That's men for you Padraig O'Morain's guide to men's healthIs the Irish mammy in danger of being driven into oblivion by the yummy mummy? And would it be an entirely bad thing if she was?
The Irish mammy, as we know, adores her golden boy. No other woman can ever live up to her devotion to her son and this is made clear to any woman who has the temerity to become his wife.
Sometimes sonny boy continues to visit his mammy for his dinner on a daily basis as his wife sits at home and grinds her teeth. Years ago, Gay Byrne read out a letter on his radio show from a wife complaining that her husband's mammy still made guggie for him every day.
Guggie is made by boiling an egg, chopping it up in a cup and mixing it with butter while still hot. It's very tasty and it's something I have not had since I was a child because, generally speaking, it is something you would only make for a child.
Anyway, it appears that this particular golden boy was very attached to his guggie which is not the sort of thing your wife will usually make for you. So mammy had to step into the breach.
That, I think you will agree, was a true Irish mammy. Perhaps she has passed on by now. If so, I wonder has the wife relented and begun to make guggie for him every day or is it a case of "you just can't make guggie like my mammy used to do?"
Irish mammies and their favourite sons constitute a mutual admiration society, according to Irish blogger Paige Harrison who writes the blankpaige blog. The world has heard of the Irish mammy, she suggests, "partly because their sons wax lyrical about their incomparable brilliance".
And she thinks there is scope for evening things out a bit in favour of the Irish daddy. "Maybe it's time that Irish daughters did the same for their fathers and transformed the daddy into a role that young men would be proud of," she writes in a comment on my blog (see below).
She was responding to an item about a scheme in Leeds in which young fathers are taught basic childcare skills. These young men, many of whom are not living with the mothers of their children, learn to prepare baby food, to change nappies, to bring their babies to the park and so on.
The co-ordinators of the scheme, called Fathers and Children Together, say most of the skills taught to these young fathers have been requested by themselves.
You can imagine how a genuine Irish mammy would respond to all of this. A young man being taught to change nappies and prepare baby food while there is a mother there who is perfectly capable of doing all these things? Can't you just hear generations of Irish mammies spinning in their graves?
Yes, graves, because I wonder if the Irish mammy is becoming a thing of the past. Can you see today's yummy mummy flying around the place in her SUV and nibbling a carrot for lunch? Now, can you really see her dragging herself out of the gym to make a nice cup of guggie for her son before he goes home to his inadequate wife?
I think not. The Irish mammy has fallen victim to an increasingly self-centred and materialistic society in which women expect to be able to give up minding their sons after they get married.
Perhaps it is all for the best, though. You will not see a yummy mummy producing a cholesterol-drenched full Irish breakfast for her darling boy. Nor will you see her insisting that he sit down on the sofa and have a nice rest - when he could be out having a healthy jog.
And the result of the yummy mummy's fixation with diet and fitness? Why it's that golden boy will be only too keen to run home to his missus for some real mollycoddling. And who knows, she might even whip him up a nice helping of guggie.
pomorain@irish-times.ie
u Padraig O'Morain's book Like A Man - a guide to men's emotional wellbeing is published by Veritas. His blog is at www.justlikeaman.blogspot.com