I know I always harp on how uncommunicative boys are as they get older, but this personality defect ends up effecting both the wife and the mother.
The other night as I flipped through the channels, I was drawn into a new sitcom, “The Middle.” The mother, played by Patricia Heaton, is running the snack bar at her high school-aged son’s basketball game. A pretty cheerleader named Morgan stops at her table and moons about her boyfriend who’s on the team. With that news, she points to none other than Axel, Heaton’s son. How long have they been going out? Six weeks. “He leaves me love notes daily,” the girl tells a shocked Heaton, who had no idea her son even had a girlfriend.
If you think such a premise is preposterous, then I’m pretty sure you aren’t the mother of a son. Yet.
Heaton goes home and tells her husband about the girl, and says she doesn’t trust her. (Girlfriends can relate to how they have to prove themselves over and over again before being accepted by his mom.) The doorbell rings. It’s Morgan who, being the perfect companion for their son, is carrying a basket of homemade muffins and says something like, “I know you have a ton of questions and I’m here to answer them. But for starters, we don’t have sex.”
Instantly, Heaton’s distrust turns to LOVE.
So what happens next? Most moms could have written the script. The girl breaks up with the son, who is left brokenhearted and, for a brief moment, seeks out his mom for comfort. This hasn’t happened since the days he thought girls were yucky.
The time is fleeting though and Heaton knows it. She also realizes that the next time her son has a girlfriend, she’ll still be the last to know.
Meanwhile Morgan, as the girlfriend, knows that she has to show his mother that she can be as nurturing and loving as she is. Hence, the muffins. But she also knows that the second she breaks off the relationship with the son, even if he’s the reason for the it, Mom will find fault with her.
Imagine what would happen if the boys actually opened up to both women?
