We have a no-first-person-shooter game rule in our house. One day my son informed me, “When I get a wife, I’m playing Doom, Halo and GTA!” To him, being married was a sign of being a grown up.
He was at that age where he didn’t like girls very much. He had plenty of friends who were girls—mostly those he had known for years, or the older neighbor girls—and played with them happily, but he primarily identified with his male friends. Developmentally appropriate, of course. His 4th grade teacher tried hard to ensure that he didn’t sit next to girls in class because he told her, “It’s not that I have a problem with them; I just don’t want to sit by them.” And anything we needed to do to keep him focused in class…
I’d remind him that I am a girl. He’d just roll his eyes and say, “Yes, but you’re my mom. You don’t count.”
He really liked the idea of growing up and getting married some day, though. Even though we told him he didn’t have to get married, or that maybe he’d want to marry a boy, he was quite adamant that he was going to have a wife and kids one day. I always told him he would make a wonderful husband and father. “I know,” he’d reply. He knew that he’d be good at it, because he’d watched how his dad did it.
He never got to have a Valentine other than his mom. He never had that first crush, first kiss, first date, first love, first heart break.
He would have made someone an amazing partner.
Happy Valentine’s Day, my boy. Momma loves you.
Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud 