Andrew Martin Umlas Is His Mama’s Boy

By Mikael Rizada Borres

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the term “mama’s boy” as “a usually polite or timid boy or man who is extremely or excessively close to and solicitous of his mother.”

If that is the definition of a “mama’s boy,” Andrew Martin Umlas is the perfect poster child of the label.

Martin does acknowledge he might be his mama’s boy, saying, “I’m not shy to make emotional connections. I’m okay with wearing my heart on my sleeve and telling you how I feel. So I try to do that with my parents, especially my mom.”

It’s not that Martin’s father exists in his son’s life as a dispassionate robot. They have their rare tender moments where his father shows how glad he is to have Martin as his son. “Like during my [high school] graduation, he says he’s proud of me. You know, we don’t really do that. So when he does do it, it’s like a big deal, and I like it that way.”

It’s just “the little things” with his mom, like their late-night chats in her room, that make his life pleasant or just a bit worthwhile. “And I tell her gossip about my classmates, and then she’s like, ‘No!’”

“You know, I worry about my mom worrying about me. It’s at that point where I worry about her worrying about me.”

Whatever her mother feels, Martin feels it too, and it is a privilege to have a bond thicker than their family’s blood.

 When Mama’s Boy Broke His Mama’s Trust

But in some twisted way, the connection, despite its strength, can be proven to also be delicate. Trust – like Egyptian ceramics, Filipino egos, and the American Republic – is fragile. Someone does not expect to be blindsided or have their trust broken. Those who blindside or damage another person’s trust, regardless of whether they did so with intention or not, should expect fire and fur. At the very least, some form of acrimony should be expected from the person who got crossed. 

Martin understood this back when his parents started allowing him to drink alcohol. And after years of keeping himself away from alcohol, putting himself times behind his friends, cousins, and classmates who already started drinking before him, he felt a thrill from this new freedom. When he started drinking, he would go to his friends’ houses to drink with them until late into the night. Whenever Martin and his friends only had to go to school in the morning, they would go to one of their houses to drink Emperador brandy during the latter half of the day.

This new freedom was a way to mitigate the stress Andrew felt at the time, born from the intimidating idea of being surrounded by “intellectual giants” during his time in high school, as well as the expectations imposed on Andrew. Other peoples’ concoctions of who Andrew is and what he can do created such expectations, and years of him excelling in his studies before high school brewed thoughts that read along the lines of, “Big things were in store for this kid.”

“My parents weren’t ‘terror parents’ though. I feel like that’s important to add,” Andrew added. “I’ve heard stories of actual terror parents who do unspeakable things to their kids who decline academically. My parents were more the ‘Put you back in the race’ kind of people if I ever diverted a bit.”

Coupling the worry he felt was the mundaneness in his everyday routine. “I’d just wake up, go to school, head home, sleep. And sure, there were the in-betweens like playing video games with friends, but when you've been doing the same things for years on end, you kind of want to look for something new, you know? There's not much to it. I think we all get that feeling, just wanting to do something new.” This mundaneness quelled no amount of pressure within him.

“I enjoyed that life ‘cause it was finally the first time where I felt something, you know?” Andrew said about his time drinking with his friends and cousins back in high school. “[With] my really boring life, I was just waiting for a time when my parents allowed me to drink,” said Martin. “And they allowed me, and my mom trusted me.”

But the trust dissipated when his grades fell the same year he started drinking. Martin’s mother saw the connection in an instant. “I don’t blame her for connecting this to that,” he said, noting how it made sense for her to correlate his new freedom and his academic slip-down.

The trajectory changed for the worse when he told his mom one time that he would be spending some time at one of his friend’s houses to work on a music-dance school project. He lied; they didn’t have to finish a music-dance project. When he came home late that night from another session of drinking, his mother told him: “Saka’s taas [Go upstairs].”

When he went upstairs and then sat on his mother’s bed, she told him to cook. This was her way of giving herself time to do her night routine before going to sleep and allowing Martin to reflect on his mistakes.

