I am a mum to 2 little boys (1 year old twins). I’ve heard that when boys grow up they drift away and their mums rarely hear from them. I also heard a saying “mother of girls is always the mother, mother of boys is always the mother in law”
I love them both so much and it scares me to think that they will grow up and drift away. I guess I’m looking for reassurance that this isn’t the case.
34 comments
My mom is doing her PhD and I’m a workboi so naturally, we don’t have much time to talk to each other nowadays. We are not NC though. It’s just minimal interactions right now.
Im 20ft away right now
It’s a bit worrying that you’re of an age that you’ve got 1 year old boys yet are worried enough about “what you’ve heard” to post it on the internet.
Everyone is different, sons and daughters have different levels of contact and relationships with their parents. This shouldn’t be new news for someone that is old enough to be a parent.
Very.
>I love them both so much and it scares me to think that they will grow up and drift away. I guess I’m looking for reassurance that this isn’t the case.
I understand you love your boys, but don’t go overboard on keeping them close to you. The tighter you squeeze them, the more likely you are to drive them away.
I’m actually closer to my mom than to my dad. I can’t exactly tell you why, she has always been there for me and supported me, and at the same time respected my life choices, and we have a very close relationship.
My relationship has got worse with her and I don’t give a shit.
My husband gets along with his Mother and speaks to her weekly. My two boys who are now 27 and 21 call me every week and we text regularly. We live far apart so I don’t see them all the time but we have a close relationship despite the distance.
I’m 40m. We talk every morning. She calls me while she’s having her morning coffee. We talk about everything. I cherish our relationship.
I don’t talk to her at all. She chose my abusive father and I can’t be part of it.
Mom here. My son is almost 30 and we have always been quite close. He moved back to our hometown last year and I usually see him once a week but we have talked most days of his life, regardless of where each of us were. I am very happy with my place in his life – although I would happily give up my #1 spot for him to find a partner that recognizes how amazing he is!
My mother rarely talks to my brothers
Ah, don’t worry too much about that saying. Every person is different, no matter the gender. Some kids do drift away as they grow up, but many stay connected with their moms. As long as you nurture a healthy relationship with love, trust, and respect, there’s a good chance they’ll always be close to their awesome mom like you. Building a strong bond starts when they’re little and will only get stronger as they grow older. Keep being an amazing mom!
I am close, I try to call once every week or so.
When I was 18 and decided on my own to live separately while doing my mandatory enlistment she demanded I will call every two days. That didn’t happen. Once a month or two was what I decided was enough.
It was hard for my mom, because I left the nest.
After I had my son, I called more often and the visitation multiplied.
But each person and their relationship is different.
I have a friend who wishes his mother would die asap.
My mom is great, she’s so patient and understanding
…except for times when she loses her patience
… or doesn’t understand
It’s only depends on you. I genuinely care about 5 people : son, mother, 2 friends and brother.
They drift away because they aren’t 1 year old twins. They are adults. Treat them like adults and you will be fine.
Pretty close; I consider it an average amount of visitation/conversation, but everybody probably feels that way.
Your future relationship with your adult children is largely up to you. You will *not* maintain it by trying to keep them close; this will have the opposite effect.
During both childhood and adulthood, the less of a nagging pain in the ass you are to your sons, the better. It sounds obvious when it’s explained that way, but much of this is counterintuitive. If every phone call involves, “I never hear from you, you must need something,” you’re not going to hear much from them. If every visit ends with a complaint about why they can’t stay longer, or “I thought we were going to have more time for just us,” or an interrogation about when they’ll visit next, visiting you will become a chore.
I’m going to overstate this next part a bit, because it’s important. The #1 way to ruin your relationship with your children, is to interfere with their life choices. Where they will go to school, what career they’ll choose, who they date, and where they live. You will have strong opinions on all of these, of course; keep them to yourself. Let your children make their choices, even if those decisions are mistakes.
An especially stick area is the mom vs. partner/spouse arena. This is a tough one, as you’re only 50% of the equation here. Managing this balance takes a lifetime of patience and judgement, and you can ruin it forever in an instant. *Your sons should, and will, prioritize their partners over you.* You should want this. You will *feel,* very strongly, that you do not want this.
Put yourself in the “partner” position here. If your spouse is interrupting time with you to chat with their mom, or leaving you at home while they visit her, or constantly battling you about where to go away on vacation or schlep off to visit his family for every holiday, you’re going to quickly get resentful. You’d likely get a bit competitive, a bit abrasive, and maybe a little insecure. Your partner is likely to hear a lot about this, and you’re going to put him in the middle of a lot of tug-of-war situations.
You win this game by not playing. You lose it when you try to pull the leash, and make yourself a problem for your sons, an adversary to their partners, and an obstacle in their relationships. You will have had your sons basically all to yourself for ~18 years. Even here, the less grip you assert on them, the more willing and eager they’ll be to spend time with you.
Once they leave the house, you won’t be able to dictate their time anymore. It’s therefore *very* important that you learn to share early, and let them prioritize things for themselves, within reason.
Worst human I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing. I haven’t spoken to her in five years, and have no intentions of ever doing so again
I’d say I hate the woman, but she occupies no space in my mind. She doesn’t exist to me
My mom has been the only person in my life that i can trust. She is the only person i can be 100% open with and not have to fear getting it throw in my face, she is a damn saint and im glad i got lucky to have her as my mother.
