Mother’s Day! It’s a day to celebrate the women who raised you, and if you’re currently in the process of raising kids, it’s a day to accept some homemade cards and extra kisses. If you don’t have brunch reservation, you’d better hope that breakfast in bed is pretty tasty and not at all full of bits of eggshell.
When golfer Bubba Watson burst into tears and hugged his mom after winning his first Masters tournament, he inspired a slew of editorials about when and whether it was okay for men to cry. What year is this? Stereotypically, mama’s boys have a bad rap, likened to maladjusted Norman Bates types or weaklings. We have a problem with this. And so does Kate Stone Lombardi, whose new book, The Mama’s Boy Myth, documents how boys with close relationships to their mothers have a higher emotional intelligence and better mental health than those who don’t.
So set aside an hour or so for mother-son QT. Some suggestions: Take your boy to a side-by-side art class, have a good chat over hot chocolate at a family friendly café, or go on a hike. Teach them that real men cry, do housework, and share how they’re feeling, and they’ll never be too old to seek comfort from their moms. Oh, and the new generation of mama’s boys has nothing to do with that new TLC show, Mama’s Boys of the Bronx. Those are just man-children who don’t want to do their own cooking and laundry. Read more...
5. Speaking of changes once you become a mom, what about all the weird things pregnancy does to you? Check out how Hilary Duff handles the hormonal changes she experiences while pregnant:
3. An L.A. mom brings her kids to the Occupy protests because, “The children have been aware of our bankruptcy and unemployment problems, and I hoped that seeing other people who have been similarly affected would give them a sense of being part of a larger whole.”
5. Tennis legends as kids is pretty cute, but it feels weird to only show the boy legends. (Yes, we see that it’s for the Stockholm Open which is a men’s tournament, but still. It hasn’t been the best year for woman-friendly tennis ads, and we were under the impression that with a bounty of kickass women tennis stars, it was a pretty gender-equal sport.) Read more...
