More and more of my friends are approaching that age when wedding bells begin to ring in their girlfriends’ ears and the subject tends to come up more often than they’d like. One has even gone as far as having a detailed discussion with his girlfriend with regard to the future of both their careers. He will continue to work while she will be a stay-at-home mom. It wasn’t exactly democratic and he’s learned to avoid all conversation on that topic since then.
It was funny at first until we started projecting about where we’d be sending them to school, what first car to give them, and how often we’d allow them to go out. I, coming from a conservative family, vowed to put him through all the misery my mom has done for me. It’s for his or her own good after all.
Because my mom loved me so much, I couldn’t drive myself out to gimmicks until I was 19 and couldn’t stay out past 12 midnight until I was 20. You can imagine how much worse it was for my sister. Of course my mom had always justified these rules of conduct by recounting the instance the same rule had been imposed on her, when she was our age. Her conservative ways haven’t been updated since the Spanish era, apparently.
There were rules like:
No phone calls after nine o’clock.
A girl should never call a guy.
A girl should always be chaperoned by her brother or cousin on dates.
Never let the boy into the house unless he’s courted you for one year.
If you invite out, always pay for the bill.
A boy should never enter a girl’s bedroom.
When dropping off a girl, always wait for her to enter the gate of her house before driving off.
All boyfriends and girlfriends should meet the parents in a formal dinner for approval before the courtship is deemed official.
Come to think of it, it’s that formal dinner that I’ve always dreaded. My father was easy to please, but my mom was another story. She needed glasses to read but had no trouble spotting the way anyone held the fork and knife (or struggled to), through each of the five courses. Intelligence, beauty, and table manners were standard requirements. Manner of speaking, interests and clothing preference were subject to scrutiny.
There was a skin whitening commercial on TV that seemed to depict my conundrum to a T. A strapping young man had brought a girl home to meet Mom. Gently lowering her glasses the mother inspected the girl head to toe. “She’s beautiful, but is she intelligent as well?” the mother asked in Spanish. “Si Tita,” the girl replied. “Tu Hijo Piensas Asi (He seems to think so).”
Yet, as absurd as the commercial seemed, Mother’s powers were stranger than fiction. They weren’t simply limited to perception but delved into the telekinetic. She could tell what the girl’s family business was simply by the last name, quickly followed by that particular girl’s hidden agenda for going out with me.
It’s why I’ve always kept quiet about who I was currently dating at the dinner table. It’s why I quickly change the subject when my girlfriend asks why I haven’t introduced her to my folks.
Mothers are like the omnipotent narrator in fables, unfortunately. She had ways of finding out. She seemed to suspect I was out philandering and doing drugs every time I returned home late. I still wonder if the threats of disowning me if I got a girl pregnant were a stone cold bluff or well informed intelligence.
It’s not simply a Mama’s Boy thing. Who wouldn’t want to meet a nice girl they can take home to meet mom? Only a spiteful one, I imagine, would bring home one that breaks all her rules.
Over the years, I’ve found her advice has helped me avoid potentially long and masochistic relationships. Ironically, the few disastrous ones were those I could call after nine, or kiss on just the first date.
True class, as mother has taught me, is not determined by what you do or say, but what you hold back. Impossible standards for this day and age, my friends would argue, but I’ve been fortunate to date a few that pass with flying colors.
When I look back at the girls I’ve dated, including the ones she’s told me to avoid, I realize that there might have been some hasty generalizations as well as some sad truths to her beliefs. Nevertheless I’m still glad I’ve followed and broken her rules in equal amounts of measure.
I remember saying “That’s so last century” in response to the rules. I realize now what they were really for. All the emphasis on tact, courtesy and graciousness were more for our own upbringing than for finding worthy husbands or wives. You could say it’s a quaint home-style finishing school in many ways.
As for mother, her vigilance has waned into the occasional query about my love life. Her trust took a hefty 25 years to gain. She’s also managed to secure an early retirement, not having me or my sister to worry about, seeing as how we’re realized for ourselves the kind of qualities we ought to be looking for in potential life partners.
Great plan, I think. I wouldn’t want to hasten my baldness (if what my Dad says about worrying too much increases hairloss [plus the fact that baldness is hereditary]), by worrying about my kids either. So torture them it is. Hey, I’m only concerned about their future.
