Sunday, May 8, 2011

Making Mom Proud

"Don't do anything you would be embarrassed to tell you mother about."

Of course none of us live by this proverb, and of course mothers have done things they didn't tell us about too. But still, no matter what our belief system, we will go to great lengths to keep up appearances for mom.

We do this for dad too most of the time, but somehow we always know that dad knows better (so does mom, be we don't know that). And dad's an asshole anyway, so he can't say much about whatever we're doing that he doesn't like without being an overbearing hypocrite. But moms are perfect, and we will work hard to make her proud of us.

The kicker with mom is that she will do about anything to be proud of us anyway. Of all of the people in the world to impress, Mom should be the least important because she'll find a way to be impressed, proud of us and supportive in all but the rarest circumstances. She'll ignore any number of bad things and hold on to even one little good thing about us forever. She wants and needs to be proud of us.

I don't know how mothers get along in the world without gay sons. It's not like dad is going to help her pick out that perfect new dress or talk to her about what color scheme would work best on her patio this year. Nobody loves Mom like a gay boy, and nobody needs mom's support and compassion like someone who the rest of the world despises.

So here's to Mother's Day, a day when butch and nelly alike need not be embarrassed to tell mom how much we love her, and how much she means to us. Hearing that from us makes her happy and proud.

And it's really nice to have at least one person in the world that is always proud of us.