With all-boy households, these women need girl time

03/05/2003

By NANCY CHURNIN / The Dallas Morning News

 

Linda Marie Ford discovered her "inner queen" during dinner last year with her husband and three sons.

 

"Andy was talking about work," she says, referring to her husband. "One of the boys belched, and the other laughed so hard, milk came out of his nose. The baby was crying his head off. I went outside and sat down and put my head in my hands."

 

But from that low point emerged a high point. Mothers of boys are different from mothers of girls, she decided. And that's not bad. But it can be a challenge to be the only female in a testosterone-charged household. And it would help to get a little support from other mothers of boys who know just what she means.

 

So she started "It's Good to Be the Queen," an organization aimed at mothers who only have boys. She hosted the first set of 15 "queens" last April, and they wore tiaras while swapping boy stories. And she started a Web site, www.itsgoodtobethe queen.com, where she addresses her fellow royals and sells queen party packs, complete with crowns, tiaras, invitations and calling cards. For Ms. Ford, an actress, it's a long way from becoming a full-time business, but she's having fun.

 

More than 40 arrived for last month's event, High Tea and Toddies, at her Lakewood home. Ms. Ford, 38, had her sons, Tim, 10, and Matthew, 6, serve as pages, announcing each woman's arrival on a red carpet (a red roll of tablecloth Ms. Ford purchased at Party City), while her husband, Andy England, tended to 1-year-old Christopher.

 

And in between arrivals, her young princes, as she calls them, and their friends played tag, jumping over the tablecloth and knocking over the white paper sacks filled with sand that anchored it to the ground.

 

Ms. Ford welcomed each woman with a tiara and a name tag. Inside, they poured tea from a silver teapot into china cups and feasted on crustless cucumber-and-mint tea sandwiches cut in triangles, smoked salmon pinwheels, scones with lemon curd, shortbread and Russian tea cakes on little plastic dishes.

 

Not the kind of spread that would have gone over big with any of their boys, they all agree.

Karen McCormick, 41, of Lakewood, loved it. "It's so nice to do your own thing instead of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon," she says. "I love eating frilly foods instead of peanut butter and jelly, and macaroni and cheese."

 

Ms. Ford realizes that she is not the first to give women opportunities to gather and preen like royalty. There are the women of the Red Hat Society, where women over 50 sport red hats with purple outfits, and the Sweet Potato Queens, with their tiaras and big hair, and the Ya-Ya clubs, with their tiaras and penchant for skinny-dipping. But mothers of boys are special in a way that only other mothers of boys can understand, she insists.

 

"Red Hat? Old hat," she says. "Pass the Sweet Potatoes and ta-ta to Ya-Ya. We're the real queens."

And the queens at her high tea agree.

 

Boys are just different, says Ms. McCormick. It's not unusual for her to catch her boys standing over a small hole in the pavement and trying to aim their spit into it – not something she imagines most girls do.

 

"Although that's better than what they were doing five minutes before – throwing dog doo at each other."

 

But then Ms. McCormick starts checking off the bright side to having boys: No wedding to pay for. No Dallas Cowboys cheerleading camp.

 

Juanita Keller, 39, of Lakewood, adds: "No prom dress to buy. No fighting over a girl's hair in the morning. On Valentine's Day, I get all the stuff. At the wedding, I get the fancy dress."

 

Hilary McGraw, 40, also of Lakewood, jumps in: "And what we save on feminine products, we can spend on our own clothes."

 

But Ms. McGraw says the truly wonderful thing about boys is how they treat their mothers.

 

"Boys are great. You're the girlfriend. They love you."

 

That doesn't mean they listen to you. She always tries to get to church early so they can sit in the front row. That's so they'll see the priest looming over them and they won't act up as much.

"Queens know the limits of their power," she says.

 

And one of those limits is knowing that they're never going to play dress-up or have tea parties with their kids.

 

"Tea parties?" says Shelby Salmon, 39, of Lakewood, and laughs. "We don't have tea parties. Those would turn into food fights for sure."

 

And yet they say that their husbands and sons are supportive of them going out to do their girly thing with other moms of boys.

 

Dr. Marsha Martinez, 43, of Irving, says her husband and three sons are totally on board with her being queen.

 

"They think it's hilarious," she says. "My husband hangs the tiara outside the door when I don't want to be disturbed. And when he does, they won't even knock."

 

As a pediatrician, Dr. Martinez knows there are more than superficial differences between girls and boys. She sees it in her waiting room, where little girls quietly read their books and play with their dolls while the boys jump around and knock things over.

 

But her sons are also gentlemen – they open doors for her and tell her she's beautiful without makeup.

 

"Can you promise me you'll never wear lipstick?" she says they ask her.

 

Of course, she says, they may not like lipstick partly because they don't want her to leave any embarrassing prints on their cheeks when she kisses them.

 

But what the women seem to love best about It's Good to Be the Queen is the opportunity to trade can-you-believe-what-my-son-did stories.

 

Like Beverly O'Hanlon's son, now 10, who got called into the principal's office when he was in kindergarten for flooding the boys' bathroom. Ms. O'Hanlon, 41, of Lakewood, remembers being "hysterical" when she heard about that. But four years later, she didn't bat an eye when his younger brother, now 6, did the same thing.

 

"You get used to it," she says.

 

Annettee DiCarlo, 42, of Lakewood laughs at that one. She has two boys, ages 11 and 8, and she knows just what Ms. O'Hanlon means.

 

"What's so nice is that the first time we gathered, I didn't realize that the person you saw at school or church only had boys, too. It's neat to share the experiences of living in a world of sports and jockstraps. I have sweet boys; they'll always help or do things for me. But I also know that when we take a drive, we'll drive right past the outlet stores. I will never get to shop on vacation. Still, being the only female is nice."

 

Andrea Wolek, 45, of Lakewood was an only child. So when she had her boys, now ages 8 and 10, it helped to talk to other moms to find out whether she needs to worry about things her kids do, both as boys and as siblings.

 

"I used to wonder if this is a guy thing that they're trying to kill each other," she says.

 

And the other women nod yes.

 

"Is it normal that my son walked across his science-fair project? That he leaves the door standing open? That they don't close doors or they slam them?"

 

And again, the women nod yes.

 

At the same time, Ms. Wolek's husband and boys have their own way of letting her know how loved she is. A couple of weeks before Valentine's Day, her husband stayed home from work with her younger son when he was sick, and they made her valentines with paper and glitter. They were so excited that they couldn't wait for Feb. 14. They gave them to her the minute she got home from work.

 

Not being able to wait for the special day – that's typical of her boys, but it's also one of the things she finds so endearing about them.

 

"I think that was just wonderful. Sometimes we think they don't get it. But sometimes they get much more than we think they do."