Trying to keep my sanity in a house full of manly ball-scratching, burping, farting, and raised toilet seats.
Trying to keep my sanity in a house full of manly ball-scratching, burping, farting, and raised toilet seats. 
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the saying “Bro’s before hoes”. And I’m sure many of you are nodding your head in agreement. But when do you (men, that is) decide that the woman is in fact not a hoe and, therefore, 
must come before the bro’s?
This past weekend my 12 year old son faced this challenging choice.
It was Friday and I was picking him up from school at the park where I always meet up with him. I called him on his phone and let him know I was waiting in the parking lot. Five minutes later he jumped into the car and we were off. I asked him the usual “how was school?” and “did you learn anything?” questions to which he uninterestedly and flatly answered “fine” and “no”.
“Oh, I almost forgot mom,” he started rummaging through his backpack and pulled out an invitation for a birthday party. At the stop light I opened it and read the details.
“Today? Why are you just giving this to me? When did you get this?”
“Wednesday, but I forgot to give it to you.”
“And you want to go?”
“Yeah,” he answered. It wasn’t a “OF COURSE!” yeah, it was just a “sure, I’d like to go” yeah. But the boy who was having the party was a good friend of his so I agreed and grumbled under my breath with frustration because that meant that I would be playing chauffeur for the night…again. BTW, in case you didn’t know, having teens, means being demoted to chauffeur, unless you can afford to pay for one, which I highly recommend.
When we got home my older son explained to me his plans to go to the mall that evening and that he needed to go to Michaels to buy some beads. Yeah, that’s another note to make; teens dictate your free time, not you. I started strategizing in my head a route to accomplish the stops I would need to make. That’s when my youngest burst out of his room proclaiming that he too wanted to go to the mall. Of course I was confused with the sudden change of plans and asked him with who and what about the birthday party. He informed me of two girls that were planning on going and of course he seemed eagerly excited to go to the mall with them instead of the party. I told him to call the mother of one of the girls (I will refer to her as “S” from now on) and make sure that she was aware of these plans. Because, and here’s tip #3, teens tend to make plans amongst themselves forgetting the fact that their parents need to know and that without their parents they don’t have a driver (of course I’m referring to non-driving teens).
My son called S’s mom from my phone but she didn’t answer, so I told him that he wasn’t going to go to the mall if no one else was going (I didn’t want him pestering his older brother) and besides, he said he wanted to go to the birthday party so he was gonna go to the birthday party. That’s when it dawned on me and I relaized that S was obviously not going to the brithday party.
“Why isn’t S going to the party?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wasn’t she invited?”
“I don’t think so.”
I found this strange since they are one huge group of friends who have been friends for several years and all go to the same parties and events together; unless there’s some kind of drama going on (which there usually is; particularly amongst the girls). Nevertheless, we needed to go and so it was decided that he would go to the party. As I was pulling out of the driveway, S’s mother called. I answered and informed her of the mall idea and proceeded to ask her why S wasn’t going to the party. “She wasn’t invited.” Apparently, the boy had passed out the invites to everyone in front of her and intentionally did not have one for her. In Spanish (that’s what I speak when I don’t want my boys to understand me) I told S’s mother that I was positive if I asked my son where he’d rather go that he would prefer the mall with S than go to the birthday party.
We hung up and I turned to my son, who was sitting next to me, and asked him,
“Do you want to go to the birthday party?” (mind you this was the birthday party of a very good friend of his, not just some acquaintaince)
“Yeah, I guess.”
Undecisiveness and lack of conviction are two of my son’s characteristics. Ask him what he wants to wear, where he wants to go or what he wants to eat and he never seems to be able to decide. To his credit though, he has gotten better over the last several months.
“I want you to tell me with conviction what it is that you want to do. Do you want to be with S or do you want to go to the party?” I was speaking to him firmly now and had raised my voice. This was a decision that he needed to make assertively without any pussyfooting. It was his guy friends birthday party or hanging out with a chic. Without hesitation he answered,
“I want to be with S.” Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking that he’s messing with the Bro Code, right?
I turned my head to hide my smile. You see, my son has been in love with S for the last year. She’s his best friend, they call each other twins because they have so many commonalities, and her mom and I are secretly planning their wedding. Unfortunately, S only likes my son as a friend. She confirmed it back in Septemeber when he poured his heart out to her in a letter he left for her in her room the day we celebrated their brithdays and in the end she turned him down. Sucks right? But in her defense, it was very difficult for her. She cares about my son deeply and didn’t want to hurt him, but had to tell him the truth. My son didn’t let it get him down though, and I have a feeling he’s still trying and will keep trying. Persistence is another one of his attributes as well as the fact that he’s extremely charming.
Anyways, something about our conversation caught my eldest son’s attention because he had taken off his headphones and was asking what was going on. I explained to him that his brother was going to the mall with S.
“Bro, that’s messed up,” my eldest said to his brother, “Bro’s before hoes man. What are you doin’?”
I didn’t exactly give my youngest time to even process an answer for his brother and instead answered for him, “He made a choice, this is his choice, and he knows what he wants. He wants to be with S and that’s that. Besides, S is not a hoe, she’s his best friend, so back off.”
