Buster is no Mummy's Boy...

My middle son, Caolan, asked me the other day not to call him ‘Honey’ when his friends are around. He told me those are tough streets out there – in our quiet, leafy cul-de-sac – a boy has to fight to survive and that that particular term of endearment was doing nothing for the rough, tough reputation he had worked hard to build. I said I would refrain from the nice names and refer to him as Buster from this day forward.
I suppose there comes a time when every Mum has to let go of their little boy. Realise he is a young man. Unleash, I mean release, him into the world and hope that he’ll be OK on his own. That we, as mothers, taught that boy well and armed him with the power to make the right decisions, look after himself and be safe. There comes a time when we must allow him to fight his own battles.
There are times when he’ll come back and tell you that another boy smacked him hard in the face with a ball and you’ll have to physically restrain yourself from going out there, puncturing that ball and making that boy eat it.
We have to take a step back.
I answered the door to Caolan at the weekend. He didn’t knock, I could hear him shouting and screaming over the television as he staggered up the street. The child has a noise pollution court order-inducing holler and can unhinge his jaw for full dramatic effect and extra volume.
Neighbours were standing at their doors, other’s were twitching their curtains. The boy loves an audience. When I reached him I tried to ascertain what the problem was. Was anything broken? Where was he sore? He took his hand away from his head to reveal a black eye that would have frightened Mike Tyson.
It was a trampoline karate, wrestling-related accident, he sobbed. In between wails and sharp intakes of breath he informed me that his friend had been doing mid-air karate (is this some brand new extreme sport I am too old and uncool to know about?) and Caolan’s head got in the way because he and another boy were doing Triple H’s ‘finisher’ moves. But it was another boy’s fault because he was ‘spinning’.
At least I think that’s what was said.
As I stood with a bag of frozen peas on my boy’s eye head I fought an overwhelming urge to march down the street and confront these spinning, karate-kicking children. I wanted to know, without all the sobbing and confusing terms, who exactly was responsible for the huge swollen eye on my precious boy’s head. I wanted to shout at them that my beautiful, sweet and gentle boy will not be partaking in their spinny, wrestling, karate, boxing games any longer because they were too flipping rough and he was only a child.
Then I thought on what he had asked me not to call him the other day. I thought if I went scowling at his friends about being too rough they might think him weak, a mummy’s boy. He would never live it down.
So I said nothing. It was tough. Anyone who knows me knows I like to say what I see. But I’ll keep my mouth shut for my boy.
Caolan’s friends called for him the next day. His eye was completely closed over, black, purple and blue. They thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen.
My little boy is becoming a young man. And there’s not one thing I can do about it, except embrace it.