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Original poster

To wonder how close a mother and son can be?

162 replies

Twasthecatthatdidit · 05/04/2016 11:20

Ok, this has been done sooooo many times before.... But have just found out I'm having a second boy. Not planning a third and certainly not for the sake of trying for a girl so that's that, no daughters. And I can't help feeling a bit gutted, which I wasn't expecting. Now I do look at his perfect little scan picture and feel a bit better. But feeling sad I'll never have that mother daughter relationship. My brother does live near to mum and sees her a lot, but wouldn't have the same relationship as she has with her daughters. And my Dh is v good at keep at keeping in contact with people but would hero worship and be much closer to his dad - doesn't really see his mother's point of view (although he would deny this). So I'm not ruing an opportunity to buy dresses ( I'm not a girly girl) but more than close adult relationship. Do sons ever really "get" their mothers? Will there ever be lunches and spas?!

OP posts:
Shockers · 05/04/2016 17:44

I have lunches with all three of my children (28,17 &16), and they often choose to come to the leisure club with me for a swim/spa.

My eldest phones me several times a week and can be on the phone for an hour plus. Tomorrow evening, my youngest and I are going for dinner and to the theatre. On Saturday, I will be at a football match with my middle child. I have had individual holidays with all three.

My middle child is my only girl.

As long as you are happy spending time with your sons, they will be happy spending time with you.

Unless they're 15... then they will be far too cool to be seen with you Grin.

Original poster
Twasthecatthatdidit · 05/04/2016 18:01

Music isn't traditionally feminine? Thinking of enrolling ds is a dance/drama school as it is (he likes to perform). Fashion and make-up fine by me. Just dreading gaming (but I'll psyche myself up for it if need be!)
Anyway, getting my head round it more as the day goes on. Just hope he makes it safely into my arms now.

OP posts:
Original poster
Twasthecatthatdidit · 05/04/2016 18:04

Well fashion would be OK as long as it didn't involve long shopping trips. I can't envisage loving that with anyone!

OP posts:
junebirthdaygirl · 05/04/2016 18:13

Have a friend with 2 grown up ds..one loves to cook and makes her fabulous dinners. She follows the same team as the other one and they go to all the matches together. They call her as often as my dd calls me. And they're tidier. My dd is like a whirlwind through the house and has so much stuff. Your kids are your kids. You find ways of relating to them all depending on their personalities.

ollieplimsoles · 05/04/2016 18:16

Don't let the mil threads put you off op!

I have many male friends who only have brothers and they are wonderfully close to their mums, and their mums are wonderful caring people.

ollieplimsoles · 05/04/2016 18:18

shockers

You sound like an awesome mum

LikeDylanInTheMovies · 05/04/2016 18:21

Trying to imagine my mother and sister at a Spa or having a long lunch together...the awkward silences punctuated by stilted attempts at conversation. They haven't fallen out, they're just very different people. If my mum wants a gossip or to blow off steam, she'll call me (her son) who is more alike in temperament.

Spa days with my sister? The whole thing is almost absurd as the idea of me going to the pub with my dad.

Chippednailvarnish · 05/04/2016 18:32

I'm hoping my brilliant, funny, gaming, rugby playing DD will have far more interesting places to spend time with me as an adult than a poxy spa.

The more you post OP the more depressed I feel.

corythatwas · 05/04/2016 18:35

OP, could you answer my question: would you expect a dd to relate to the world in the same way as you do, to experience femaleness in the same way as you and to "get" you on some kind of feminine level- and how would you react if she didn't?

Badders123 · 05/04/2016 18:39

Threads like these sadden me tbh.
I have 2 sons who I am very close to, which I hope continues as they get older.
On a personal level, I was far far closer to my late father than my mother,

Badders123 · 05/04/2016 18:39

....despite my gender!

Strokethefurrywall · 05/04/2016 18:39

I get where you're coming from OP and also understand it.

I have 2 boys and when I found out I was expecting another boy I was upset that I would never have a daughter (because DH really only wants 2 kids). The main reason I wanted a daughter was to be given a chance to replicate the relationship that I have with my mum. And at the same time, DH is one of 2 boys and they don't seem particularly close with my MIL (who is ace by the way and I love her to pieces).

I was also upset as I am one of 3 children and in my head this is the perfect amount. I had a wonderful upbringing and a very close relationship with my parents and my brother and sister. The idea that I would only have 2 children, not 3 was hard to accept, and then the realization that I wouldn't have any daughters was another realization to accept. The vision in my head of what my imaginary family would look like was nothing like my reality!

But here I am, a mother of two little DSs and I couldn't be more overjoyed. I would have a football team of boys if I could. Everything that we read in the media or here about awful MILs etc., is but a tiny snapshot of humanity. Millions of sons have wonderfully close relationships with their mums and I'm sure that I will have the same with my boys.

In my head though, I'd love to be the mother of 3 big strapping lads, all crowded around the kitchen table whilst I fuss and cluck around them feeding them spaghetti, pinching their cheeks and fussing over them. Yes, in my head, I've become an Italian matriarch (even though I'm not even Italian, and I can't cook for shit!) Grin

septembersunshine · 05/04/2016 19:35

I've got two girls and a boy. Honestly? they are all so different in personality and looks that it's just more about them as people then about what gender they are. Different relationship will all of them. Just like different friends give you different things, plus many things make up the dynamic of a family.