My father abandoned me so she made sure i was never alone and found male role models to have in my life. If i wasn’t with my mom i was with one of my sets of grandparents, or my uncles and aunts. My mom did her best and i tell her that every time it crosses my mind.
We live like 50 miles apart, soon to be 250, but i call her every week and go see her twice a month. There is no one alive who will ever come between me and my relationship with my mother. She gave birth to me and has never made me doubt that she genuinely cares about me as a person. She could have abandoned me like my dad did but she didn’t.
So i guess in short, my mom was the best friend and best parent i could have ever had. So if you make your boys feel safe, confident and loved then that shouldn’t be a problem. She never made me feel trapped or suffocated and made sure i felt confident and comfortable to go out on my own after i turned 18, and i did.
NC
Your relationship with your children is entirely dependent on your interactions with them as you raise them. Parent-child relationships play out in every direction imaginable. Treat your boys well and appreciate them and then they’ll have the best chance of saying things like the comments that you’re looking for here to reassure you
About 9,000 miles.
I try to call mine once a week, and visit three times a year (since we live in different states, when we lived in the same one I tried to visit once a week).
>How close are you to your mum?
I’m not all that close, admittedly.
However, that wasn’t as a consequence of nature which you seem to be worried about. It was because she was *quite* overprotective, overbearing and strict, especially after she and my dad divorced when I was 10 (I’m now 25) and we (my sister and I) were under her care. She also had a “mother’s always right” attiitude, among other… quirks.
Now, I hold none of it against her (at least, not on an intellectual level); she was a single parent worried about her two kids, one of whom bulldozed her way into puberty and became as argumentative as her, being stressed out not seeing eye-to-eye with our dad, etc etc. I was all over her as a kid. But because of how she was into my adolescence, I gradually distanced myself emotionally over time, even despite her also being a nurturing, caring and loving parent.
All I’m saying is, there was a reason I made sure I picked a university that was *far* from my hometown and couldn’t wait to leave.
For the record, I’m actually even less close to my dad because he wasn’t all that present and he was the non- custodial parent post-divorce, so I saw him even less. But it’s also because of that distance that I have had far fewer contentions with him.
…
My point is, I didn’t just naturally drift away; there were tangible reasons that led to that. Many of them. I love my mum. Always have. I’ve been back living with her after I graduated. While not close, we are in a better place and part of that was the necessary time apart and part of it was me letting go of those resentments. She’s still somewhat overprotective and overbearing, but it’s manageable.
All of that is to say, I highly doubt your boys will just up and vanish once they grow up *just because*. If they do, there was a reason. But seeing as you’ve come here concerned about that possible outcome, I have faith that that reason won’t be you (and that it won’t happen at all). Being mindful of the way you interact with and treat your boys is key.
All the best 🙂
Very. I’m close to both of my parents.
Dont ever abandon your kids when they need you, my parents kicked me out of the house during a college midterm (Dad’s idea but Mom didnt really go to bat for me) he wanted me to fail out of college so I wouldnt out achieve him in life. I have an awful relationship with them now, I dont talk to my Dad at all and limited contact with my Mom its really awful. I ended up graduating getting a good job/career and just recently bought a house on my own so clearly im not a massive fuck up. I wish it was different
Our relationship has always been strained. She started fighting with me and screaming at me by age 5 and didn’t really stop until I turned 21. I’m 24 now and I keep my distance from her. I’ll go see her once every couple of months but not for very long. I love her and I’m trying to get over the abuse with therapy but as far as a regular ‘normal’ relationship with her? Not gonna happen. She told me when I had nowhere to go that I can’t expect to come home so I’ve been in shelters for 2 years. Yet she still calls me and wonders why I hardly say a word to her. Idk. It’s not worth it. She hurt me a lot and I can’t be around her for extended periods of time.
I love my mom, but I rarely text her to ask her how she is. I go back to my parents place on a regular basis +- 2 a month and make sure to give her a hug and a kiss. So don’t worry, the contact may be a little less but I love her forever and so will your boys love you forever.
I’m a mommy’s boy. Always will be.
I’m super close to my mom. Just feels right for me. She’s the only person I can talk to about almost anything. Yes, I’m a bit of a momma’s boy.
Wasn’t close with her at all. It had nothing to do with men growing up blah blah blah.
It had everything to do with how horribly I was treated compared to how well she treated my sisters.
I’m 41 and I disowned my mother years ago due to the way she treated my wife and also for how horrible she was to me when I was growing up. I don’t wish she was dead because that would be too easy. I would like to see her live a few more decades so she can reflect on her life choices a little longer and bask in the regret that I’m sure keeps her awake at night.
Me and my mum bathe naked and talk about life when my parents divorced while I was at univeristy. At first it was strange but then she said it’s just a body and I should see it as that. I help her in shmpooing her hair and putting soap on her back and she lets me walk around with an errection if that happens because it’s natural. My mum even let me sleep naked in the summer because of no air conditioning and she walks around in robe at home and even goes commando whe she is not on her period.
My dad is an old fasion conservative and has a “companion” who is also a prude and would refuse to let me watch women’s sport because they dress too revieling. I now understand why my parents divorced and happy to see them be themselves.