Tabitha Studer knows how important it is for parents to raise boys conscientiously, and so she complied a list of 25 rules for mothers of sons.
by Tabitha Studer
Originally appeared at Tabitha Studer’s blog, Team Studer. Reprinted with permission by the author.
Inspired by a Pin I’ve recently seen about “rules for dads with daughters,” I went searching for a similar list for moms with sons. This search was mostly fruitless, so I was inspired to write my own Rules for Moms with Sons. Granted, my list will not be conclusive and may not be entirely uncontroversial. So agree, or disagree, or take with a grain of salt – but I hope to inspire other moms who are loving, and struggling, and tired, and proud, and eager to support the boys in their lives. You are the most important woman in his life, his first teacher, and the one he will look to for permission for the rest of his life. From “Can I go play with them?” to “Should I ask her to marry me?” Its a big job, but as the mumma, we’re up for it.
1. Teach him the words for how he feels.
Your son will scream out of frustration and hide out of embarrassment. He’ll cry from fear and bite out of excitement. Let his body move by the emotion, but also explain to him what the emotion is and the appropriate response to that emotion for future reference. Point out other people who are feeling the same thing and compare how they are showing that emotion. Talk him through your emotions so that someday when he is grown, he will know the difference between angry and embarrassed; between disappointment and grief.
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2. Be a cheerleader for his life
There is no doubt that you are the loudest person in the stands at his t-ball games. There is no doubt that he will tell you to “stop, mom” when you sing along to his garage band’s lyrics. There is no doubt that he will get red-faced when you show his prom date his pictures from boy scouts. There is no doubt that he is not telling his prom date about your blog where you’ve been bragging about his life from his first time on the potty to the citizenship award he won in ninth grade. He will tell you to stop. He will say he’s embarrassed. But he will know that there is at least one person that is always rooting for him.
3. Teach him how to do laundry
..and load the dishwasher, and iron a shirt. He may not always choose to do it. He may not ever have to do it. But someday his wife will thank you.
4. Read to him and read with him.
Emilie Buchwald said, “Children become readers on the laps of their parents.” Offer your son the opportunity to learn new things, believe in pretend places, and imagine bigger possibilities through books. Let him see you reading…reading the paper, reading novels, reading magazine articles. Help him understand that writing words down is a way to be present forever. Writers are the transcribers of history and memories. They keep a record of how we lived at that time; what we thought was interesting; how we spoke to each other; what was important. And Readers help preserve and pass along those memories.
5. Encourage him to dance.
Dance, rhythm, and music are cultural universals. No matter where you go, no matter who you meet – they have some form of the three. It doesn’t have to be good. Just encourage your son that when he feels it, it’s perfectly fine to go ahead and bust a move.
6. Make sure he has examples of good men who are powerful because of their brains, their determination, and their integrity.
The examples of men with big muscles and a uniform (like Batman and LaMarr Woodley) will surround your son from birth. But make sure he also knows about men who kick a$s because of their brains (Albert Einstein), and their pen (Mark Twain), and their words (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), and their determination (Team Hoyt), and their ideas (The Wright Brothers), and their integrity (Officer Frank Shankwitz), and fearlessness (Neil Armstrong), and their ability to keep their mouths closed when everyone else is screaming (Jackie Robinson).
7. Make sure he has examples of women who are beautiful because of their brains, their determination, and their integrity
The examples of traditionally beautiful women (like Daphne Blake, Princess Jasmine, and Britney Spears) will surround your son from birth. But make sure he knows about women who are beautiful from the inside out because of their brains (Madame Marie Curie), and their pen (Harper Lee), and their words (Eleanor Roosevelt), and their determination (Anne Sullivan), and their ideas (Oprah Winfrey), and their integrity (Miep Gies), and fearlessness (Ameila Earhart), and their ability to open their mouths and take a stand when everyone else is silent (Aung San Suu Kyi).
8. Be an example of a beautiful woman with brains, determination, and integrity.
You already are all of those things. If you ever fear that you are somehow incapable of doing anything - remember this: If you have done any of the following: a) grew life b) impossibly and inconceivably got it out of your body c) taken care of a newborn d) made a pain go away with a kiss e) taught someone to read f) taught a toddler to eat with a utensil g) cleaned up diarrhea without gagging h) loved a child enough to be willing to give your life for them (regardless if they are your own) or i) found a way to be strong when that child is suffering...you are a superhero. do not doubt yourself for one second. Seriously.
9. Teach him to have manners
because its nice. and it will make the world a little better of a place.
