10 Things Every Man Should Have Learned From His Mother

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Mothers tend to command respect. If they aren’t given respect, then you’d better believe there will be consequences. As your mother is the first female you meet, and the woman you spend the most time with growing up, it follows that a man should learn to respect all women as a result of that first relationship with their mother. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can’t talk bad about a woman or get angry with a woman; if your mother is anything like mine, you’ve seen her do those very things on numerous occasions. But, it does mean that you have to treat women with dignity and respect no matter how angry they make you or how badly you want to sleep with them.

It’s always so strange when some men get bent out of shape by the rise of feminism. Biologically speaking, they had to have a mother (unless of course, they were birthed by a miracle of science and/or divinity), yet these men can’t stand the idea of female equality. My mother was never less than an equal in the household, or as my Father succinctly put it, “If Mom’s not happy, no one’s happy.” I can see my mother bristle in my mind’s eye when anyone says an unkind word about Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama. When someone tries to insult or demean a woman in a position of power around my mother it is as if, in a way, they were insulting her directly, all women directly. These men who are anti-feminist must have had a bad relationship with their mother, and for that I pity them.

Many think pieces have been written in old people outlets like The Wall Street Journal and Time about how the younger generations feel entitled to something because they were told they are special. That’s true, we were told that we were special, but I don’t know about you, but my mother often reminded me that everyone else was special too. If Mom had the slightest inkling that you were making fun of a younger sibling or a weaker kid, you can bet that she would come down hard. Of course she would put that B+ paper up on the fridge. After all, you spent long hours studying for that algebra test. But, you’d better believe that she’d be quick to remind you that your friend Josh got an A. Moms remind us that we’re special because we’re their kid, but also that everyone else is special because they’re someone else’s kid.

One of the strangest things about adulthood is reflecting on your parents’ lives while you were growing up and realizing that they were infinitely harder than they let on. Paying your own bills and bar tabs is hard enough; it is daunting to imagine footing the bill for other human beings. Utility bills, credit card bills, and home equity loans piled up on our parents and they managed to restrict the stressed conversation to quiet mumbling across the dinner table after they thought you had gone to bed. It’s not that our parents taught us that life is going to be easy, but they taught us that we’ll survive. As my mother always says, “I care about you, but I don’t worry about you. I know you’ll always be able to put a roof over your head and food in your mouth.” Those low expectations also make me feel a lot better about studying theatre in college, but that’s a whole other list therapy session.

“Because I said so.” At the time this felt so incredibly unfair. It didn’t matter if you were in the right, you were the kid, and as such you were automatically wrong. Little did we know at the time that “Because I said so” is wonderful training for real life. If your boss is anything like any bosses I’ve had in the past, then your boss is probably wrong a lot. Our parents taught us that sometimes making a decision is more important than making the right decision, and sometimes being right matters a lot less than being in charge. This lesson is a bitter pill to swallow, but if you take it in childhood it goes down a lot easier than if you learn the lesson later in life.

My mother buys Ziploc bags in bulk so that she can save the remains of everything. You’ll notice that I didn’t say leftovers. She doesn’t stop at food. Paper towels, loose change, Band-Aids: everything that isn’t used is sealed in a bag until next time. I still can’t go out to eat without that voice in the back of my mind telling me that I would have save a lot of money if I had just packed a sandwich…in a Ziploc bag. Most parents have to start tightening the belt once they have kids and they never really stop until the children are grown and matriculated from their university of choice. As a result, some of us feel intense guilt whenever they spend money on anything but home improvement supplies and healthcare until we have kids of our own and can pass on the guilt to a new generation.

Think back on how often your parents missed work while you were growing up. We’re not talking about vacation days here; you have to milk those since our country has less of them than any other industrialized nation. But how often did you parents stay home sick? Your answer is probably close to never, yet we thought they would let us stay home from school if we spoke in a scratchy voice and tried some trick to heat up the thermometer. One of the most valuable lessons our mothers teach us is that a lot of times getting up and going to school is the best thing you can do for that illness that has suddenly struck. You’re usually more prepared for the test than you thought you were, less mortified of that thing that happened yesterday than you thought you were, more ready to deal with life after that break-up than you thought you were. You just had to go to school to find out how ready you were, even if it meant missing out on a sick day spent on the couch watching SportsCenter.

This is one of the only good pieces of advice that Betty Francis neé Draper ever dispensed on Mad Men. One of the times my mother got most mad at me was after a middle-school trip to the aquarium. I was your standard 13-year-old, which is to say I was a cocky jerk who had thought he’d seen it all. I told my mother that I thought the aquarium was boring. For the entire ride home and some of the evening afterwards she lectured me about the dangers of becoming jaded. She told me about the senior citizens who go the aquarium four times a week and find something new every time they go. She had a point. And no, I am not traumatized by aquariums as a result of this chiding. Thanks for asking.

It’s strange how many of the childless people I know like to make a big deal of their birthdays. Some friends of mine string out the celebration of their entering the world into an entire week of artisanal cocktails and endless brunches. Mothers I know don’t make a big deal about their birthday. You’d damn well better not forget about it, but it isn’t a huge deal. Their children’s birthdays, however, are a national holiday. If you’ve ever had the displeasure of attending a two-year-old’s birthday party when you yourself were not two years old, you know what I’m talking about. Insane toddler birthdays aside, while we are told “It is better to give than receive” by every teacher and movie we encounter in our youth, we never really learn how true it is until we see mothers get stoked about their birthdays of their children.

My mother hated going to any school functions. She was a hippie and a bit rebellious in her youth, and that counterculture streak lingered into middle-age and manifested itself in a distaste for student council functions and homecoming games. Of course, she was cursed with three children who were extremely involved in extracurricular activities. All three of us did theatre, band, and student government, the parental unholy trinity. My father and my mother endured every last terrible middle school band concert and pretentious play. We did Importance of Being Earnest in high school for god’s sake. They should get a medal for sitting through that one. But, through it all, my mother remained smiling and supportive; usually she found a way to genuinely enjoy the events she was forced to attend, if only because her kids were involved.