The Making of a Leaner, Meaner Ma

I need to be a leaner, meaner Mom. This is the year for it. No more succumbing to sweet talk from my sons. No more stints as the maid, cleaning up in their wake, reminding them to do homework, making their lunches while they watch me work.

I’ve told them life is going to change at our house--and that goes for my husband too. There needs to be more initiative from the males of the household or I have threatened to go on strike.

No more home-cooked meals. No more trips to the mall, buying them their hearts’ desires. No more “coaching” on school projects, exhorting them to turn Bs into A’s.

That was last year’s Mom. This year’s Mom is a little less flexible, a lot more hard-nosed, a little more self-centered. In short, a lot more like Dad.

Actually, mothers could learn from fathers. Fathers don’t walk around in a perpetual state of guilt. Fathers don’t pick up pieces left around the house by offspring. Fathers detach. Mothers can be a little too activist.

My three sons don’t believe I’ll become meaner. They think this is a phase, or a mood, or a short illness from which I’ll soon recover. But I know better. This new tack could be my salvation, my deliverance from oppression, my liberation from drudgery.

Will it happen in my lifetime?

It’s not that my kids are bad. It’s just that they’ve gotten into bad habits and I’ve let them.

They don’t often leave a room as they find it. Usually, what was neat is messy--from books in the library to food in the kitchen. Teamwork is a concept they seem able to apply only to Little League.

Just the other day, my husband, reclining on the couch, eating nachos and watching a basketball game on TV, told me I have only myself to blame for their attitude.

“You shouldn’t do so much for them,” he said. “By the way, could you bring me an iced tea?”

I almost did, until I remembered that was the old Mom, the soft, squooshy Mom who would do anything for her guys.

“You know where the iced tea is,” I called back cheerfully.

“Geez, Mom, you really are meaner,” my oldest son grumbled, when he heard me refuse to bring his father a drink.

“Get used to it,” I said firmly. “This is the new me and you won’t be able to push me around any more.”

But will this resolve last? Will I be able to just walk away, without guilt, and let them do for themselves? I have to be strong. How can they become truly independent and self-sufficient if I’m always there to do things for them?

And what would I be able to say to their wives on some future day when they ask me, “Didn’t you train them better than this?”

My son Matthew’s room looks like Godzilla ran through it. But this time I haven’t lifted a finger to help. I just hope I can hold out as long as I know he will.