When I saw that I am expecting a boy during the Ultrasound, I asked my Doctor “What am I going to do?”

For me, having a daughter was no big deal, I knew how to raise her . I didn’t have any brothers and I had absolutely no idea how to raise a boy. But there was one thing I was sure, I will never forget while raising my boy,.it was to remember that one day my son will be a husband and there is no way I want my daughter in law to come and tell me that I screwed up raising her husband.

When my son was in grade 7, he regularly posted on FB “What a nasty mean mother his mom is”

It all started with an Ipod touch. All his friends had an ipod touch and during their free time, they all played angry birds. He already had an ipod and I didn’t see the need for him to have another one. So I said “No”. He wasn’t happy.  Then he did some consultancy work and earned enough money to buy his own ipod touch. I still said “No”

“It is my money, I can do what I want” He said.

“You live in my home and you will do what I tell you to do till you are 18 and only then you are legally free to do what you want” I said.

I had already explained to him that he already has an Ipod and doesn’t need another one. he needs to save his money for Uni and that he will get a smartphone when he is in grade 9.

But he wasn’t happy and decided to publicly humiliate me by regularly posting on FB about how horrible and mean his mother is. It also didn’t help that his friends too tried to rile him up. In one of his post, he was talking about the latest graphics card ( that costs an arm and a leg) and a friend of his replied ” dude, your mom won’t even get you an Ipod touch and there is no way she will buy you a graphics card”

My point was to teach him to understand a simple word “no”.  It is a word every boy ought to learn to live with.  It is a word that if they didn’t learn can create a lot of havoc in their life. I didn’t want my son to think that he is entitled to everything  because he happens to be a male and can strut around expecting everyone to fall at his feet..

It did hurt me when he was ranting on FB and I wondered if I was making the right decision. After all he can spend the money he earned however he wished.

After a month of ranting and not seeing me react, he gave up.

He used the money to buy sensors for his robot.

This week he is meeting a visiting Professor from  a famous American Uni for dinner to talk about his invention.. He got his suit dry cleaned and has been talking non stop about the opportunity to meet his hero.

And I have a memory of an elephant 🙂

So I asked him

“So, you still think your mom is nasty and mean?”

“What do you mean?” He asked bewildered

“do you remember all those FB rants when I didn’t let you buy an Ipod touch?”

“Geez Mom, you are never going to let me forget those days are you?”

“You did hurt my feelings” I told him the truth.