That these mothers believe everything their teenage/young adult sons tell them indicates they are incredibly naive or incredibly stupid.
I was the mother of three teenaged boys and sad to say, believed 90 per cent of what they told me. I remember when the eldest was 12 and came home with no report card, saying the school had run out of computer paper...I believed him. Well, he was a straight A student, I couldn't fathom his being afraid to show me a report card, but his father, upon hearing this twaddle, gave me a withering stare and said anyone who believed what a 12 year-old told them was crazy. Turns out he'd been given a B in math for not paying attention in class. The teacher thought that would motivate him to participate. I don't think I was stupid, really. Naive, you bet.
I thought a couple of guys I was hanging out with were going to kill me with a screwdriver once. We were all tripping (MDA, the X of the day) and they took me out to a deserted place and supposedly we were just going to drink some beer but one of them insisted on taking this big screwdriver as we left the car. I was like "what do you need the screwdriver for?" and the dude was like "oh, nothing", but I thought I saw him smirk at the other dude.
I was 15 or so and they were older, like 19 and 21, and I didn't quite understand why they let me hang out with them, neither did my friends -- they wouldn't hang out with these guys because they were creepy.
Well, they didn't kill me. I don't know if they were thinking about it and chickened out, or if I was just paranoid. It was the kind of thing these guys would have thought about -- but the finger would have been pointing right at them. Sometimes teens kill just to see what it feels like.
Funny the things this case has made me remember. Nothing good, that's for sure.