SRP Radio Podcast

The View From Below

grunge-flag-header

Advice For Women, Part Two: Memo To Moms

by · Published · Updated

SRP Radio Podcast segment

A version of this piece was recorded for the

SRP Radio Podcast.

Stream or Download

[siteorigin_widget class=”Jetpack_Subscriptions_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget]

Saturday Nights Fever

man frustration saturday nights

Mothers, DO NOT HABITUALLY CALL YOUR ADULT SONS LATE ON SATURDAY NIGHTS! No good, and a whole lot of harm, can come from this behavior.

The reasons for this seem obvious. But some mothers live in a permanent solar eclipse and are unable to recognize something that is as plain as daylight. This memo is for them.

To these shadowy individuals, I posit the following questions:

  • When, in the history of mankind, has a healthy, adult male ever preferred spending Saturday nights on the phone with his mother to spending that time with his wife, his girlfriend, or his buddies (looking for a girlfriend)?
  • What overall message are you sending to your adult son (not to mention the other women in his life) by regularly calling him late on Saturday nights?

I cannot think of a scenario in which it is appropriate for a mother to regularly call her healthy, adult son late on Saturday nights.

  • If he has a wife, then her needs take priority.
  • If he has a girlfriend, then her needs take priority.
  • If he has neither, then his needs take priority.

Just as surely as God created a day of rest, God also created a night of passion. And in most societies, that night is Saturday. (Notice how God, in his infinite wisdom, created a day of rest immediately following a night of passion.) On that night, your son is either pleasuring his wife, his girlfriend, or himself. This is normal, healthy behavior for a man, and part of what makes the world turn.

When your son is engaged in these activities, and the phone rings and it’s his mom, his first thought is, “Who died?” When he realizes that you just called to say hi, he will be angry. You have just ruined his ability to please anyone for the rest of the night, including you.

Imagine that you had a special night set aside on a regular basis for Sean Connery or Fabio or The Three Tenors to come over and clean your house and give you a pedicure, and your father kept interrupting these encounters. Wouldn’t you be angry?

In time, Sean, Fabio, and Triple-T would most likely tire of these interruptions and stop coming by. Wouldn’t you then despair of ever seeing your house uncluttered and your toes untangled? Or maybe this has actually happened to you, and it accounts for your behavior with your sons.

If you are having a genuine, once-in-a-lifetime emergency late on a Saturday night, then yes, by all means, call your son. This will not upset him. In fact, he will enjoy coming to your rescue. It will boost his masculinity.

But these types of emergencies are few. In fact, I can think of only two:

  • Your cat has climbed into a hole in the wall and can’t get out;
  • YOU have climbed into a hole in the wall and can’t get out.

[su_pullquote]
Just as surely as God created a day of rest, God also created a night of passion. On that night, your son is either pleasuring his wife, his girlfriend, or himself. This is normal, healthy behavior for a man, and part of what makes the world turn.
[/su_pullquote]

Again, this is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. You get one free pass, and that’s it!

You may be tempted to create false alarms. Don’t do it! Unless you gave birth to an idiot — which may be the case if you were living or working at a mental institution or a Republican convention when he was conceived — your son will see through this ploy. As days of rest follow nights of passion, he will respond in exasperation with variations on the rhetorical question, “And just what do you expect me to do about that!?”

Examples of popular wolf-crying techniques with aging mothers, as well as what they can expect their sons to say in response:

  • “My cable just went out during The 700 Club!” (“Read your Bible.”)
  • “I can’t get to sleep!” (“Take a Tylenol PM.”)
  • “I think I’m having a heart attack!” (“Dial 911.”)
  • “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” (“Use your Life Alert.”)

Ironically, mothers who do this sort of thing rarely recognize their own pathology. That means that they will read this memo and think that they and their sons are exceptions to the rule.

If this is you, then I invite you to go several Saturday nights without calling your son. See if he ever calls you late on a Saturday night. If he does, then he may be too far gone. Invite him to move back in with you, and have a celebratory piece of Sara Lee cheesecake.

Tags:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *