Mama's Boy

19

              Is it all right to be a mama’s boy?

      That’s our question. Good luck with this one.

               You have to be careful when you tread on this holy ground. It can get touchy. Many wives wake up after years of marriage to find out they’re still the number two girl in their husbands’ lives.

               Second fiddle works for the band. It doesn’t work as well for the wedding band.

               Intricate questions such as this one definitely warrant an expert, so I’ve reached out for help to Paul Harvey, the world’s greatest ever newscaster. We can trust him to set the record straight because he won’t just tell you the story. He’ll tell you the “rest of the story.”

This, today—this is the rest of the story.

            James, he said, was a mama’s baby. Even on his deathbed, he asked for a piece of paper, and he leaned up and wrote his mama a letter.

            Ted began letters to his mama with “Darling Beloved Little Motherling”! He was a mama’s baby through and through.

            Bill’s mama believed “Willie” needed constant watching and correcting. She said she didn’t believe you could love your children too much. Willie, they say, was a mama’s baby his whole life.

            Talk about a mama’s boy! Frank wouldn’t even go to school without his mama. And the school was Harvard University!

            Ol’ Harry clung to his mama’s apron strings all of her 94 years. Harry became pretty successful in his life, but at the end of his mama’s days, he conducted his urgent business right by her side.

            David imitated his mama subconsciously all his life: her laugh, her expressions, her simplest smiles. David became a big army man and once ordered a subordinate to order a Mother’s Day card for him to send to his mama.

            What about L.B.’s most cherished school paper? It was entitled, “I’d Rather Be Mama’s Boy!” And he was.

            All of these fellas were mama’s boys, and if they were, we can be, too. Oh, you know them all: 

            James Garfield. William Howard Taft. Woodrow Wilson. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Harry S. Truman. Dwight David Eisenhower. Lyndon B. Johnson.

            All mama’s boys! Just like you and me.

            Sorry, wives. It’s every woman’s cross to bear. The world doesn’t pause for a “Wife’s Day,” but it sure pauses for Mother’s Day.

             But look on the bright side. If your mama’s boy gets out of line, chances are his mama will still get after him with her old broom and lay it right across the part of the body she swatted years ago.

               Oh, I almost forgot a name. He’s not a president, but that wouldn't have mattered to his mama. Some say he is sort of a writer, preacher, and coach, and he is a big Mama’s boy. You know ‘im. He even wrote a book about Mama, and he goes to her graveside every time he crosses the Georgia line, without fail. Even his children ask afterward, “Dad, did you go to the cemetery?” The answer is always yes. They know a Mama’s boy when they see it.

               And his mama’s been gone since 1973.

               But Mr. Paul Harvey had it right. Mama’s boys never do grow up.