Mother in law and groom at a weddingDon’t confuse a mother of boys with a “boy mum” – a scroll on apps like TikTok will tell you they’re not the same. The latter, arguably outdated, term, USA Today explains, has come to refer to a mother who gives preferential treatment to her son over her daughters or other people in her life and may have an “obsession” with her “boys” that seems to be related in whole or part to their offspring’s gender.The hashtag is used both disparagingly to suggest a mother is centring themselves in their son’s life and as an unironic self-identifier in posts like this one: “A mother is a son’s first true love, a son is a mother’s last true love.”