How can they ever disagree with their mothers or upset them? Children of mothers with a martyr complex carry a very unhealthy sense of responsibility; if they become independent, they will leave their mothers with nothing to live for. This is far too great a burden for kids to bear.
How, then, do we find that balance between sacrificing for our sons and still maintaining a healthy independence from them, for our own sakes as well as theirs? Paying close attention to our motives for our behaviors with our sons is a great place to start.
Aimee was a full-time mother and loved staying home to be available for her son, Aiden. She drove him on field trips and to football games, made snacks for his team, and volunteered at the school office every other week.
Aiden was her third child and was a “surprise,” she said. Her two older children were grown and living on their own and she had many regrets over how she had raised them. “I was young and struggled with depression for many years when they were growing up,” she told me. “I was never available for them and I feel so guilty about that. I know that my depression was one of the reasons that neither of them fully reached their potential. Neither has settled down and my oldest son, who is twenty-five, can’t find a career. He just floats from one menial job to another. I’m not going to let that happen to Aiden.”
To compensate for “failing” her other two kids, Aimee threw herself into parenting Aiden. She made sure that he had an iPhone in case he needed to call her. If he didn’t have any organized games on the weekend, she asked if he wanted to have friends over, or she’d take him to dinner and a movie. From the outside, many other mothers envied their closeness.
One day I was talking to Aiden about his father. Were they close, too? What kind of things did he like to do with his dad, I asked. “I don’t get to do a whole lot with my dad. For one thing, he works a lot. And my mom’s not wild about some of his hobbies so she won’t let me go with him when he’s doing them. Like hunting. My dad loves to deer hunt. I’d like to go, but my mom thinks guns are dangerous so she won’t let me.”
This went on until Aiden was thirteen. Then Aimee brought him to me saying that he was “out of control.” “He rages,” she told me. “Sometimes he screams and yells so loud that I’m afraid the neighbors are going to call the police! And he’s broken things—he kicked a hole in the basement door a few days ago. He frightens me.”
After talking with Aiden, Aimee, and Aiden’s dad, it became clear that Aiden was rebelling only against his mother. Certainly, adolescent temper tantrums are not uncommon, but his explosions were far beyond those. Why? His mother was suffocating him. In her well-intentioned zeal to make his life good, she crossed the line into enmeshment. Making him happy became her life. She ignored his real need to be with his father. She ignored his natural need to separate from her. She parented with a laser focused on Aiden and, though he couldn’t articulate what was driving him crazy, he knew that his mother was asking something from him that he simply couldn’t deliver.
Aimee believed that she needed Aiden to be happy so that she could make amends for her past parenting “mistakes” (who knew if she really did make mistakes?) with her older two kids. When she and I got down to the nitty-gritty of what was going on, she found the strength to confront her motives behind her behavior toward her son. She stayed at home to assuage her guilt, not necessarily to be a better mother. She worked at school because she was nervous about being away from him. As she painfully recounted much of what she had done for Aiden over the previous four or five years, she realized it was her sense of need driving her, not a desire to make him a better young man. Admitting this hurt, but it was the only way Aimee was able to make some really necessary changes for the both of them.
Aimee decided to find ways to do things that were beneficial for Aiden and for her as well. She got a job at another school so that she could begin to emotionally peel herself off her son. Then she agreed to let Aiden go hunting with his dad. Those two very simple steps alone made enormous improvements in her relationship with Aiden. And guess what happened to his rage episodes? They began to quiet down.
Asking ourselves the tough questions is often the key to better living. In order to figure out your own motives for doing things for your son, here are a few questions to ask yourself.
• Why do I do ________________ for him? (put him in a certain school, sign him up for three extracurricular activities per term, buy him expensive clothes, always go with him and his friends on outings …)
• Do I do things with or for him in order to fill a void inside me?
• Do I do things for him in order to feel better about myself?
• Do I do what I do with or for my son because it’s best for him, or am I getting some secondary gain that may not be healthy?
Sometimes it is easier to reverse the questions and ask things like the following:
• Is doing _________ for him helping him become more independent?
• Does doing _________ for him encourage him to be a better young man?
• Does allowing him to _______ strengthen his character?
By answering these questions when you are deciding on a certain course for your son, you can figure out whether you are acting from your own need or because it is beneficial for your son.
If we can be strong enough to be honest with ourselves, then we are well on our way to great parenting. If you have difficulty uncovering your true motives, ask a friend or spouse for help. If they really love you, they’ll help you be honest. And maybe one day, you can return the favor and help them be honest with themselves, too.
No mother can truly be close to her son until she sets him free. This is a pain unique to the mother-son relationship. Fathers don’t have to let their sons go because psychologically, boys don’t feel the need to separate from dad. Because they are both male, as our sons grow older, they develop a different sort of relationship with their fathers. Similarly, we mothers don’t need to separate from our daughters the way we do from our sons, and our girls don’t feel the need to disengage from us to the same degree. Certainly daughters need to find their own identity and become independent, but, for example, understanding their sexuality doesn’t necessitate completely letting go of us. For a son to understand who he is as a man, to have a sense of his masculine sexuality and his masculine self, he needs to distance himself from his mother because staying close to her emotionally during that process feels too confusing and complex.
