Bronx Boys and Their Mamas

Guest Post by Cara Goldstein

As a student at Fordham University, I felt obligated to watch the reality television show that takes place right down the street from the Rose Hill campus– Mama’s Boys of the Bronx. As it turns out the show and characters weave in and out of the lives and paths of the place where myself, and many other Fordham students call home for nine months of the year.

Yet, it is incredibly frustrating to watch overweight, tatted up, eternally single, thirty-something-year old, men-children be so helpless. When the mothers of Anthony (35), Giovanni (38) and Frankie (38) decide to go to Florida for a week, they need to prepare their sons. They stock their fridges and show them how to use the stove and washing machine. But even that doesn’t suffice. Instead of making their own food or doing their own laundry they follow their mothers, like sick puppies, down to Florida after only two days alone. So, they can book and plan a trip to Florida, but they can’t do their own laundry?

Not only are they entirely dependent on their mothers, but they act like overgrown high school kids. They throw a full-on high school rager  -- equipped with an abundance of red solo cups, spin the bottle, and random make-outs all over the first floor of the house  -- when their mamas leave town. 

 Of the two shows I have seen, the show has highlighted some of Fordham student’s favorite places on Arthur Ave. They’ve shown to the tanning salon down the street, Umberto’s, Ivana’s pizza, Pugsley’s pizza, and even my favorite building on campus – Keating Hall. It has featured the owner of Mugz, a bar that Fordham Students flock to all nights of the week. It even featured two Fordham students who politely told Chip (36) that they thought they “were busy that night” when he asked them to be cheerleaders at his first annual cannoli eating concert. 

Despite my fear of ending up like these boys, and concern with pop culture’s fascination with “traditional” Italian life in New York and New Jersey, these Mama’s Boys seem happy with their lives. They have no plans to move out and be on their own.  Like Chip says, they just want to be “mama’s boys for the rest of their lives.”