10. Give him something to believe in
Because someday he will be afraid, or nervous, or heartbroken, or lost, or just need you, and you won’t be able to be there. Give him something to turn to when it feels like he is alone, so that he knows that he will never be alone; never, never, never.
11. Teach him that there are times when you need to be gentle
like with babies, and flowers, and animals, and other people’s feelings.
12. Let him ruin his clothes
Resolve to be cool about dirty and ruined clothes. You’ll be fighting a losing battle if you get upset every time he ruins another piece of clothing. Don’t waste your energy being angry about something inevitable. Boys tend to learn by destroying, jumping, spilling, falling, and making impossible messes. Dirty, ruined clothes are just par for the course.
13. Learn how to throw a football
or how to use a hockey stick, or read music, or draw panda bears (or in my case alpacas), or the names of different train engines, or learn to speak Elvish, or recognize the difference between Gryffindor and Slytherin, or the lyrics to his favorite song. Be in his life, not as an observer but as an active participant.
14. Go outside with him
turn off the television, unplug the video games, put your cellphone on the charger, even put your camera away. Just go outside and follow him around. Watch his face, explore his world, and let him ask questions. It’s like magic.
15. Let him lose
Losing sucks. Everybody isn’t always a winner. Even if you want to say, “You’re a winner because you tried,” don’t. He doesn’t feel like a winner, he feels sad and crappy and disappointed. And that’s a good thing, because sometimes life also sucks, no matter how hard (as moms) we try to make it not suck for our kids. This practice will do him good later when he loses again (and again, and again, and again, and again…..) Instead make sure he understands that – sometimes you win – sometimes you lose. But that doesn’t mean you ever give up.
16. Give him opportunities to help others
There is a big difference in giving someone the opportunity to help and forcing someone to help. Giving the opportunity lights a flame in the heart and once the help is done the flame shines brighter and asks for more opportunities. Be an example of helping others in your own actions and the way your family helps each other and helps others together.
17. Remind him that practice makes perfect.
This doesn’t just apply to performance-based activities (like sports and music) but also applies to everything in life. You become a better writer by writing. You become a better listener by listening. You become better speaker by speaking. Show your son this when he is just young enough to understand (that means from birth, folks – they are making sense of the world as soon as they arrive), practice trick-or-treating at your own front door before the real thing. Practice how you will walk through airport security before a trip. Practice how you order your own food from the fast food cashier. Practice, practice, practice.
18. Answer him when he asks, “Why?”
Answer him, or search for the answer together. Show him the places to look for the answers (like his dad, or grandparents, or his aunts/uncles, or his books, or valid internet searches). Pose the question to him so he can begin thinking about answers himself. Someday, when he needs to ask questions he’s too embarrassed to ask you – he’ll know where to go to find the right answers.
19. Always carry band-aids and wipes on you.
especially the wipes.
20. Let his dad teach him how to do things
…without interrupting about how to do it the ‘right way.’ If you let his dad show and teach and discover with your son while he is growing up, some day down the road (after a short period of your son believing his dad knows nothing), he will come to the realization that his dad knows everything. You will always be his mother, but in his grown-up man heart and mind, his dad will know the answers. And this will be how, when your son is too busy with life to call and chat with his mom, you will stay connected to what is happening in his life. Because he will call his dad for answers, and his dad will secretly come and ask you.
21. Give him something to release his energy
drums, a pen, a punching bag, wide open space, water, a dog. Give him something to go crazy with – or he will use your stuff. and then you’ll be sorry.
22. Build him forts
Forts have the ability to make everyday normal stuff into magic. Throw the couch cushions, a couple blankets, and some clothespins and you can transform your living room into the cave of wonders. For the rest of his life, he’ll be grateful to know that everyday normal stuff has the potential to be magical.
23. Take him to new places
Because it will make his brain and his heart open up wider, and the ideas and questions and memories will rush in.
24. Kiss him
Any mother of sons will tell you that little boys are so loving and sweet. They can be harsh and wild and destructive during most of the day. But there are these moments when they are so kind and sensitive and tender. So much so that it can cause you to look around at the inward, reserved grown men in your life and think, ‘what happens in between that made you lose that?’ Let’s try to stop the cycle by kissing them when they’re loving and kissing them even more when they’re wild. Kissing them when they’re 2 months and kissing them when they’re 16 years old. You’re the mom – you can go ahead and kiss him no matter how big he gets – and make sure he knows it. p.s. (this one is just as important for dad’s too).
