"I’m not particularly awake when he leaves anyway: he stops by my bed for inspection, "
Yeah, the mother of the year. What a miserable excuse for a human being. Typical lib.... wants to run your life, and they can't even take care of their own.
That particular passage evokes a mental image of some perpetually hung over slattern, literate but otherwise lacking in basic intelligence, rewarding her perpetually lying son with a cookie. Is there any doubt what this boy will grow up to be? He never had a chance.