This Mother's Day, we salute the 'queens': women who rule over a household of sons

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 8, 2005

BY LAURA MEADE KIRK
Journal Staff Writer

Kymm Hogan dreams of someday having her own bathroom: a private retreat from the burping contests at the kitchen table, the lizards in the bedroom and the garage bursting with ride-on toys and sports equipment -- not to mention two broken windows from errant baseballs and hockey pucks.

For now, she's got to share the throne with a houseful of boys -- including husband Brian and sons Patrick, 9, Benjamin, 6, Zachary, 5, and Timmy, 3. "I have to clean the bathroom two to three times a day, just so I can use it," she said. (She tries to ignore the rust on the baseboard heaters by the toilet.)

But it's a small price to pay as queen of the house, said Hogan, who lives in North Attleboro. She said she wouldn't want life any other way.

Maxine Lang, who also has five "boys" -- husband Ray and sons Danny, 13, David, 10, Jacob, 8, and Jared, 3 -- feels the same way.

"We would have loved a girl," said Lang, who also lives in North Attleboro. They were especially hopeful when they discovered she was pregnant with their fourth child. "I was a little disappointed. I think everyone wants one of each. But the minute they're born, it doesn't matter anymore."

Besides, she said, "At that point, this was our life -- baseball fields, basketball courts and football fields. . . . We were in the groove. We had the clothes. We had all boy stuff. . . . I was just resigned to the fact that I was to be the mother of sons."

Only other moms of all boys would understand, said Mindy Sherwin of Pawtucket who, with her husband, Rob, has three sons, Jason, 18, Jeff, 16, and Greg 13. "There's a special bond [among these moms]. You just get it. You understand the craziness."

That's why Linda Marie Ford of Lakewood, Texas, created "It's Good To Be The Queen," a Web-based organization of moms who have only boys in their families.

And there's no better time than Mothers Day to acknowledge the queens of the world, Ford said. "There's a special place in heaven for mothers of boys. Hopefully, it's not a padded cell and it will have a clean bathroom."

FORD, WHO HAS THREE SONS ages 12, 8 and 3, launched the organization three years ago after hosting a brunch for other moms of boys. She knew about 20 other women who were also moms of just boys and figured it "would be a hoot" to get together and swap war stories.

She came up with idea of calling the moms "queens" based on a passage in the children's classic The Chronicles of Narnia, which she'd been reading with her kids. One of the characters said, "I hear and obey my queen." She said that line had become a joke in her house, so that when her kids got out of line, she'd remind them: "I hear and obey my queen."

She designed her brunch with the idea that all moms of boys should be treated like royalty. She rolled out the red carpet -- a roll of red plastic tablecloth -- and had her sons serve as royal escorts for the other queens. They feasted on royal snacks, such as crustless cucumber sandwiches, and swapped stories about trying to stay afloat in a sea of Y chromosomes.

One guest was a pediatrician, and even she was having trouble dealing with her boys, Ford said. So she decided to make a home-based business to help out fellow moms "and it just sort of took off from there."

She created a Web site called "www.itsgoodtobethequeen.com" and organized an even bigger royal party -- the High Tea and Toddys party -- to kick off her new business two years ago. She soon had followers as far away as Australia.

She still hosts annual get-togethers, and has even scheduled a getaway for the queens in Las Vegas this fall. She encourages other moms to create local chapters of the organization, and sells royal kits with red carpets, tiaras and calling cards announcing their status as queen.

She e-mails a weekly newsletter to more than 2,000 queens around the country, and she has nearly 1,300 active users of her Web site who swap child-rearing tips and recipes. Someone always seems to be online on the message board, available for advice, she said.

Ford also collects from the site anecdotes and quotes that she plans to eventually put into a book. Only moms of boys, Ford said, could relate to lines like these:

"Don't throw rocks at your brother. I don't care if it's only a 'little one.' "

"Please don't let the cat eat out of your mouth."

"Get out of the washing machine. Your clothes can only be washed when you're not in them."

"Would you please stop burping the Veggie Tales theme song?"

Then, there was the mom who wrote about her boys having a "peeing contest into a box of Teddy Grahams."

Ford features a "story of the week" to show parents that "your kids aren't that bad" and to prove that other boys are doing the same things.

