Motherhood is extraordinary on its own, whether you have all boys, or girls, or both. We love our kids no matter what and truly do mean it when we say, “As long as they’re healthy, that’s all that matters.” That said, being a boy mom definitely has some wonderful upsides! Let’s take a look at the top ten that come to mind.
1. We get to be someone’s first true love
We can go through our entire teen and young adult lives never knowing what it feels like to be someone’s first true love. Then, our boys come along and that completely changes. There’s really nothing quite like knowing that you’re the center of the universe for someone (and they’re the center of yours), even if just for a little while.
There’s also nothing like the responsibility of knowing that how you return that love sets the stage for your son’s future relationships. It’s awesome in the truest sense of the word.
2. Boys teach us how to not take ourselves so seriously
When you’re a boy mom, you quickly learn that every bodily function is potential joke fodder. There’s a reason why boys love books like Captain Underpants! Even the title gets them giggling. Unless you want to spend your life blushing (which, hey, at least saves us a bit of money on makeup), you have to get over yourself really fast. Bonus: very little embarrasses us boy moms anymore!
3. We learn to thrive in chaos
Nearly every list of things that make being a boy mom so interesting talks about the chaos that sons bring to our lives. They’re a flurry of movement. They’re noisy. They’re messy. However, they leave one key element out. Boy moms don’t just learn to survive chaos; we can actually thrive in it. We learn to think fast and act even faster; to find peace in noise. We even discover that there really is order amidst the unorderly.
Don’t believe me? Go ahead and try organizing your son’s messy pile of Pokemon cards, then tell me how he reacts!
4. Boys teach us how to communicate in the fewest words possible
Ask your son how his day went, and you’ll be lucky to get a complete sentence out of him. More often than not, you’ll get “fine” or “good.” Yet, we boy moms quickly learn to decipher the thousand unspoken words behind that single syllable.
We become masters at reading tone and body language. It’s not just a skill that helps us be better parents, it’s one we can use throughout our entire lives.
5. They teach us to think about things in a whole new way
While neither boys nor girls are “smarter” (let’s not perpetuate any stereotypes here), boys literally do think differently than girls. There’s a quote from a study that really resonates with me. When explaining the differences between male and female brains, Ragini Verma, Ph.D. said, “It’s like two people driving from Philadelphia to New York, who take different routes, but end up at the same place.”
Boy moms have the unique opportunity to learn what it’s like to travel both routes. Isn’t that extraordinary?
Boys really do take more risks than girls. It’s scientifically proven. While we boy moms wish they wouldn’t take quite so many potentially bone-breaking risks, our sons teach us that sometimes the reward really IS worth six weeks in a cast. Plus, if our boys are willing to risk falling out of a tree just to see the world from a new angle, we can certainly risk asking our boss for a raise.
7. They literally teach us to watch our steps…
We can’t talk about things only a boy mom understands without bringing up LEGOs, Hot Wheels, and other things that are oh-so-incredibly painful to step on! All those late nights of tiptoeing around to avoid the agony of an embedded LEGO in our foot teach us a valuable lesson, though.
Watch your step and look before you leap. Now, if only we could pass that lesson on to our sons in the risk-taking category!
8. …and that “mama’s boy” is a good thing to be
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a mama’s boy, and that’s something we don’t understand until we have sons. See, we know something that all those magazine articles full of warnings about dating mama’s boys don’t. Any woman would be lucky to date our sons because we raised them to respect women and express their emotions in a healthy way.
