A couple of months before I gave birth, an ultrasound revealed that I was having a baby girl. I had a feeling all along that it was so but I prayed so hard for me to be wrong. I wanted a boy.
I did not harbor any illusions, and I still don't, that ours has ceased to be a man's world. It still is. Tilted towards their favor. Women will always to have to work harder and suffer more to earn a piece of it. I didn't want my child to face such a stark future. Hence, I was desperate for a son.
I didn't, however, factor into the equation that before the child sets sail to conquer this world, he/she is first and foremost mine. My child. My responsibility. What he/she will be like, a big part at least, depends on how prepared I make him/her for it. That is the truth about mothering. It is to watch over, nourish, protect our young. To do less is to cower from our instinct, to do more is to go overboard. Both lead to dire consequences. Yet mothers fall into the trap. Especially to that of the latter. When mothering turns into smothering. Particularly between mothers and sons.
Who knows what causes it. This solid, unbreakable bond between them. From where I came from, it is a widespread phenomenon. Young boys attach themselves to their mothers' armpits like glue. They cry for them, won't eat without them, choose them, any given day, over their fathers. We call them "Mama's boys".
Mothers, on the same token, dote on their other daughters but hover on their "boys". There's a certain extra sparkle in their eyes when they watch his soccer game, attend his PTA meetings, prepare his lunches. They naturally grow x-ray visioned, prying eyes as soon as the son becomes a teenager and starts to go out, enjoy sleep-overs and of course date girls. Mothers then become vicious critics of girlfriends, lambasting each one of them to the point where no woman is good enough for their sons. For to approve of a girl as good enough is to say, "you're as good as me" which is plainly unacceptable. When the inevitable time comes for their sons to settle down and marry, mothers in expected theatrical fashion bawl their eyes out as if the apocalypse has come. Some end up in the hospital. Most won't speak for days. Even death is better for these mothers. Each is in horrible pain thinking, "some cheap girl stole my son."
Mind you, in the middle of all these is the son, who would never admit that his mother is crossing some lines here, convinces others around, especially his wife, that his mom, is, well, going though a tough time. She needs understanding. Attention. Patience. And of course time to get used to it. The wife,meanwhile, absorbs the rejection, not to mention the snide remarks let loose by the cannon in-law. She stays in her corner, trying to swallow it all up, hoping for a reprieve that will never come. For over the years, there is no real let-up for her. The mother would still be spiteful, albeit in a guarded manner, possibly because of her grandchildren. The son would always defend her mother, mindless of her unreasonable demands which border the intolerable because she is his mother.
Mothers and sons. This is the way it goes in the their la-la land. May sariling mundo (they've got their own world)
One that involves too much drama, too much alienation, too much mush for me. I don't get it. And I can't take it.
Now I know why I was blessed with Sofia. Thank God for daughters. Thank God for mine.
