The Infamous Dinner Table
Author: Kathy Stallo	Brent Stallo | Monday, 13 July 2009 09:26

The Infamous Dinner Table

My name is Kathy Stallo. My story is about being a stay at home mom and sharing with you one of the life lessons that I learned along the way about boys.

I consider myself some what of an authority on raising boys. We had four boys, Shawn, Kent, Brent, and Chase. I am happy to say they all have grown into productive, educated, responsible young men.

Our home was truly the ‘June Cleaver’ house. It was totally crazy making. Our four boys, the youngest to the oldest, were eleven years apart. Therefore they were enviably in different stages. All of our family lived out of town, so it was a total team effort between their father and me to teach them.


We taught them how to swim, ride bikes do their chores and learn responsibilities and say their prayers. We had slumber parties, baseball banquets, birthday parties and pet funerals in the yard. It was a place where families gathered for the holidays, for memories and celebrations. A fun place with half pipes, club houses, motorcycles, Mickey Mouse waffles and a million best friends.

It was a home where I cooked their meals and we ate together as a family, every night, at the infamous dinner table. The table where boys grew into men and where men can revert back to ‘boyhood’ in the snap of a finger. Which brings me to the ‘lesson!’


I was listening to Chase and Brent laughing their heads off the other day about the DMXS Radio show. They were carrying on making fun of each other and I thought to myself, “that sounded like our infamous dinner table.”

Remember, I was the MOM! The one who was always trying to stand up for the underdog. Trying to explain to others how it feels when they go below the belt with their teasing.

As hard as it is, let me tell the Vurb moms one thing…whether it be at the dinner table or on the radio, somewhere between the age of eleven and eighteen, you have to let them go through that relentless, obnoxious stage. Where they hit below the belt and cut to the quick. Or when someone else is hitting them below the belt and they have to endure the pain and learn how to handle it..

We, as mothers, will never understand why they have to go through it.
But I promise if you let them go through the process, one degrading remark at a time, you will see your sons grow into manhood… even with a touch of empathy.


And when they all get together, as young, responsible, educated men at the table, know that they will continue to hit below the belt and cut each other down unmercifully.

They truly are relentless with one another. On the other hand, all four of them would stand up for one another to the end. Their dad was right, it isn’t personal it is just the way they communicate with each other.

When you put a group of boys together they can be like a pack of dogs, they have their own private fraternity. We will never understand their rules. Then again, we never got never will get a copy of that manual that they read.


As I heard them laugh that day, I also heard them say, “no we don’t need to say that, we would be going over the line.” I do realize that some of you mothers are probably thinking, “I don’t think she is right about that , times have changed.” But, I assure you that there is a dad in the background saying “Yep! She is right!!!”