Oh, Irwin... *smh

As a parent, it’s natural to worry... right? Growing up, my mother worried constantly about me. If I wasn’t home from school at precisely the minute I usually walked through the front door, she was lacing up her sneakers and heading out to look for me. She walked me to the city bus stop every morning, waited with me, and kissed me goodbye in front of L.A. traffic, until I protested in the 8th grade. It didn’t matter to her that I was significantly taller than her, wore the same bra size that she did, and that people might mistake us for lesbians.

Until this day, my mom worries about me. Whenever I am out late, she demands that I call her as soon as I get home. And if I forget to call, she wakes me up in the middle of the night with a phone call, telling me she was worried. I’m 35 years old and my momma still worries about me. However, throughout all of my years, I have rarely ever done anything I wasn’t supposed to do. I was Old Reliable (still am, truth be told), you could count on me to do the right thing. So my mother never worried that I would do something wrong; she worried that someone else would do something wrong to me.

But my son? He’s just the flippin’ opposite of me. Even more naïve than I was because he was raised away from the inner city, but on top of that, he’s extremely hard headed. Visually, he is my spitting image but personality-wise we are night and day, onion and tomato, oil and water.

Being Old Reliable, I have done everything within my power that I can imagine to ensure that he stays on the straight and narrow. Yet all he’s done is try to figure out ways to outsmart me, failing every time. I am beyond frustrated and worried that he is going to grow up to be a huge loser… and I will die from worrying about him.

There are times when I try to have faith that he’ll be alright, and I try not to worry so much. I’ll compare him to other kids I know – his cousins, friends, my friends’ kids, etc. – and I realize that he is not sailing this boat to Losersville alone. In fact, many of them are worse off than he is. Which leads me to wonder, what the fuck is going on? Where the hell did we all go wrong?? On Facebook a few of his cousins and friends have added me to their friends’ list and 9 out of ten of them can’t spell or string a sentence together for shit. And they’re older than he is! And three of the main culprits have graduated high school. No college, though. Of course, they all still live at home, mooching off their parents, with very little indication that they will ever leave Losersville. I’m telling you, parenting is highly overrated.

This evening his father is coming over to bust up his shit. Literally. I’ll be removing the computer and cell phone from his possession asap. Otherwise, they, too, will get busted up. Dad is pissed, as he should be. Hopefully, this time though, his point will get across to that thick-domed one that is our son.

About the title: When he was much younger we used to call him "Irwin" after Danny Devito's character from the movie "Throw Mama From the Train." (Later, we found out that his characters' name was really Owen, but Irwin stuck) We'd tease him, saying "Irwin loves his mama." Well, today he's looking more and more like frickin' Irwin :( destined to be living with his mama until she dies.