Between Mothers and Sons: Women Writers Talk About Having Sons and Raising Men has got me on my knees in a ditch hyperventilating with my head pounding. I’m about two-thirds of the way through the book and every essay gives me the chills.

I’ve mentioned before that I’d always thought I’d be the mother of a daughter. Raising Stephen so far has been more like raising a baby or toddler of either gender. I haven’t dared to imagine him as an older boy, teenager, or man. It’s too frightening to think that I might not and probably will not be able to understand everything he will go through.

I’m not a boy (in case you were wondering) and cannot remember ever having been enamored of cars, trains, and airplanes. I won’t know what it’s like to have to use fists instead of words to fight on the playground. To be up when the soccer team I support wins and down when it doesn’t. To spend all day playing video games breaking out in a sweat defeating Zurg or whoever the heck they’re battling. To work up the encourage to ask a woman out and to carry on a love affair with her. (I’m not saying that only boys and men do these things, but if Stephen is anything like his mother and father, there will be some clear preferences.)

Luckily, Stephen has his father to consult when it comes to matters of boyhood and manhood. I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about me. I don’t know how I’m going to handle feeling left out and obsolete.

This morning, my friend was telling me about the stereotype of Chinese men being mama’s boys. That many Chinese men can’t do anything without consulting their mothers and jumping up to attention as soon as their mothers ask them for anything. Of course I don’t want Stephen to be a mama’s boy because it’s clearly unhealthy, but I can imagine how pleased these mothers must feel to be so influential in their sons’ lives.

Someday, my baby will be asserting his right to sleep until noon, shirk his chores, dye his hair, and do anything he damn well wants. And I’ll be there as I am here now, marveling at the person he has become whether he notices me or not.

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