The minute his mother asks him about what happened before he came home that night, he went on this ramble where he explained away and apologized to her. Unsatisfied with his answers, she wanted Martin to list down his groupmates of the supposed “group project” and name the teacher who assigned them the project; he begged her not to drag others into the problem.

“And I think that was the last time I lied to my mom,” Martin shared. “‘Cause in our conversation, she cried.

“She said… and this is what shattered me. I have an exact image in my head of how she said it, where I was sitting, where I was looking at her from in the room, where she was standing. I have it all in a picture-perfect sequence jud, when she was like, ‘Asa man ko nasayop ug padako nimo [Where did I go wrong in raising you]?’”

He sees that scene as the lowest point of their relationship so far. His betrayal of the bond he and his mother have for the benefit of indulging himself, he thinks, is what led to that lowest point. “It took a really, really long while for her to start trusting me again,” he said, reminiscing about how he tried to win her back. 

Andrew would tell her everything she needed to know about him and what he did. Whenever he went out, he messaged her every 30 minutes, telling her his whereabouts, listing out who was with him, and sending a picture of himself and the others for proof. Whenever his friends got together for a hangout, he didn’t bother going since he knew his mother wouldn’t let him. If he did ask and his mother refused, then he would comply and stay at home.

In some cases, Andrew’s mom wondered why Martin didn’t hang out with his friends, perhaps feeling a touch of guilt. “And she sees me at home, and then she kind of feels bad in a sense. [...] When she sees posts with captions that say that it’s a friend’s birthday, she’d ask: ‘Koi, wala lagi ka aning birthday ni kuan.’ And then I just say, ‘Aw, kanang, kuan man na gud, kalit-kalit ang paghagad. Unya, wala na lang ko nananghid kay basin di ko sugtan. She’s like, ‘Nangadto unta ka!’”

(And she sees me at home, and then she kind of feels bad in a sense [...] When she sees posts with captions that say that it’s a friend’s birthday, she’d ask: ‘Drew, why didn’t you go to this birthday?  And then I just say, ‘Oh, the invite was so sudden. I didn’t bother asking for permission because I didn’t think I would have been allowed. She’s like, ‘You should have gone!’”)

Moments like that signalled to Andrew that trust was coming back to the core of their relationship. “When it comes to broken trust, I think the only way to build it back up is by showing how you can be trusted again.” 

Mama, I Love You

Moments, whether good or bad, happy or sad, are what define human connections. Those moments bestow opportunities to show us and others who we are and how we move, respond, and love. We then cherish them as memories that we emblazon in our minds and pass on to others to create oral history. When Martin tried remembering a moment he had with his mom that he memorializes, he reminisced of a simpler time. 

“We were at the beach. I was in [...] late nursery school or early grade school, but [I was] old enough to remember this,” Martin recalled. “We were at the beach. We were there, just me and my mom and my dad. There were no family members around, but there were a lot of random people nearby. My mom was out on the shore and my dad, I think nagsugba siya [he was grilling]. I’m there, wanting to delve deep into the water. It’s a beach, right? And I don’t know how to swim.”

When Martin “dropped” into the sea by accident, “so many things were happening around. I just know that there was no way anyone noticed me. For a second, I thought I was gone. The funny thing was that I didn’t panic. I just got what I could, held my breath, and stayed under.

“And somehow, I could hear my mom instantly yelling, ‘Dex! Dex! [Martin’s father]’ Dad picks me up and goes up. I coughed water out of my lungs. And I just think, while I was swimming the entire time, my mom was just kind of looking at me. She’s there, staring at me from far away in the water, and she sees me.”

“My mom has no filters with me. She doesn’t act like she doesn't care about me. She wears her heart on her sleeves too, and I return the same thing.”

Andrew and Mikael went on an in-person date on Thursday, December 22, 2022.

Recommended Song: Especially For You - MYMP (Make Your Mama Proud)