I am pregnant again - just hoping for a healthy baby (I have lots of complications and this will have to be my last) but I tend to think to myself 'it's just whoever is supposed to come'. Silly really but it makes me happy to think that the person who is born has fought hard to get to be made (so many babies don't make it past the start of things) It's a dog fight even to be born. If they are that determined to live then that is good enough for me - my baby - be it boy or girl. I would start thinking of names, buy some lovely things for the baby. Get your son excited to have a brother and enjoy your pregnancy!!

HerbieRidesAgain · 05/04/2016 19:56

I have 4 adult children, 2G & 2B, my oldest is a mum herself and lives over 1hr 40 away. Next is oldest son and we catch up over afternoon tea LOADS> we are , I think, exceptionally close - a better relationship than I have with any of the others. Both my sons are and always have been extremely loving and would always kiss and cuddle when younger - the girls only when it suited them :)

Original poster
Twasthecatthatdidit · 05/04/2016 20:05

Cory, no, I'm different from my mum in outlook etc, though it was nice to have it there when I had my baby. As to how I would react to my hypothetical daughter, who knows - I didn't know how I would react to this wholly expected scan. I used to be a bit scornful of these gender disappointment threads.

OP posts:
TruJay · 05/04/2016 20:07

Your relationship with your child is what you make it. I absolutely adore my son, we are incredibly close and I cannot see that changing in adulthood. I absolutely adore my daughter too, she has an incredibly close bond with her daddy. They have the same personality as do my son and I.

My mum and my bro(almost 30) are hugely close, I don't think sex can dictate it.

When I was expecting DD (didn't find out the sex as wasn't bothered who we got) the only reason I thought a girl would be nice was to see what a girl dh and I created would look like. It turns out that the kids look EXACTLY the same, not even exaggerating, they are twins just 4 years apart so I already knew what she'd look like as I already had her double haha

I can understand you feeling sad that you may never have "1 of each" but I think that is because of the emphasis people put on that being the perfect family, it's silly.

Boys are fantastic, congratulations, enjoy him

raisedbyguineapigs · 05/04/2016 20:14

I have 2 boys. I don't have a particularly close relationship with my mother. We are too different. If my boys dont want to ring me every night and spend the day with me every weekend when they are older, good for them although id appreciate a visit now and again! they will be adults with their own lives. I'm not their friend, I'm their mother. If i want to do spa weekends and lunches, I'd hope I would have women of my own age to do it with. I'd hope my kids would have friends of their own age too, to do things they would want to do. Saying that, my DB sees our mother much more than me, as they live about 10 minutes away from each other, and my DH speaks to his DM every week. I don't!

KidaniVillage · 05/04/2016 20:14

I'm not at all close with my mum.
She idolises my brother and they chat on the phone weekly. He lives hundreds of miles away and I live 5 miles away. She only contacts me when she wants me to do something for her.
I get on very well with my dad though, and we contact each other regularly, and do things together like concerts and shows.

My MIL only has sons and they are very close. They see each other several times a week.

raisedbyguineapigs · 05/04/2016 20:18

likedylan Are you my brother? That's exactly what an afternoon at the spa with my DM would be like! Followed by some thinly veiled criticism 2 days later of something I mentioned in passing about the kids Grin

Doobigetta · 05/04/2016 20:19

I don't know a single adult woman who has a straightforward relationship with her mother. I'm currently barely speaking to mine after several very tense weeks when she has done nothing but criticise me. My partner is very close to his Mum, and I get on really well with her as well. My SiL, on the other hand, is nearly always stressed out and frustrated about her relationship with her Mum, and they have silly fallouts and misunderstandings all the time.

CauliflowerBalti · 05/04/2016 20:20

I think the lunches and spa mother/daughter relationship mostly happens in films. I find my mother's company very trying; I'd go to the pub with my stepdad in a shot.

My DS is the big, big love of my life. He adores me - so tactile, so thoughtful, so wonderful. However this plays out as he gets older, I can't see it disappearing.

Liara · 05/04/2016 20:26

I have two boys. I am not very close to my mother, although I get along well enough with her. Have certainly never done lunches and spas with her.

In fact, my only brother is probably the closest to her, none of her daughters are. He doesn't do spas, but does do lunches with her. He is the only one who might end up living near her (the rest of us have all moved away, as has he, but he is considering going back).

I am delighted to have two boys as they are so incredibly close to each other. They play together all the time, and are very much on the same wavelength. It is possible of course that a boy and a girl can be like this, but none in my friendship group are, even if they get on well.

PunkrockerGirl · 05/04/2016 20:41

I've got 2 adult ds I remember when the midwife said ds2 was a boy I actually punched the air with joy!
I wouldn't have minded if ds2 had been a girl, I was desperate for a boy the first time round and I got him!
Now they're adults, we couldn't be closer. They've been an absolute rock to me since my db died in January.
I think all this "a son is a son till he takes a wife" stuff is quite frankly bollocks. I love and respect both my ds partners - they haven't made us any less close, quite the opposite in fact.

carabos · 05/04/2016 20:45

I have two adult sons. I have now and always have had a lovely relationship with them. I'm their port of call for advice still and I'm honoured by that. They have lovely young women in their lives (DS1 is getting married this summer) and I like to think that they are good at relationships because they've been brought up by a feminist. They love their father, but their prime relationship is with me.

rightsaidfrederickII · 05/04/2016 20:52

"Lunches and spas" - don't count your chickens...!

I've never been to a spa with my mum (or anyone else for that matter), live over 100 miles away and visit about four times a year (she never visits me), with limited contact inbetween times. She's not the motherly sort, and I'm not particularly good at these things either...