Momma’s Boy

A Subversive Christmas Story

“Momma’s Boy” my classmates called me, back when I had had classmates; back when I was a child in middle school.

Nothing more needed to be said in the hall outside the cafeteria. That was enough. The kids all laughed, so it had to be true. I was exposed for what I was. The girls laughed, clutching their books to their new chests. The boys laughed also, dangling their books strategically at their hips. It explained everything. The hallway was busy with kids talking in groups before the bell rang for the next class. I never knew what kids had to talk about, but I did now. They were talking about me.

I started being a Momma’s Boy on the first day of kindergarten. I cried rivers after my Momma dropped me off because I didn’t understand what was going on. My teacher, Miss Shafer, told me to go to the water fountain and get a drink of water. She later died of alcoholism, so getting a drink was her answer to everything. She didn’t understand that on the first day of kindergarten, a kid has never seen a water fountain. Therefore, I didn’t go. She dragged me down the hall to the water fountain and said, get a drink. I didn’t know how to get a drink from the water fountain and, besides, I was trying to tell her, I didn’t want a drink. Nonetheless, she held the faucet open and pushed my mouth into the water. She pushed it too far and I smashed my teeth on the faucet, my blood blending in with Miss Shafer’s water down the porcelain drain.

Miss Shafer ended up calling Momma that day. She came and sat with me at his desk until school was out. Momma signed up to be a lunch monitor and, from then on, came to school every day. Every day from that first day of kindergarten until middle school she had lunch with me in the cafeteria.

Momma’s Boy.

It’s better for a boy to be eaten alive by lions than to be swallowed up and consumed by the will of his mother. A Momma’s Boy devotes his life to his mother, and her to him. He never leaves home. He remains attached to her apron strings. He lives life vicariously, watching it shyly at a reserve while munching on her cookies still warm from the oven. A Momma’s Boy has no friends aside from her and nothing to do aside from making her happy. He gets good grades in school because that is what makes her proud, but he has no interests. He would not even think of getting into trouble. He walks on his own, but he is not yet born.

Being the Momma of a Momma’s Boy ain’t no picnic either. A Momma of a Momma’s Boy possesses, but cannot love her child. She needs her boy more than he needs her and she must keep him around to feed her narcissistic maw. She cannot allow her child to take chances or make mistakes. She can enforce no rules because rules may drive him away. She can only discipline by throwing fits. The Momma of a Momma’s Boy does not have a child; she has a living doll that she dresses, scolds, places on a shelf, and expects to stay.

With the help of my classmates, I could see it all more clearly than my Momma could. I decided to take action if only to protect her. Just as sometimes parents have to practice tough love for the good of their children, sometimes children have to practice it for their parents. I had to take steps because I alone saw what we were becoming.

In the middle school hallway that day I decided that there would be no more consorting during lunchtime. Even if it meant I’d ride in a crowded bus, I would not allow her to take me to school. I would not snuggle, even in the safety of the home. Snuggling would only serve to make me weak. I would break minor rules whenever I could. Above all, I would never, never call her Momma. I knew that calling her Mommy was just as dangerous and calling her Mom only teased her. I could never say Mother without it sounding like smother in my head. Better to call her as little as possible. When I couldn’t avoid it, I gave her a title that told her unmistakably to keep her distance: Mother of Mine.

Momma was not to give in without a fight. The toughest fight came the day before Christmas that year in middle school. We were a family that opened presents Christmas morning, but Momma let my little sister and I open one present of her choice on Christmas Eve. It was always the same present: a pair of Christmas pajamas.

Momma carefully engineered every Christmas for maximum sentimentality. My sister and I were supposed to get dressed up in a new pair of Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve so we’d look Christmasy the next morning when she took pictures of us opening our presents. I was not going to wear her Christmas pajamas this time. I was not even going to open the box.

“You have to open the box,” said Momma, “It’s Christmas.”

“No, I want another box.”

She took the conflict to the next level. “If you don’t open this gift, I’m going to tell Santa that you’re a naughty boy. He won’t bring you any presents.”

However, I no longer believed in Santa. I was in middle school, after all.

“No,” I said.

That was the moment I ceased being a Momma’s Boy. She marked the occasion by slapping me in the face.

I called her a child abuser and ran into my room.

The red marks on my cheek had not yet faded before she came blubbering into my room holding a picture of my sister and me from last Christmas in that year’s Christmas pajamas.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you. I was just looking at this picture from last year. You were a good boy then and you loved your Momma.”

I might have softened if she had just come in crying and saying she was sorry. I might have just put on her silly pajamas and been done with it. I might’ve humored her for the night for the sake of Christmas morning, but she had to go and open her big mouth and say the hated word: Momma. With that one word, she tipped her hand and I knew what this was all about. She wanted him to cave, to be friendless, and to be hers forever.

I made like I had fallen asleep. She sobbed for a while and went away.

It was a long night hearing the hushed movement of the parents downstairs getting ready for the morning. Grandma and Grandpa, a couple of aunts, and an uncle arrived to spend the night. I knew Momma was not going to risk a scene by telling Santa not to leave any presents when they had come just to see them opened. She was also feeling bad about the slap and two could play at the guilt game. Furthermore, if Momma gave me any trouble, I could always mention a little something about the slap to her mother-in-law. I was sure that this was going to be a great Christmas and fell asleep certain I was going to rake it in.

At first light, my little sister pounded at the door. She had already awoken the adults who were assembling in the living room. She summoned me to make our entrance. Our father was setting up the floodlights for the movie camera and the relatives were staking out positions on the sofa and chairs. On cue, my sister and I were to enter the living room to be filmed and gaped at while we squealed with delight, ran to the tree, and tore into the gifts. The adults would all laugh at our greed. By the time the coffee was brewed and Momma was serving danish, we’d be kneeling, bewildered amid the litter of wrappings and new stuff. Then the over-stimulated testiness that passes for Christmas Day would arrive. We would struggle to master the new toys as Momma yelled at us to pick up the mess and the relatives grumbled about how the true meaning of Christmas was lost to children these days.

I knew that was what was in store for us the moment his sister pounded on the door. When I woke up, what to his wondering eyes did appear but the evil Christmas pajamas stretched on my bed with a note that read:

“Please put these on for me before you come down, Son. Love, Momma”

“No,” I shouted through the door to my sister, “tell our mother I’m not putting on the pajamas.”

“He’s not putting them on, Momma.”

“Then I’ll call Santa right now and tell him to take all the presents back.”

His sister wailed, “We won’t have any presents for Christmas!”

“Listen to what you are doing to your sister,” said Momma. “You’re breaking my heart.”

So, I caved, “All right, I’ll put them on.”

My sister’s tears stopped as quickly as Miss Shafer’s faucet. She was so filled with excitement that she never turned around as they went downstairs and waited for their cue.

“Come in.”

My sister flung the door open and ran to the tree as scripted. She left me standing in the doorway with a morning erection poking out of Momma’s precious, precious pajamas.

The aunts gasped and the uncle laughed.

My grandfather said, “I think your boy’s getting too old for Christmas pajamas, Martha.”

Keith R Wilson is the author of three self-help books, two novels, and innumerable articles. A third novel, Who Killed the Lisping Barista of the Epiphany Café? is currently being published one chapter at a time in Medium.