Julie Jay: I may be a mother of boys, but I’m most definitely not a boy-mom

TikTok has once again got me thinking about what it means to be a mother of boys, specifically in relation to the somewhat strange phenomenon of the #boymom viral video trend

Back in the 1920s and 30s the FBI ranked a certain criminal matriarch as possibly the most dangerous mind in the United States (sorry fellas, but you can’t win them all). Ma Barker reigned supreme within the echelons of the notorious Barker-Karpis gang, overseeing a string of robberies, kidnappings, and murders that resulted in the violent deaths of many, including Ma herself and her doting sons.

Previous to Ma’s dramatic demise in an explosive Florida stand-off, she was confronted in an FBI interrogation with indisputable evidence of her sons’ involvement in a series of crimes. But Ma appeared aghast at the accusations being levelled against her beloved sons.