Publication Date: 08-05-2026

Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Critics: Remembering My Mother Five Years After Her Death

By: Steve Pulaski

Dedicated to my mother, Mary Pulaski, who passed away five years ago today, August 5th, at 58, devastatingly young.

Five years ago today, my mother died unexpectedly at the age of 58. It’s the single-most devastating loss I’ve ever had to do endure, and not a day goes by where I don’t think about/remember her in some capacity. I hope she’d be proud if she saw me today.

That said, rather than waxing sad, I thought I’d share a story about my mother — one I’ve told a handful of people recently, since the new Jackass movie was released. I figured I might as well document it in some way.

My mother was a nurse for over 30 years. When I was born, she was a trauma nurse, and remained one throughout most of my childhood. She treated victims of gunshot wounds, motorcycle accidents, car accidents, and more on a nightly basis. She always said helping people in their worst states blinded her to the atrocities she inevitably witnessed. That said, she was intensely protective of me, her only child, from the jump.

While I wasn’t a “bubble boy,” I wasn’t permitted to do a lot of the same activities as other kids in my neighborhood. I couldn’t ride their go-karts. I wasn’t allowed to handle a BB gun, let alone a Nerf gun. I couldn’t even ride the neighbor boy’s big wheel trike. “You need to be safe, Steven, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” she always said.

But from about the age of seven or eight, my mother wasn’t nearly as discriminatory over what I could watch on TV. I sucked at every sport she put me in, so I think her rationale was she might as well get her money’s worth out of the expensive DirecTV satellite package my father wanted so badly. As long as I didn’t repeat any of the bad words I heard in front of her, my father, or at school, I could watch things like South Park, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Friday the 13th.

So, after viewing most of the first Jackass movie at my aunt’s house during a big party, my mother (begrudgingly) agreed to rent it (on VHS!) at the local Family Video. Imagine, if you will, eight-year-old Steve sitting on his living room couch laughing his ass off, bouncing up and down, and cackling at things he shouldn’t have been watching until he was at least 10 years older. In walks my father, and sees what I’m watching on TV while my mother is in the kitchen.

“Mary, are you really going to let him watch this shit?,” my father asked my mother.
“Him and his friends are gonna hit each other in the nuts anyway, what’s the big deal?,” my mother quickly responded.

After all, this was the same woman who used to blast Disturbed and NWA when we drove to my grandmother’s house.

Nowadays, when I’m telling someone about my love of any of the aforementioned shows or movies, or when I mention how a movie like Casino or Tremors was a staple part of my childhood, it’s because my mother gave me permission to watch mature works at a young age. Because I spent most of my time around adults growing up, combined with her own protectiveness over my safety, I think she trusted me to take away the right lessons.

And now I’ve been reviewing movies and writing about entertainment for 17 years and going strong. Like most things in my life, thanks to my mother.

RIP Mary Pulaski (1963 – 2021), forever and ever my momma’s son.