After watching my mother and one of her friends write their way around the mommy-blogging circuit, I had a realization: mothers are under the misapprehension that there is some reason that their grown sons are not communicating with them. Rest assured, we’re typically not keeping anything particularly important from you. After all, a significant portion of my day is usually spent texting dumb jokes to my friends, planning the optimal time to go to Chipotle, and staring at walls.
I was hoping to clear up some things for all of you mothers of grown sons out there, so you don’t have to bug your sons about them. Bros, you’re welcome – this should buy you at least a few minutes of extra staring at the wall time.
4 Things that Grown Sons Wish Their Moms Understood
1. No, we didn’t read the article that you sent us.
Here’s a Venn diagram that explains how the universe of articles on the internet appears to your son:
The articles you send us exist in Zone A and Zone B.
Zone A: You have to understand – your son spends a gratuitous amount of time on the internet. He’s reading it in class, at work, on the subway, on the toilet, when he’s alone, when he’s with friends, and, as you well know, when he’s with you. That article you found on his favorite band? He read it three days ago. The one on his favorite sports team? He wrote that article. It doesn’t go unnoticed when you take an interest in the things we like, and we certainly appreciate it. That being said, leave the internet exploring to the experts.
Zone B: This is the e-mail equivalent of nagging, except that we have the option of just deleting it. He’s voting for Bernie Sanders – the ten articles you sent last week aren’t going to convince him it’s a bad idea. No matter how unsafe hoverboards are, he still wants one. ISIS could be on our doorstep, but he has to leave his apartment or dorm at some point today. Again, it’s lovely that you’re concerned for and thinking about us, but there’s a reason we don’t read CNN Health as religiously as you do. We’re not as nervous as you are.
2. Yes, we’re dating somebody, trying to date somebody, or thinking about trying to date somebody. You will be apprised of the situation when we deem it appropriate.
Dating is hard. Not only do you have to find somebody who’s interested in you, but you then have to put on clean clothes, brush your teeth, and act like a human for at least an hour. Moms complicate things – you want a biography of the person we’re wooing when we’re still trying to figure out whether we’re interested in him or her.
Frankly, this probably works out in your favor. Rather than losing sleep over a potential flame that quickly dies out, you can save your lost sleep for the important ones. We know how much you value your sleep, after all.
[More on what moms of grown sons want their kids to know about THEM here.]
3. Before you ask us a question, Google it.
Google is a wonderful tool – think of it as a coalition of all the sons in the world, combining forces to solve the problems of all the mothers. When you can’t figure out why your iPad is doing that thing it’s doing, the name of the song that goes like this, or the days we’re off for winter break, just type it into the search bar on your computer. It takes just as much time as typing it into the text bar in Messages on your iPhone, and it won’t disrupt whatever we’re doing (probably something important, like staring at the wall).
4. We love and miss you.
You influenced who we’ve grown into more than you might realize. Before we make stupid decisions, your disapproving face flashes before our eyes, although sometimes we go ahead with them anyway. When we’re out meeting potential partners, we’re wondering if you’d approve of them. Although we may not call enough, it’s not because we’re not thinking about you – it’s just that we don’t want to bore you with the minute details of our lives (or conversely, bore ourselves relaying them to you).
Oh, and one last piece of advice – don’t send this article to your son.
Eric Fischer graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013 and currently attends Georgetown Law, where he is in his third year. If you want to learn more about him, read some of his mother’s articles, including this one, or find him on Twitter.
