Mother's Day Special: Life will continue to hit you in the face but mommy won't always be there.

People I like and admire keep sharing well-meaning but dubious stuff on Facebook. To be blunt, my friend Lisa should probably have stopped herself as soon as she saw that the site she was sharing from is called "popsugar". She didn't for the simple reason that the site appeared to be backing up a view she already held. I'm not exactly immune to that weakness myself so I can't be too harsh with her. The article she shared is another matter.

Here is the argument.

This notion that boys can never hurt, that they can never feel, is so damaging to them long term. The belief that any signs or gestures of affection will somehow decrease their manhood — this pressure to always 'man up' follows them into adulthood where they struggle to fully experience the broad scope of love and affection. The only emotion they healthily learn to express is happiness and then we wonder why they are always chasing it.

Are boys actually taught this? The complaint is often made but I've yet to see much in the way of empirical evidence to back it up. But that's an argument for another day. What I want to do today is to apply one of my favourite analytic techniques to the text. That is to ask what actually happens. Let's strip away the analysis above and focus instead on what this mother tells us about what happened and what she did.

She was watching her 8-year-old play basketball and he got hit in the face. Here is what happens next.

I saw his eyes widen and then squint from the pain - he looked around trying to focus. I knew he was looking for me.

She knew he was looking for her! The article is ostensibly about what boys need but it's really about what this particular mommy needed.

Let's rewrite those two sentences without the narcissism.

His eyes widened and then he squinted from the pain—he looked around. I wanted to be close to him.

That may still not be accurate. I'm highly dubious that anyone would or could read and remember the exact facial expressions that way.

Here, according to her Facebook page, is what happened next.

"Max got hit in the face", I said to my husband as I instinctively jumped up from the bleachers. In that moment, I saw Max start to run around the court in my direction as the silent cry began. He couldn't catch his breath. My feet couldn't move fast enough. As soon as we connected, I got down on one knee. "Catch your breath buddy." He tilted his head back. "Max, breath. It's okay." He finally took a breath, and I wrapped my arms around him as he cried into my shoulder. A voice came from behind me - "You need to stop babying that kid."

Notice that it's (literally) all about her and what a great, loving mother she is up until the moment someone says something. And we might wonder about who says it and why. It's possible that this person is a complete stranger who spoke this comment in response to an isolated incident.  It's also possible that she's done this sort of thing before and that he was reacting to a pattern of behaviour.

The most important thing is this: no one, at any time in the incident as she describes it, told her or told her boy that boys aren't allowed to have feelings or that they aren't allowed to express them. All that was suggested here is that mommy needs to stop running to her child every time he gets hurt so he can learn to deal with it himself.

In the long run, this boy is going to start to hate his mother because she always has to be the centre of attention. He's also going to figure out that she is liar. Let's hope that he also learns how to deal with pain and embarrassment despite her.