25. Be home base
You are home to him. When he learns to walk, he will wobble a few feet away from you and then come back, then wobble away a little farther and then come back. When he tries something new, he will look for your proud smile. When he learns to read, he will repeat the same book to you twenty times in a row, because you’re the only one who will listen that many times. When he plays his sport, he will search for your face in the stands. When he is sick, he will call you. When he really messes up, he will call you. When he is grown and strong and tough and big and he feels like crying, he will come to you; because a man can cry in front of his mother without feeling self-conscious. Even when he grows up and has a new woman in his life and gets a new home, you are still his mother; home base, the ever constant, like the sun. Know that in your heart and everything else will fall into place.
If you enjoyed this you might enjoy Tom Matlack’s 10 Reasons I Love My Wife and
25 Failsafe* Rules for Dads Raising Daughters
For more from Tabitha Studer, visit her blog, Team Studer.
Lead photo courtesy of Dave Goodman
About Tabitha Studer
Man, people come with agendas, don’t they?
As someone who really liked this article, I still don’t think that the criticisms against it have quite been agenda-pushing, for the most part. It’s just people reading what is a very personal, and somewhat prescriptive, article and thinking about it through their own personal lens.
Well said, Heather.
Thanks. And I’ve been thinking about our other exchange quite a bit. I’m curious, if the title were changed to “25 Rules for Straight Moms with Sons,” would that solve the problem for you? To me that would sort it out, without having to change anything in the actual article. It’s an acknowledgement that the list conforms to heteronormativity, and an acknowledgement that a list of suggestions for non-straight parents would be different.
No, of course not. Why should straight moms have different rules from gay or non-straight moms (or dads, for that matter)? It’s not like straight parents have straight kids and non-straight parents have non-straight kids – it doesn’t work that way. I just think parents shouldn’t assume that their children will have the same orientation they do, so for a mom to say, “his wife will thank you” is a big assumption. It would be just as big an assumption for a non-straight parent to say of a son, “his husband will thank you”. Savvy?
Perhaps I should have explained…when I said different rules, I meant more than the rules would be phrased differently, but essentially contain the same thing. I was thinking more about rule number 20, when I said that…and about how it implied that a man and a woman were raising the kid. So then a title change could sort of clear it up…by saying – hey, we recognize this is directed at straight people.
I’d clean forgotten about the “his wife will thank you,” bit. A whole day passed…I can’t be expected to remember things a day later (lol). Yeah obviously a title change doesn’t address that.
Maybe we should just use a general term like, they’re partner will thank you. lol
Very wise for a 28 year old mom! My son sent this to me with a thank you, which, of course, made me a bit weepy when I read it.
As a mother of two adult sons, respecting their “home base” is with their wife or significant other is essential to their continual growth. I just stand back and smile.
It’s funny, because I just posted, basically, a complaint post about my boys. And then, when I was done, I went around on my blogroll, came to A Design So Vast, and linked up to this. I needed this. Thanks.
Good article! One small point that is really a sidetrack. Batman is mentioned for his muscles but I always liked him because he was the one superhero with NO superpowers. He used his brain and self discipline to win. Like the Boy Scouts he always had a plan!
HI, I LOVE YOUR THOUGHTS AND 25 RULES FOR RAISING BOYS!! YOU ARE A KIND PERSON AND RECOGNIZE WHAT IS GOOD TO PASS IT ALONG TO OTHERS!! KEEP SMILING AND YOUR SONS WILL THANK-YOU SOME DAY!!
Beautiful. Thank you for giving credit for your picture sources. The picture for #24, kiss him is our niece Anne and her son
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I really liked this article! I have a very busy two- year old little boy. I love how the article mentions to let them get dirty, put away the cell phones and watch them play, and helps me feel like I am not the only one with a boy that has no fear. Thanks for writing it and sharing your ideas!
This is lovely—and I’d say the same would go for raising daughters. As someone without kids thus far, I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it is to find the right balance between protecting your child and letting them explore, learn, and sometimes even fail on their own.
I especially love the bit about teaching your child to be gentle, and introducing your child to men and women whose contributions soar far above much of what any of us see in popular media.
Lots of love, cuts and scrapes, muddy boots & clothes, teaching life lessons and history (and by extension learning along with your child), accepting defeat, celebrating success—all good things. I hope someday I get to share all these experiences with my own kids.
Thanks for posting this. My son is 15 and this makes me feel like I didn’t screw up.
I enjoyed reading this, actually i cried a bit
I laughes at #3, and got a little water-eyed at #25. But the best was “Because he will call his dad for answers, and his dad will secretly come and ask you.”
Can I begin again? I’d like to think I did all this, but would dearly like another go. In the midst of the battles of everyday life, so much of the ideal slips away in the mud. And then there is the personality factor–in which a boy may choose to embrace or reject what has been lovingly taught. But then that is the part of being mother the she keeps silent in her heart.