Similarly, we know that when a man gets married, he needs to sever some ties with his mother or he can’t have a healthy marriage. A daughter can stay emotionally close to her mother and have a strong marriage, but this is far more difficult for a son. Talk to a woman who is married to a man who hasn’t separated from his mother, and nine and a half times out of ten, you’ll find one unhappy wife.
As our sons grow up, we walk them through many stages of letting go. These are all trial runs for the final goodbye, which must take place when he is a young but fully mature man. That time may come when he gets married, moves across the country to take a job, or goes into military service. The circumstance of the “final goodbye” is different for each mother, but we all recognize the moment when it comes. It is that point when we fully realize that we are done. We have sweated, prayed, cried, argued, and spent ourselves to be the best mother that we could possibly be. Some of us arrive at this point with enormous regrets, much like the ones Aimee had about her older children. One thing is certain: When the time comes to fully let go, none of us is ready. It is always painful.
Watching him stand at the front of the church waiting for the love of his life to appear at the door in her white gown, or seeing him board a plane in full military uniform, will always catch a mother off guard. Our little boy no longer needs us. An emptiness that can take our breath away settles in. Our throats close and in those moments we see all the kisses we gave and the moments we yelled when we shouldn’t have. We hear his high-pitched giggle, and we remember the sight of his eyes welling up with tears. We realize that life with our son, as we have always known it, is over. It’s time to really let him go—to another woman, to his job, to the life that he has chosen for himself. We must let him walk away, whatever it costs us, because we have come to understand that he, God, or something else is fully in charge of his life from here on out. We aren’t.
As painful as this is, it is an extremely important rite of passage. Everything inside us will want to hold on to the past, to beg for life to return to the way it always was. But it can’t. Time moves forward, not backward, and we need to move with it. We can’t let ourselves hold on, because if we do, he will suffer. We want to hold on not for him, but for ourselves, because it hurts us to let go, and we must always remember that. But we must also remember the words of Father John Riccardo. He told me that it was at the moment that his mother gave him to God that he felt something deep and wonderful change in their relationship. He said that from that point forward, they enjoyed a new closeness that they had never experienced before. It was a closeness he knew they would never have had if his mother had not said goodbye to him.
Therein lies the great mystery singular to the mother-son relationship. It really is in the letting go of our sons that we get them back. They return to us as men who are free from our needs and confident in themselves. We have raised them and served them and after that time, a new period of life emerges. Now it is time for them to be men who want, among other things, to enjoy the company of their dear mother. They assume the duty of helping us when we are in need, of watching over us from a distance, of calling just to check in and make sure that we are well and feel loved.
As I have watched my own son grow into a great man, I have felt the gentle shift from being his mother to being his friend. He went through the teen years as most boys do. As a teen, he never wanted me to touch him in public and he distanced himself from me in ways that felt painful—but now as an adult, he lets me hug him wherever we are. And it never fails to thrill me. The great part about the passage of time is that it changes our sons and us, even if we don’t want it to. They grow up and we grow older. Affection is no longer peculiar for sons in their twenties, because they see through the lenses of men, not children, and that means that they see us differently. We are smaller in stature than they are. Our arms are thinner than theirs and the discrepancy in our physical strength is glaring. Sometimes when they note this, they become protective over us because they see our frailties. While my son jokes about my weaker thighs and arms, I see that there is also a realization that I am aging.
For my son, this really hit home as he watched my husband and me care for my aging parents during the last few years of their lives. My father had horrific dementia, and during the last five years of his life, he stayed close to us so we were able to help care for him. My son often stayed with my father while I took my mother on errands. When my father died, my son was nineteen, and he grieved deeply. Several months later I fell off a dock and was impaled on a metal rod anchored to the bottom of the lake. I got out of the water and promptly passed out. Within minutes, my son was hoisting me into his arms and helping to get me off to the hospital. My recovery was long and forced me to remain on my back for several weeks. During that time, my son was home on summer break and he took care of me. He lifted me from the couch when I needed to move, he cooked meals, and he made me a “bell” by filling a Ball canning jar with rocks and securing the lid. He told me to shake it when I needed something. (I tried not to take advantage of him by using it too frequently!)
Six months later, my mother passed away, and again, my son grieved. But in the months that followed, I began to see a part of him emerge that was unfamiliar to me. He called more frequently from college. Whereas he used to call with a specific purpose, after my parents died he called just to check in on me. “So how are you doing today, Mom?” he’d ask.
At first it felt peculiar, because I was always the one worrying about him. Did he get back to school safely? Was he making nice friends? Suddenly he was asking if I was happy, and after a while I became used to it. I found myself telling him what kind of day I really was having. I let go of worrying about his response because I knew he could handle my sadness. When he was younger, of course, I kept my fears and sadness hidden because I didn’t want to worry him. Now, as a man, that was changing and he was initiating the change.
Several years have passed since my parents’ deaths and the accident, and my son is now well into his twenties. He still calls me to check in but also fills me in on what is going on in his life. He went to Argentina to study for three months and I missed him terribly, but I also lived with a great sense of peace and pride that he was living his life the way he wanted to live it. I can honestly say that today we enjoy a closer relationship than ever before.
Something quite mysterious happens when a mother lets go of her little boy. She gets back a man—not just any man but one who shares her values, knows her flaws, accepts her weaknesses, and cares for her in a way that no other man can. He is her son and she is his mom.
And that is about as good as life gets.