Pope to mums: Let your sons go

Faith

POPE Francis has issued some tough love-style parenting advice for frustrated, but “overprotective” mothers with adult sons who simply won’t “leave the nest”.
Pope Francis told Catholic mothers during a mass service to mark the end of the 10th World Meeting of Families last month that they should stop ironing their son’s shirts and encourage them to get married instead.
He also urged adult men not to “take the easy road” and return to their mothers in “moments of difficulty”.
The 85-year-old head of the Catholic church, who has never been married and has no children, said: “We see so many young men who don’t have the courage to get married and mothers often say to me, ‘Do something, speak to my son, who is not getting married and is 37-years-old’.
“But signora, don’t iron his shirts, send him out.”
At the service, which took place at the Vatican in Rome over the weekend, the Pope said that familial love “is not possessive, it’s for freedom always”.
As the US Supreme Court overturned constitutional protections for abortion last week, in an apparent show of support the Pope also used his platform to condemn “selfish” decisions that “thwart the desire to bring lives into the world”.
Although he did not explicitly mention it, the Pope said: “Let us not allow the family to be poisoned by toxins of selfishness, individualism, today’s culture of indifference, and as a result lose its DNA, the spirit of welcoming and service.”