There comes a time in the life of every man’s mother where she must hand off her precious baby boy to another woman, a woman who will have the honor of taking care of him for the rest of his life: his wife. I do not yet know who will bear this title for my son, but I can say confidently that she will fail to live up to my expectations, because no woman will ever be good enough for my terrible, terrible son.

From a young age, I sensed my son Atticus was terrible yet I knew he deserved the world. Really I knew as soon as I named him Atticus, my bad but amazing son has always had a voracious appetite and intuitive understanding of the fact that the emotional labor of women is what makes boys grow big and strong and a man should never have to put his dish in the sink. Never.

Throughout all of his childhood and adolescence, I’ve made sure Atti-atti-cus-cus never wants for anything. I do this duty not just so my beautiful boy can grow big and strong, but also because I am a mother and it is my duty to take care of bad men. I mean, that’s just God’s plan. There just isn’t another woman out there who is as willing to sacrifice her whole life to make my disgusting son feel like it’s absolutely okay that he plays Nintendo Switch constantly and does not have a job.

Just last week I tried to gauge the character of one of Atticus’s dates by asking her some straightforward questions like, where are you from? What do you do? Are you prepared to continue telling Atticus that his laundry is done by cleaning fairies so he doesn’t feel the need to express gratitude every time I do it? She flatly refused, which may have surprised me were I not so accustomed to the caliber of modern women today. Every relationship my darling, horrible Atticus enters is destroyed by his useless girlfriends who lack the iron will to tame, support, feed, and bathe him.

For the time being, it seems that no woman will ever be good enough for my nightmare of a 35-year-old son. And until he finds a woman who is willing to sacrifice her entire life and self-worth for him, I’ll be by his side, fiercely defending his bad behavior at every turn.