Liz Hodgkinson’s sons are in their fifties but she still longs to tell them to comb their hair and iron their shirts
Although I still somehow think of myself as a young mum, the reality is that my two sons, Tom (The Oldie’s Town Mouse) and Will (pop critic for the Times), are both in their fifties and have grown-up families themselves.
Far from being young, at 78 I could be a great-grandmother by now. Even so, it is with the greatest difficulty that I attempt to treat my sons as the staid, middle-aged householders they are, rather than the naughty 12- or 13-year-old boys they used to be.
When we meet, I have to restrain myself from telling them to comb their hair, clean their shoes or iron their shirts. Needless to say, I would not dream of commenting on the appearance of any other 50-year -old, however creased their shirt might be.
So why do I continue to be a hovering, hectoring parent, especially as they long ago learned to ignore anything I said to them?
A new study from the Stanford School of Medicine has found that teenagers’ brains are wired to tune out their mothers’ voices from around the age of 13, when they simply don’t register what you are saying any more. It is the first step on the road to independence and separation, and their mother’s voice becomes an annoying noise to them, not to be heeded. I fear I am still pretty much an annoying noise to Tom and Will.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a corresponding click in a mother’s brain (or perhaps a father’s) that tells you to stop treating your offspring as recalcitrant children.
You cannot switch off from worrying about their health and finances; whether their marriages and relationships are working well; or even if they are having problems with their next-door neighbours.
I also pass judgement on their eating, smoking and drinking habits. And I dish out advice, even when it is not asked for or wanted.
They are old enough to make their own decisions. If they are sometimes the wrong ones, it’s not my job to interfere. And yet, however hard I try, it seems impossible to let go.
I am not alone in my predicament. When the former Tory MP Sally Oppenheim was filing into the House of Commons with her son Philip, also a Tory MP, she said to him rather more loudly than she should have done, ‘For goodness’ sake, Philip, take your hands out of your pockets.’ Philip was then in his thirties and his mother has never lived it down. She said later, ‘I completely forgot myself.’ I can imagine myself saying something similar.
Boris Becker’s mother, Elvira, 86, still clearly sees her son as the golden boy of tennis who won Wimbledon in 1985, aged 17. For her, he has remained an outstandingly gifted teenager for the past 37 years and never got a day older. Before he received his prison sentence, she pleaded for him not to be jailed, saying, ‘He’s a decent boy overall.’
This 54-year-old ‘boy’ not only has a colourful marital history but also has been found guilty of lying, fraud and embezzlement. I doubt that even his being in jail will dent his mother’s fond image of him.
Another tennis mum, Judy Murray, has been a constant presence at Wimbledon, urging on her sons, Andy and Jamie. She punches the air when they win points and grimaces when they lose them, much as parents cheer and jeer from the sidelines when their kids are playing in school matches.
So far as I know, Tom and Will have not committed any crimes. They certainly have not won Wimbledon, although they do play Sunday tennis, and they remain – in my eyes at least – decent boys overall.
But they are not boys. Even my grandsons are no longer boys, but six-foot-plus young men living in their own flats. They too are starting to bridle at being treated as kids.
Although I have never had daughters, I feel that this reluctance to let your children grow up applies more to male than to female offspring. Most mothers don’t have the same difficulty in viewing their adult daughters as grown-up women.
However hard it may be, I have to face the fact that my sons left boyhood nearly 40 years ago and that they certainly don’t need me to helicopter over them. As they head with indecent haste towards 60 and I hurl with even more indecent haste towards 80, I must tell myself that, finally, the roles have to be reversed.
Far from telling them what to do, I must accept that they are now in charge – not just of their own destinies but to some extent of mine as well.
