Do grown men really listen to their mothers?
When Sex and the City's Charlotte was romancing Trey, she carefully observed the relationship he had with his domineering mother, Bunny.
In a detail that, for some strange reason, remains etched in my memory, Bunny actually had a specific way of touching Trey's forearm that seemed to completely control his behavior. She'd gently place her hand just above his wrist, look in his eye and say, "Wouldn't you like to . . . ." or "Don't you think you should . . . ."
It worked every time. And Charlotte started doing it, too. Which is how she got him to propose.
This, of course, was completely laughable. But I did wonder if it worked. Or if every mother-son relationship had some similar key -- a semi-hypnotic tic that could, no matter what the circumstances, immediately re-establish a deep and obedient bond.
My purposes were, of course, purely selfish.
But, in Uganda, where a bloody civil war has dragged on for years, this question has actually taken on some serious relevance.
The government there has recruited 70-year-old Nora Oting, mother of rebel leader Joseph Kony, to try to convince him to enter peace talks. Kony's murderous group, The Lord's Resistance Army, is known the world over for kidnapping children and forcing them to become soldiers. So, at first blush, he doesn't really seem like the kind of guy who'd do something just because his mother tells him to.
On the other hand, some of history's greatest psychopaths really were just mama's boys.
Earlier this week, BBC News offered up an Internet survey on people's opinions about Oting's role in the Ugandan conflict . . . and about the power of mothers in general. You can check out some readers' comments here.
