Dear Moms, From Your Grown Up Sons

Dear Moms,

I'm writing on behalf of your sons. I'm writing because most of us are not blessed with particular eloquence, and even the few of us who are so fortunate aren't often also blessed with the wit to know when to use our eloquence.  So, I write as best as I can on behalf of sons everywhere. So, from here on out, it's not one person writing...it's all of your grown up sons, writing as one.

First, let us begin with the many apologies we really should have given you personally over the years:
Yes, it was us, the collective sons of the world, who stole your chocolate and then lied about it.  In our defense, we were probably too young at the time to know WHY you were suddenly desperate for chocolate one week a month, but that's no excuse, and we should probably apologize to dad too, because I imagine without your chocolate his life wasn't particularly fun either.  We sons are also sorry for avoiding your hugs in front of our friends when we tried to act 'tough'.  If it's any consolation, you forcing us to give you a hug anyway is what made so many of us turn out as 'nice guys'.  So, kudos to you.  And a last apology that we sons probably need to make is simple:  We are extremely sorry that we were so dirty as kids.  Now that many of us live on our own, we suddenly realize why you forced us to take off our coats right at the door, and why you seemed so angry when we didn't clean our rooms: It turns out living in a rancid pig-sty isn't half as much fun as our young selves thought it would be.

Seriously:  We're sorry.

Aside from apologies, we also want to say thanks.  Not just for the whole "giving birth" thing: By now those Mother's Day cards have covered that subject in plenty of detail. No, we want to say thanks for being there when we were kids.  When we were awkward and nerdy, or tough and rugged, or somewhere in between you were likely the voice of reason that told us it's acceptable to not ALWAYS act the same.  Dad did a great job of helping us in the Boy Scouts or whatever it is we did as kids, but more often than not it's a mom's job to teach their sons that being nice and caring isn't a bad thing. If you hadn't done it, there would be a lot more jerks in the world than there are (though, admittedly, there ARE a lot of jerks...there'd just be more). Thanks also for teaching us skills like talking about our problems, or how to apologize properly, or how to to write even somewhat legibly: Not to sound sexist, but most dads have handwriting just as bad as their kids. In any case, we, your sons, want to say thanks.

We suddenly understand why bikers all seem to have "Mom" tattoos!

Finally, we, the collective grown up sons of the world, wanted to say we love you.  Yes, it's embarrassing.  Yes, if you were to see our collective faces right now, a large proportion of us would be blushing and sheepishly looking away, but we mean it nonetheless. We love you mom, and we wanted to say so.  To every mom out there, we say thank you for all you've done, sorry for all WE'VE done, and we love you more than our emotionally childish personalities would normally willingly admit.

Happy Mother's Day from Beards, Bears, and Brian.
Thanks, and have a great day.