To ask if you are a mum to an only male dc… (particularly interested in when the male dc is an adult)

[Mummhere]

What is the relationship like as he gets older? Are you close?

I desperately want another dc but it looks like it won’t happen. I hate the saying a daughter is a daughter for life but a son until he has a wife etc

I know that’s not necessarily true and obviously if I had another dc they could be male too. And I adore ds, we are extremely close now. But I imagine being left out of his family life and silly things like that.

I do know im being a bit irrational. Anyone women out there with a son who is now an adult, what’s it like? Do you hear much from
him?

Oh I tend to just take it on the chin! I know they struggle because both their children met their partners (one of which is obviously me!), in their late 30s, so for a really long time they were just a solid unit of four, multiple weekly dinners at the parent’s house, holidays and Christmases just the four of them, and now both their children live in different cities (we’re 30 minutes away and the other much further), so I know they’ll miss their old dynamic and I don’t think it would ever occur to them to know how to include partners as family. I am most definitely just the mother of their grandchildren to them though, I know if my partner and I ever split up I’d never hear from them again. Having said that, they are very nice and friendly to me when I see them! 😂

I’m waiting until you are interested enough to return after your opening and only post @Mummhere - before I waste my time supporting you.

It does sound like your brother is single though (apologies if not.)

It’s when they have a serious partner that the seismic shift happens. Not saying mothers and sons can’t be close but there does come a sort of level of appropriateness I suppose … think VB dancing with Brooklyn!

Well, speaking of a waste of time …

Yes, he's 27 now and we still have a good close relationship. Love him to bits, although he lives in London now, but we are in touch most days.

All my friends who only have sons are the same.

Your kids are your kids, I don't think their sex has anything to do with how close you are. I wasn't that close to my mum, who always obviously preferred my brother.

I have 21 and 19 year old sons. We're very close - always have been and always will be. I adore their girlfriends, too.

If son is a son till he gets a wife, why does so many women have problems with their in laws? All the time people here complain that in laws visit too much, husband sees his parents too often, in laws are too involved etc.

That's very empathic and magnanimous of you. Your PiL are fortunate.

My DS is 25, lives with his partner about a mile away. He calls round a couple of times a week plus he and his GF will come out socially with DH and I every couple of months or occasionally join us in a holiday. His partner’s family live about 30 mins away. They alternate Christmas lunch/evening between us.

I think things are different for us though as DS didn’t go away to uni, lives in a family property and works locally. I think it’s the moving away that changes relationships. I was closer to my own parents than a lot of MNers seem to be, again, I’ve always lived within 5-10 miles of where I grew up.

Yes, it's this. Obviously there are going to be specific circumstances which mean a son might be closer to his mum than his sister, personality types, interests etc. But for the purpose of the thread, we have to think in terms of 'all other things being equal'.
There are factors that mean your relationship with an opposite sex child is very likely to be different from that with a same sex child. What the world sees as appropriate being just one of them. If Brooklyn was a woman who had a special dance with her mum at her wedding it would barely have raised a glance, Madonna and her DD Lourdes are regularly all over each other for example. Yet because Brooklyn is male, VB is accused of sexual impropriety, spousification and so on.
That situation is extreme, but the same thinking trickles down to the mundane. Imagine an OP saying "I really want to take my daughter away for a weekend away for her birthday, but her husband has made it clear he wants to come, which wont be the same". Then substitute son for daughter and see how that sounds.

I'd say I'm close to my son, ( he's 28), in the sense that we show a lot of affection for each other and I think we both would worry if one of us had any problems. That said though, we don't talk or message sometimes for almost a week. He has a GF and they are super intimate or whatever the correct adjective is. And she's lovely as well. So I'm happy that there is someone else looking out for him. He had depression for a little while when at Uni but this seems to have been settled these days. I love him dearly.

They want to move to France later this year- her idea probably. But they are such a beautiful couple I hope they will make it work . Forgotten what I should be answering here.

I know we should love our kids equally ( got 2 daughters as well), but I've never been sure about it. Try not to dwell on that idea too much..

We have one son, 28 years old. He still lives at home as his work is spasmodic as he's an actor. We longed for a child and as we were older we had to have several attempts at IVF before finally having him. He hasn't had many relationships but more recently he met someone and it seems to be quite serious and he stays a lot at her place about an hour away as she has her own place. I must say I have felt a lot of anxiety - mainly the worries of will I get on with her and the difficulties that could arise if we didn't like each other!
I have met her and it went quite well but the anxieties that I'll "lose" him still persist. Obviously I accept that it's healthy for him to break away and lead his own life but I suppose it's the worry that comes with change.

Are you me? Apart from the holiday in York and the phone calls, he’s 26, 3 years post university and living in a shared house in London, single but had a long relationship in the past! We’ve just been on a family holiday abroad and we message several times a week. We’ve go to London a few times a year and he comes home a few times. We treat him to holidays with us once or twice a year. I would say we’re very close now, whereas he was closer to DH as a child.Things are hard for Gen Z now and they don’t have the same experiences in terms of relationships and home ownership. I’m 64 and DH is 73, so we may never see him married and / or with children. I’m slowly coming to terms with that.

Wow 🙈