One of her favorite stories is that of triplet toddlers who all took off their Pull-Ups and flung them up in the air at their home, getting the absorbent gel all over the walls and ceilings. The parents had to wait until it all dried to have it sanded off the ceiling and walls.

"It's so great to be able to have this group of women who know exactly what you're going through, being there for you," Ford said. And sometimes, she said, the best part of all is being able to say, "Oh man, at least mine don't do that."

HOGAN, LANG AND SHERWIN are among the local queens who can relate.

They've all had their share of ribbing about living the life played out on the former television program My Three Sons. But they say they're amazed at how many all-boy households they know, and they can't imagine their lives any other way.

Still, there are some things women find it difficult to appreciate -- especially when it comes to all the body language that boys find hysterical.

"The burping, the farting, everything at the dinner table," Lang said. "Depending what mood [husband] Ray is in, he may join in."

Sometimes husbands are the worst of all, Sherwin said. "Rob is the fourth child, but he can be worse than the others."

Then there's all the cleaning and dirty clothes. Boys have this thing where they think "the dirtier the better, the muddier the better," Hogan said. And it's always a challenge to find pants without ripped knees.

That's just one more guy thing, says Ray Lang. "We are all slobs that have to be constantly entertained."

Then there's the nonstop action, good and bad.

"They're all going all the time. They do not sit down," Hogan said. Even when they're at the breakfast bar, eating, she said with a laugh, "all four chairs are swiveling, all four sets of feet are kicking." They're so full of energy that in the winter she sends them outside to run 10 laps around the house to release some of it.

Maxine Lang recalled a recent morning when one of her kids spotted a stray puppy in the yard, and within seconds all four boys were running out the back door in their pajamas and underwear to chase the puppy.

"It's chaos," she said. ". . . They're all rough-and-tumble -- running around, shooting guns, whacking the others across the head. Girls don't touch. Boys just have to touch and hit. This is all they know."

The guys don't always get the women in their homes, either. Rob Sherwin said his boys don't understand "why shopping gives her such a buzz . . . we just don't like shopping, period." They also don't get why their mom is always late for events, because she's trying to decide which outfit, shoes or earrings to wear. When she's trying to decide between two pairs of shoes, he helpfully suggests: "Why don't you just wear one of each?"

Ray Lang said while his guys don't appreciate all of Maxine's needs as a woman simply "because we are all guys," they do know that "little things ease her pain, like picking up after ourselves, setting the table, watching 'chick flicks' with her and keeping the bathroom reasonably clear of debris."

And, even though they don't fully understand her, Ray Lang said, "the guys all [know] who runs the show."

Rob Sherwin says "it takes a special kind of mom" to be the mother of all boys -- "a woman who really likes guys and who's comfortable being around guys all the time."

Ford said she constantly reminds her boys she's just like them. Not so, one of her sons said. "Girls can't pee standing up." Ford retorted: "I could. But it would be messy."

OF COURSE, making a mess is what many boys do best.

The Hogans' basement playroom is littered with toy cars and trucks, dinosaurs and building blocks and video games -- all sports, of course. She just tries to keep it contained downstairs and out of sight.

Sherwin remembers those days. "There were no crayons and markers. There were no dolls -- mounds of stuffed animals, yes, but they'd get thrown and never played with."

Rob Sherwin says one of the things his sons lament is that they don't have a sister "to help us clean up . . . if there was another girl in the house, it makes it a lot easier."

Mindy Sherwin said her house was always filled with kids, as well. She had one rule: They had to take off their shoes when they entered the house. "The pile of shoes, it really was cute to see."

Her kids are older now, but they and their friends still have to shed their shoes by the door -- the only difference is that the pile is now a mound of size 12 sneakers.

Then there are the carpools to school and sporting events. Now that they're bigger, Sherwin said, it's slightly more of a challenge cramming them all into her eight-passenger Sequoia (the minivan wasn't big enough) to carpool from one sporting event to the next.

The only problem with carpooling all boys, she said, is that the car usually "smells like a locker room."

SPORTS ALSO HELP bring these families together in other ways -- whether shuttling kids to T-ball or tennis, or watching sports on TV.

"I know every sporting event," Sherwin said proudly. "I was always interested in sports, but now I can tell you everything that's going on."