Thank you for this. It is beautiful nonetheless.
Christine London
author
Anything that will help produce a well respected man from any home is what’s important. There are many coming from broken homes, gay, straight, single, married, religious, non religious etc.. no agenda, no angle – just esteem building for young boys to grow into solid young man…
This is a really great list but I take issue with # 6. Make sure he has examples of good men who are powerful because of their brains, their determination, and their integrity.
Specifically:
“The examples of men with big muscles and a uniform (like Batman and LaMarr Woodley) will surround your son from birth.”
Just no. Superman or a professional athlete is no substitute for a physically strong, present, male role-model. Not even a comparison.
With the exception of the disgusting pig toads (my apologies to real toads and pigs – you are just lovely) without any morality (John Edwards, the Secret Service branch in Colombia) and the extremely arrogant (everyday men I see), most men are quite wonderful. A lot of mothers failed…like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s or John Edwards’ or Herman Cain’s. If those were my sons I would be sad everyday at how badly I failed.
As I suggest below, I don’t think mothers automatically deserve the blame when their sons do something wrong. I don’t think parents automatically deserve all the blame when anyone does something wrong, especially when the men are in their 50′s!
I’m calling an arbitrary statute of limitations on blaming the mom for a man’s misdeeds. After you reach the age of 50, no more blaming your parents for anything. I’ll take my parents to task for my being seriously messed up when I was 18. Now that I’m in my 40′s, I’m starting to think I might be the one to blame for the problems in my life…..
Why are the mothers to blame? What about the fathers?
Great stuff and terrible stuff here. I’m not a parent, but I was a boy. My reaction is of course through the lens of my own personal experience. I can best sum up my take on this with a more comprehensive rule:
Rule #26: Get over yourself. You are not actually a Mother Goddess.
Approach parenthood with some humility. You will never have complete control over the way that he grows up. He will become what he becomes because of you and despite you. Your son is still a distinct human being with his own personality and will ultimately be in charge of his own fate. The good news is that you don’t have to put all the blame on yourself when he turns out differently than what you wanted.
Do not try to become his hero, and do not ever imagine that you are the center of his entire universe. Don’t let your own ego dictate what you want him feel about you. Do not assume that your imagination of his future is his actual future. Trying to be his bestest friend ever is a fool’s errand, and it is ultimately incompatible with being his parent while he’s growing up. Friendship is for peers, not for your children.
Be careful and clear about the assumptions that you are bringing into his life. You do not know for sure if your son WILL ever get married, and if he does you can’t assume he will be marrying a woman, and you should not assume that he will be a parent when he grows up. Don’t assume that because you teach him your values that therefore he will have your values when he grows up.
I really did like most of the list. I am enthusiastically in favor of the ones that support your son’s individual expression and giving him room for his feelings and allowing room for more than one way to do something. I like the idea of promoting a wide range of role models and letting him play in the ways that he likes. I also have a soft spot for lists that remind us that boys are not monsters, and they are not failed attempts at being girls.
I think my main problems with the list boil down to the fact that this is not really written with men as an audience, so my response is as an outside observer. As a childfree man and former son, I am basically eavesdropping on a rally that I was not invited to.
This is a list to give emotional support to mothers who may feel like they’re struggling, so of course the humor at the expense of men makes some sense. If they’re struggling, they may feel better about the situation if they are told they have a lot of control and they have the best job in the world and that no one else can do the job like they can. (However many doubts you have about being a mom, at least you’re not as clueless as his dad, right?) The nature of the article is to be mother-centric, so of course the language will be mother-centric and may come across as a pretty self-congratulatory to someone not in the target audience.
I think you are an exceptionally thoughtful mother and writer. I was divorced when my son was 3 and I was unprepared to raise a boy. We did the best that we could, struggling to learn most of these lessons the hard way on our own and I am proud of my son. I believe it’s never too late and I see that there are places were I can still grow and become a better mother. If I were a young mother I would print out your article and pin it up inside my kitchen cabinet where I could see if often and profit from your good advice!
thank you for this … i needed it today. as a mama to a 6-year-old, these words are so uplifting. i would suggest, though, that #7 and #8 should read, “powerful and beautiful” … i think many people still mitigate the power that women hold (especially in relation to their sons) because the masculine-affinity that the word “power” generally holds in our society. there is also a part of me that shirks from the inclusion of “beautiful”, implying that “beauty” is more relevant for women in our sons’ lives than “power” is … ahh well, who am i kidding, our boys will find beauty appealing …