My Baby Boy

My baby boy – My Son

How long will you be my son, how long will you let me be your mother?

How long will you let me be a light in the dark?

The dark tunnel of growing up

My son

All my Sons

And Daughters

Happy to have a little baby boy, all wrapped up and cuddled in her arms – a mother’s every dream. A bundle of joy as we are all wont to say when we have a baby. The bond is deep, and it is real, for her and for her son and somehow it stays that way for quite a while.

All those precious first moments shared, for the mother shares most of her son’s life after all she is with him almost all the time. And, in her heart and eyes she keeps the first tooth, the first step and the first time he said mummy or daddy.

Mom and Baby Boy

And, then comes the day when she takes him herself to school for that first time and that first day – and he runs off while she is left weeping as if her heart would break.

“Mom of boys, less drama than girls – but harder to keep alive”

That gets to be the new norm as the days pass, he enjoys life at school while she is left worrying. Of course, after a while she gets used to it, but does she stop worrying, no, she never stops worrying.

Suddenly, that goodbye kiss is a shameful act him in front of his friends and as any well-read and open-minded mum you know that is right and good.

With the advent of the internet, our sons grow up too fast for their brains to catch up and before you know it, he is watching porn. And, there is nothing that she can do about it even if she catches him at it. At this point it is best to ignore, for he is not the only, all his friends are doing it too.

With the new-found discovery of his sexuality, he pulls away from his mother, for it is an engraved feeling that she knows what he is doing.

But if that was all, it would have been normal and just part of growing up. On the street with his friend or so-called friends – he starts to be initiated into life on the street – all the hows and whys.

Of course, just to fit in and to appear as manly as his friends in their distorted view he goes along with them. He is all excited to learn all about life that is not taught at home – life on the street with all what he thinks of as fun, manly attitude.

And they learn, teaching each other about the complicated labyrinth of catching up on the part of life that is solely his own.

And when he trips into a puddle that is way too deep, he still thinks it unmanly to ask for help, to ask his mother or father for guidance.

Mom and Boy – She knows

The struggle begins for him, and for his mother because she just knows. And she asks herself – How long will you be my son, how long will you let me be your mother? How long will you let me be a light in the dark.

And that is the crucial question, for that fine thread of communication should have been established from very early childhood for that little boy, now a man, to try and pull himself back from where he had gone. For even with that bond, he might find it difficult, but it is the only hope for our sons. The light in the dark, and the guide back to himself and to what he can accept for himself.