Mothers and Sons

Posted on 3/12/13 by Grown and Flown

Lisa writes: Some of you might have girls living in your homes. You probably call them daughters. How often have you thought about how their presence changes your life? I grew up among brothers, and then birthed only sons, a different taste of life.

Being a mother of sons means that:

You get a glimpse of what the man you made babies with must have looked like before you met him.

You discover that ESPN truly is a 24/7 channel.

You are straightening the house for yourself, and while others in your family may join, they are humoring you.

You may watch your sons engage in violence that sets your teeth on edge. Their dad calls it hockey, football or wrestling. Mother’s of sons call it a chance to get hurt.

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Now I am Hearing Voices

Posted on 10/27/12 by Grown and Flown

Lisa writes: My kids shared a single bedroom. It was a big bedroom and they are all boys, so for our family, it worked. One of my greatest joys was listening to their chatter at night as they joked and laughed, ridiculed each other endlessly or, on a good day, helped each other with homework. Often there was the thudding sound of a ball banging against a hard surface and the inevitable crash of a desk lamp.

When the older two left for college, those joyous sounds were silenced. One teenage boy alone in a room, with an iPod and headphones can be very quiet….and then one day I heard it and for a moment it was all there again. I heard my youngest son laughing and chatting with his eldest brother—who I knew to be in his dorm room at school.
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Siblings Unrivaled

Posted on 6/4/12 by Grown and Flown

…we were a two decade long loving embrace, that in truth can never be the same again…

There is one aspect of parenting that I feel more strongly about than most others, and I have no explanation for why. I want my sons to be close, best-friend, always-there-for-each-other, close. I want them to have the kind of intimacy that comes with having spent a lifetime together, and I desperately want it to last. But why I feel this so passionately, why it ranks right near the very top of the list of things I hope for my family, I would struggle to say. Continue reading →