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"I&amp;#x27;ve been called out many times for raising a &amp;quot;mama&amp;#x27;s boy!&amp;quot; and been told I need to &amp;quot;boy up&amp;quot; and stop coddling JD. I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;m deliberately raising a mama&amp;#x27;s boy, and while, OK, I&amp;#x27;ve been known to kiss &amp;quot;boo-boos&amp;quot; and add a y to words (Want some juicy? Let&amp;#x27;s take a bubble bathy, Come here, Jacky), I swear it is not my intension to raise a dependent young man who assumes I will cook his dinner when he is 30. And, yes, in some parts of the world, that is happening. Mama&amp;#x27;s boys, also know as &amp;quot;mammones,&amp;quot; are apparently really common in Italy. So common, in fact, that according to Psychology Today, 37 percent of men ages 30 to 34 still live with their mothers! (Yes, my last name is Coppa and I&amp;#x27;m an Italian mama. Seriously though, the only thing remotely Italian about my parenting style is my Gucci diaper bag and the fact that JD would eat pasta 24-7 if I let him.) But even knowing that Italian mama&amp;#x27;s boys are commonplace didn&amp;#x27;t make one story I recently read in Time magazine sound any less extreme. A 12-year-old Italian boy&amp;#x27;s mother and grandfather were convicted of child abuse for allegedly stunting the boy&amp;#x27;s development so severely that he has the motor skills of a three-year-old child. Prosecutors say the boy wasn&amp;#x27;t allowed to play with other children, participate in sports or even attend church. The family has appealed, and as they wait for a new court date, the child remains in his mother&amp;#x27;s custody. Obviously this kind of &amp;quot;mother-smothering&amp;quot; goes beyond kissing a &amp;quot;boo-boo&amp;quot; or bundling a child up in wintertime to the point of restraint (think Randy Parker from A Christmas Story). But it does raise a good question of where to draw the line: What is considered overparenting vs. the love and concern associated with, well, parenting? Although I don&amp;#x27;t agree that a 12-year-old should be forbidden to play with other kids and engage in activities away from his mom and dad, I do disagree with people who tell me I coddle JD because I shadow him on the play apparatus in the park that has an eight-foot drop. I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;m crazy for cutting grapes in half that otherwise could get caught in his small windpipe. Sure, maybe I should let him cry it out more in the night instead of running into his room like a mama-superhero (like my wake-up call at 2:30 A.M. last night), and maybe I shouldn&amp;#x27;t feel so anxious when he&amp;#x27;s running 100 miles per hour on the blacktop at the park. But I&amp;#x27;m a mom--what can I say? Can any of you relate? Have any of you been accused of raising a mama&amp;#x27;s boy? How did you react? Do any of you admit to coddling your kids a little too much? What do you do that is &amp;quot;coddling?&amp;quot; Still make your tween&amp;#x27;s bed or fold your teen&amp;#x27;s laundry? What do you think about the story of the Italian boy? Do you think his mother is guilty of child abuse or is she just overprotective? Not a mom? Have any of you dated a mama&amp;#x27;s boy before? What was that like? Keep talking: Do live with your mom? Want some dating advice from moms everywhere? *** Hold on, don&amp;#x27;t move! It&amp;#x27;s been over a year since Glamour.com re-launched into this fabulous site you&amp;#x27;re currently enjoying. We want to know what you think and there&amp;#x27;s something in it for you! Take this survey and, ready for this--you could win $3000 (that&amp;#x27;s $3000!) *** More Ways To Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering for or logging in to Glamour.com! Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;#x27;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage. Follow Storked! on Twitter "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/storked/2009/10/lets-talk-about-mamas-boys--or>