Ray Lang describes his wife as an "awesome sports mom," which the kids love. Maxine Lang said all six members of her family cheered on Duke in the recent NCAA basketball tournment, and all six cried when they got knocked out. "I don't think we would get that if I had four girls," she said.

That's fine with her, since she's a huge Red Sox and Patriots fan -- and it's just as well, she said, since her boys don't allow "chick flicks" when they're around. "The movies we rent have to be action or thrillers," she said. "No love stories in this house."

But the dads also know when the moms need a break, and they're quick to take the boys out to dinner or to a grandparent's house to get them out of the house. Or, the moms will escape for a "girls' night out" with friends. Sometimes, the escape is simply behind a closed door. Lang said her husband recently suggested she go upstairs and take a bubble bath to relax.

"I took a glass of red wine and I was up there for 45 or 50 minutes," Lang said. It was the perfect antidote to a long day.

THE DOWNSIDE of having no girls in the family, they said, is missing things such as tea parties and dress-up games and playing Barbie. They don't get to put ponytails and ribbons in a little girl's hair, or go shopping for a daughter's prom dress.

That's actually fine with Lang. "I was a tomboy growing up. I wasn't into all that frilly stuff. I didn't have the Barbie dolls. I had trucks and GI Joes and I went right into basketball and football."

Hogan, who also played sports all her life, said she sometimes wonders what it would be like to have a daughter with whom to talk or shop.

Sherwin says her boys hate shopping so much that she now resorts to such tactics as ordering seven or eight pairs of sneakers online. (All three boys wear size 12. "I throw them on the floor and say, 'Pick a pair,' " Mindy said. "The boys don't really care. [To them], 'Everything's fine.' "

Lang said she recently took a friend's daughter shopping at the mall and was astonished to see the teen spend $59 for a pair of jeans and a T-shirt at Hollister's. Her boys pay half that when shopping for clothes at Dick's Sporting Goods and Bobs Stores. But when she mentioned the price of jeans to her husband, he noted that they'd just spent $175 on a new baseball bat for their oldest son.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST challenges to raising a houseful of boys is to overcome the stereotypes, all three moms agreed. Hogan said she wants to raise boys who treat girls as equals and grow to respect women.

Lang said she wants to teach the boys that it's OK to be sad and it's OK to cry, that they don't have to be tough all the time. "That's where I think a mother comes in, to give her boys that softer side."

Her husband may tell the boys, "Oh, don't be a wimp." But Lang said it's her job to say: "It's OK . . . You don't have to hold your chin up all the time. [Feeling sad] is not a bad thing."

Another tough thing about having all boys, Hogan said, is knowing they'll grow up and go their own ways. "Boys at this age love, love, love their mothers," she said. "I know my time with them right now, I really want to enjoy every minute because I am the lady in their life. Then I have to let them go. . . . That's why I really want to take it all in."

Sherwin believes that too: "A daughter tends to stay closer to her family," while a son tends to bond with his wife's family. She wonders what kind of relationships she'll have with her sons and their wives as she gets older.

Lang isn't too worried about the future. She says she has a "phenomenal" relationship with her mother-in-law. "If I can ever have the close relationship with my daughter-in-laws, I'll be all set."

BUT FOR NOW, all three cherish their special moments with their sons, the good and the bad -- from the impromptu "I love yous" to the major messes they make in their respective bathrooms.

All three moms joked about having to clean the bathroom all the time. "The best invention ever made is those bathroom wipes," Lang said. But the rust on the radiator is the absolute worst -- a lasting sign of poor aim.

Lang tells how she and her husband will be lying in bed when they hear the pitter-patter of little feet heading into the bathroom. One of them will say, " 'I don't hear water. They're not hitting water. What are they hitting?' Then you hear the flush."

She's glad she has her own bathroom -- which is off limits to the boys. "They can be so gross," she said.

That's one thing Hogan would love for Mother's Day -- or any day. She said her husband has repeatedly told her: "If I give you nothing else in this life, I'm giving you your own bathroom."

Brian Hogan there's no question his wife deserves her own space, especially given all the sacrifices she has made for her boys. "We know how lucky we are because she bends over backward for all of us."

So he plans to make good on his promise, eventually. "It might be an outhouse," he joked. "But she'll get it."