“Let her live alone—maybe she’ll realise what she’s lost. And don’t you worry, love, Mum won’t let anyone push you around…”
“So, Maureen, your Tony’s left his wife, hasn’t he?”
“He has. What of it? Planning to gossip about it all over the neighbourhood?” Maureen snapped, adjusting the scarf on her silver-streaked hair.
Tony and Sophie had been married just over three years. Not long ago, they’d welcomed a baby girl—the granddaughter Maureen had dreamed of for years. But trouble was, Tony was still a mummy’s boy, just as he’d always been—flighty, a bit childish, spoiled by her endless doting and forgiveness.
“What do I need a wife for?” he’d said a few years back. “Just someone to nag me, that’s all. Women just want to sit on your shoulders and demand this and that.”
Maureen had waved it off—so long as her son was nearby, nothing else mattered. He never cared much for work, but that was fine by her. He was home, under her roof. Who cared if he was pushing thirty? He was still her boy.
Then one day, out of the blue, he announced he was getting married. Brought home Sophie—shy, quiet, with eyes full of hope but little confidence. Maureen approved. Not some flighty tart, but a proper homemaker. She even bought them a modest cottage in a nearby village to start their life.
At first, things seemed alright. But Tony was hopeless at being a husband. He drifted between odd jobs, mostly as a nightwatchman, then ended up sweeping up at the cemetery—”at least no one bosses me around there.”
“I can’t take it, Mum, she winds me up!” he’d whine to Maureen. “First it’s my job, then it’s not enough money, then she wants a new bathroom!”
“Oh, Tony love,” Maureen would sigh. “She’s not a wife—she’s a leech. Come stay with me a while. Let her see what it’s like being on her own.”
So Tony started bouncing between Sophie’s and his mother’s. He’d come back full of complaints and sulks. And Sophie—sweet, silent Sophie—started snapping back, shouting, crying. Then, after a particularly nasty row, Tony stormed out, slamming the door behind him. “For good this time!”
“She’s done my head in!” he ranted over his mother’s table. “Can you believe she called me useless? Said I can’t even provide! Let her feed herself then, let her handle nappies and all that. Not my problem anymore!”
“That’s right, love. Who does she think she is? Come on, have some stew—made it just how you like.”
He hardly mentioned his daughter. “What’s so hard about feeding her, putting her to bed, taking her out?” Meanwhile, Sophie moved back in with her parents. Maureen had already shot her a sharp word:
“Couldn’t hack it, eh? Got a house, a husband—still not enough for you. Should’ve toughed it out, like we did in my day!”
The neighbours whispered. “Tony’s got a daughter growing up, and there he is, glued to the telly like it’s nothing.”
“Maureen, you ought to visit your granddaughter,” a neighbour said one day. “Sophie’s raising her alone, with just her parents helping. Act like you’ve forgotten you’ve got family.”
“Oh, she’s fed you some sob story, hasn’t she?” Maureen scoffed. “Couldn’t keep her man—now she can suffer. That granddaughter? I’ll get custody. She’s my blood!”
“You serious? Take a child from her mother? Your Tony hasn’t held a job in years—only good at lazing about!”
“Don’t you start! He’s just… regrouping. He’ll sort himself out.”
But years passed, and Tony stayed exactly where he was—no job, no ambition, just grumbling about “difficult women” and how the world owed him.
“Tony, maybe see Sophie, visit your girl…” Maureen finally ventured one day.
“What, Mum? So she can start again—‘you’re this, you’re that, where’s the money?’ No thanks. I’m living for me now!”
And that’s when it hit her. Right in the gut. Right in the heart.
“Enough, son,” she said one evening. “I’m ashamed of what you’ve become. If Sophie files for child support, you’ll handle it yourself. No more shielding you. You’re not a boy anymore.”
Too late. Far too late. She’d raised not a man, but a sulking child who blamed the world. Sophie, meanwhile, remarried—a steady, kind bloke who treated the little girl as his own. And Tony? He stayed with his 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 tear 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.
