“Let her live alone—maybe then she’ll realise what she’s lost. And don’t you worry, son, Mum won’t let anyone push you around…”
“So, Valerie, your Alex has left his wife, hasn’t he?”
“He has. And what of it? Are you going to gossip about it all over the neighbourhood?” Valerie snapped, adjusting the shawl on her greying head.
Alexander and Sophie had been together just over three years. Not long ago, they’d welcomed a baby girl—the granddaughter Valerie had dreamed of for years. But here was the trouble: Alex, just as he’d always been, remained a mummy’s boy. His whole life, he’d been a dreamer, slightly childish, spoiled by her endless fussing and forgiveness.
“Why do I even need a wife?” he’d mused a few years back. “All they do is nag. Women are all the same—they’ll just climb onto your back and demand you provide and pamper them.”
Valerie had brushed it off—as long as her boy was nearby, nothing else mattered. He’d never been keen on work, but she didn’t mind. He was home, under her roof. What did it matter if he was pushing thirty? He was still her little boy.
Then, one day, out of nowhere, he announced he was getting married. He brought home Sophie—quiet, meek, with eyes full of more hope than confidence. Valerie approved—she wasn’t some flighty troublemaker, but a proper homemaker. To celebrate, she even bought the young couple a small house in the next village over.
At first, things seemed fine. But it turned out Alex wasn’t cut out for married life. He drifted from one odd job to another, mostly night shifts, and eventually took up work at the cemetery—”No one bosses me around there.”
“I can’t stand it, Mum, she’s driving me mad!” he’d complain. “It’s always something—she hates where I work, says I don’t earn enough, wants a new bathroom.”
“Oh, Alex,” Valerie would sigh. “What a wife you’ve ended up with. More like a leech than a woman. Stay here with me for a while—let her see what it’s like to be on her own.”
From then on, Alex ran back and forth—to Sophie one day, back to his mum the next. Every return was full of grievances. And Sophie, that quiet, meek Sophie, started snapping, shouting, crying. Then, one day, in the middle of another row, Alex slammed the door and left “for good.”
“She’s ruined me!” he declared, plopping down at his mother’s table. “Can you believe it? She called me less than a man because I can’t provide! Let her feed herself and stock up on nappies for the kid. I owe her nothing!”
“That’s right, love. Who does she think she is? Go on, have some stew—I made it just how you like.”
He mentioned the baby less and less. “What’s so hard about feeding her, putting her down, taking her out?” he’d say. Meanwhile, Sophie moved back in with her parents. Valerie had already snapped at her once:
“Couldn’t hack it, could you? House, husband—still not enough. You should’ve toughed it out like we did!”
The neighbours whispered—Alex’s daughter was growing up, and he acted like nothing had changed, sitting at home, telly on.
“Valerie, you ought to visit that granddaughter,” a neighbour said one day. “Sophie’s alone with the baby, her parents help, but you lot act like you’ve no family left.”
“Don’t listen to her nonsense!” Valerie waved her off. “Couldn’t keep her man—now she can suffer. That baby… I’ll get custody. She’s my blood!”
“You’re serious? Take a child from its mother? Your Alex hasn’t even got a job—only good for lazing about!”
“Don’t you dare! He’s just… regrouping. Give him time—he’ll sort himself out.”
But time passed, and Alex stayed put. No job, no ambition. Just complaints about “high-maintenance women” and moans that the world was against him.
“Alex, maybe you should visit Sophie, see your daughter…” Valerie ventured timidly once.
“What, Mum? So she can start in on me again—‘you’re useless, you’ve no money.’ I’m done. I’m living for me now!”
And then it hit her. Right in the heart.
“Enough, son,” she said finally. “I’m ashamed of what you’ve become. If Sophie files for child support, you’re on your own. I won’t cover for you anymore. You’re not a boy.”
Too late. Far too late. She’d raised not a man, but a child who blamed the world for everything. Meanwhile, Sophie married again—a steady, kind man who treated the little girl as his own. And Alex? He stayed with Mum. No family, no purpose, no will to change.
A mother’s love knows no bounds. But sometimes, it blinds.
And if you don’t take off the blindfold in time, you might wake up one day beside a stranger—a lazy, entitled grown-up who thinks the world owes him everything.