Looking back in retrospect, now I understand why my son didn’t inform me of the party when he had gotten the invitation several days earlier. He wasn’t excited about the idea of going to the party knowing that his friend had not invited S and it hadn’t settled well with him. At the end of the day, my son stayed true to who he is; a genuine and caring young man that doesn’t need to live by cliches or societal rules that have been constructed by insecure men who were at one point in their life burned by a woman. (oops, did I just say that?)
Well, let’s see how long it lasts!! LOL!
Peace out!
-Natasha Olivera
 |
 |
 |
 |
My journey into motherhood began when I was 17 years old. Today, I am the mother of two teen boys, 15 and 13, and I am one of the only moms "blogging" about raising teen boys. On this blog, which I like to call a "blogory", I share my candid, poignant, sometimes humorous, but always real, short stories about my stumbles through parenthood as a young mother raising two teen boys while coping with living in a house full of testosterone. My parenting philosophy revolves around honest, no holds barred communication, where no topic is off limits, mixed with an enormous sense of humor. Peace Out! -Natasha Olivera
© 2010-2012 2010 Me, My Guys, & My Stumbles Through Parenthood All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Natasha Olivera, Natasha Olivera. Natasha Olivera said: Read this: Bro's Before Hoes http://bit.ly/gAOyfI [...]
Egad! The Five Sages of Bro-dom have gathered upon Bro-Hill to consult the words recorded by the Ancient Brophets, given to them by The Bro Upstairs , Brahweh (which historians have a loosely translated as “I am the Bro that’s a Bro”). They seek answers on how to handle your son’s sacrilege of one the 10 Bromandments. After the Holy Beer Pong Communion, every one decided that they where too divinely wasted and an evening of bro ass slapping began. The next day, they celebrated “The Hangover” (not to be confused with “The Passover”).
In all seriousness though, “bro’s before hoes” has never really been one of my creeds, although there are times that should be designated for bro’s and other times for women (aforementioned hoes).
This creed (or code) seems to permeate predominately through bachelor (stereotypically, the particularly promiscuous variety) culture and I’m glad there are those that don’t let it sway their personalities.
To answer this question:
“But when do you (men, that is) decide that the woman is in fact not a hoe and, therefore, must come before the bro’s?”
Hoes are for the sport. Hoes are material. A hoe enters a relationship for solely personal, material, and physical gain. Every bro will meet a hoe at some point making the creed a sort of “safety net” for bro-culture.
Obviously, the best way to find out if a woman is a hoe is to pose the following question:
“There are two women in a park eating ice cream cones. The first women takes big, rather violent, bites out the ice cream cone while the other passionately licks it. Which one of these women is married?”
If she answers “The second women” she might have hoe-tendencies as, clearly, the only correct answer is “The one with a ring on her finger.”
Don’t you love this at 12? Makes me regret some of what I put my parents through, mostly because I know I am getting it back three-fold. Ugh.
Wow. This left me wondering when the conversation would turn to what it means to characterize a woman as a ‘ho and why we (parents/teachers) too often let it ride rather than challenging youths easy acceptance of it – both guys and girls! I know it is common popular slang – a “gift” from the world of rap, just like “bitches” – but shouldn’t we be teaching young people, especially young men, that it is not cool?
Women should not be sexualized in this way nor reduced to 1-2 categories based on the view of a few wealthy but paranoid rappers who see all women as scheming, nasty, sex objects with bad personalities.
We should be teaching them to respect women, to avoid stereotyping or seeing people in terms of stereotypes.
I don’t mean to be “preachy” and I know that some women certainly are “‘ ho’s” but I don’t think guys want to be typecast as “bastards” or “dicks..” I’m just saying….
Hello Natasha, enjoyed reading this. Cool humor. Anyway in my opinion the only time Bros go before Hoes is in the dictionary.
Hey,
Good for your son, especially as it seems that he is siding against the popular opinion of his friends.
Now, not to be particular or anything, but the whole “Bros before hoes” thing doesn’t so much refer to relationships as it does to hookups. Situations such as bailing on a party at the last minute because you just got called up for a booty call. It isn’t really an ‘at all times’ code of conduct, but more of a frat boy ‘keeping each other in line’ kind of deal, that frankly has no place outside of fraternity/university life.
But that might just be me…
[...] you who read my blog avidly you are already aware of this, but if this is your first time reading, my son is in love with “S”. Unfortunately for him, “S” only sees him as a “friend”; a best friend at [...]
To be completely honest, I feel bad for your son. He is the good guy, he is perpetually stuck in the friend zone FOREVER! “S” will never see him as anything other than her best friend twin who will always be by her side no matter what, and that’s the killer the “no matter what” part. So now she doesn’t have to take the relationship any further to keep getting the same affection from him as she has in the past.
This is why men make codes like Bro’s before Hoe’s, to protect our selves from the evil realm that is the friend zone. It keeps us at a relatively controlled level of douche baggery to still be attractive to girls. Girls will say they want the nice guy, you will end up being the nice guy and watch them date the ass hole who puts his bro’s before her. So the Bro code may be offensive but it’s honestly to protect our egos.