A week and a half ago, the Little Apple started calling me, “Mom.” At first I thought I had heard wrong. After all, why would she call me “Mom?” She’s only two, and all two-year-olds call their mothers, “Mommy.” But then she said it again, quite distinctly. “Mom? Mom? I want _____.”
I looked at her in disbelief and asked her, “Are you really calling me ‘Mom?’” She laughed an adorable little laugh and replied, “Mommy, I want _____.” Phew, I thought. Maybe it was just a mistake.
The next day, she said, “Mom, I want to go to park [pronounced "pock"]. Can you take me?” Oh no, I thought, here we go again. I looked incredulously at my husband to see if he had noticed, and sure enough, he did. He asked me, “Did she really just call you ‘Mom?’” Helplessly, I nodded. I got down to her level, looked earnestly into her eyes, and told her, “Honey, I don’t want to be called ‘Mom.’ I want you to call me ‘Mommy.’” Whereupon she laughed and said, “Mommy, you’re so silly!”
She has a good point. Maybe I am being silly. Am I silly for not liking to be called “Mom?” To me, “Mom” is what you call your mother when you’re 15, too cool for school, too cool for your family, and certainly too cool to let your friends know that you still depend upon your mother for everything. “Mommy” is what I think a little toddler still in diapers should be calling me. I’m not ready for “Mom” yet. In fact, I may never be ready to be called “Mom.” I want to be her “Mommy” for life.
I have already been preparing myself mentally for the fact that she will grow up too fast for me. Right now, she’s still chubby and cherubic-looking, but I know that in another 10 months or so, she’ll lose that chub and slim down into a skinny preschooler. She’ll figure out how to use the potty, how to pull on her underpants, and how to fall asleep on her own. And then she’ll learn to read, to count to 100, to multiply, and to download costly apps onto my iPad with the touch of a finger. And then she’ll go to school, where she’ll find friends, and then suddenly she won’t want to hold my hand while crossing the street anymore. Pretty soon after that, she’ll want a cell phone. She’ll prefer to hang out with her friends at the mall, ask to go to birthday parties and sleepovers, obsess over pimply-faced boys, and beg to see R-rated movies before she’s 17. Sometime in there, she’ll cross into sexual self-awareness and menstruation and the early stages of womanhood. And then it’ll be time for high school and full-on teenage angst and the love-hate relationship between mother and daughter (I am dreading that part). And then she’ll go to college, and our time together, where she lives under my roof full-time, will be over. 18 years is really all we get with our children, and while it seems like a really long time, it’s really not, in the grand scheme of things.
And because I know she will grow up too fast for me, I am in a hurry to enjoy her. I grab her for bear hugs all the time because I know these remnants of babyhood are so fleeting and so precious. And because I had already begun the process of steeling myself for her eventual maturation and separation from me, it just caught me especially off-guard to be called “Mom” thirteen years sooner than I expected.
It’s probably no big deal; she probably just picked up the word “Mom” from one of the older kids at her daycare (she attends with kids up to 8 years old), and if I don’t pay any undue attention to it, she’ll revert back to Mommy soon enough. This is what I keep telling myself, anyway, as I hold her tight and close to my heart.
I’d like to hear what you all think…am I making a big deal out of nothing? When did your kid(s) start transitioning to “Mom” from “Mommy?” How did you handle it?
Not at all. I loved being called mama or mommy. Mom is just too grown-up. Mine starting calling me mom in grade 6… Too embarrassed to call me mommy in front of her friends. Yeah, I know the drill. Since mine called me mom at the “expected” age, it wasn’t heartbreaking….just a bit sad knowing that yes she’s growing up and I have no choice, but just go with the flow.
I feel your pain! My 3 1/2 year old son occasionally calls me “mom” too, and I hate it! lol. Any other time he calls me “mama” which before I didn’t like, but have come to love it. I think kids, like you say, pick up from other kids- but a lot of times it’s just a phase. Hopefully you’ll have many more years of her calling you “mommy”!
My 2 year old calls me Jackie sometimes which totally freaks me out but I know its because I have two step daughters that call me Mrs. Jackie. I would have no problem with them calling me Mom or Mommy but my husband chose early on in our relationship that they only have one Mommy and should call me Mrs. Jackie and my daughter should call him Billy not Daddy. So I will respect his wishes but now 6 years down the road we have our baby and she is copy catting the other girls. It breaks my heart when she calls me Jackie but I politely tell her that I am MOMMY SILLY. And she soon goes back to calling me Mommy. As for my 14 year old, youre right about the Mom thing. I know when I hear her say Mommy she wants something. LOL
I does kind of hurt my feelings when I hear my 14 year old call my husbands feiance Mommy. Actually breaks my heart so I guess we did the right thing in the long run. I wouldnt want my two step daughters Mom to feel sad too if she heard them call me Mom or Mommy. The youngest step daughter doesnt have many memories of her Mom because she was not in their life for sometime in the beginning just in and out in and out. She now tries to call me Mom and then gets shy about it and runs off. I think she really wants to call me Mom. So my heart is breaking again. Not sure how to take all this, not really sure how all this should be properly. I just know growing up with a single Mom I never felt close enough to any man to even think of calling him Dad much less Father. I dont want to supress loving thoughts from my children if thats what they want to call me. I feel like their mother. Any suggestions are welcome.
Dear Jackie, thanks so much for writing. I wish I had some good advice or suggestions for your situation. My heart tells me that following your heart cannot lead you wrong. If your heart is that you feel like the mother of your stepchildren and you love them, then you are a mother figure to them as well, and they can call you “Mom” or “Mommy” or whatever feels right and natural to them. These days, we all know it takes a village to raise our children. I tried thinking about this from the perspective of being divorced from my husband and having us both remarried (which will most likely not happen, since we have been married 10 years and the marriage seems to be better and better each day), and how I would feel if my daughter called his new wife “Mom” or “Mommy.” I am pretty sure my ego would feel hurt too if that happened. But I also know that I want as many people to love my child as possible – it will only help her in life, especially if I am not around to take care of her in that moment and someone else is. I think in the end, I feel grateful to each and every person who loves my child, and that just because I brought her into the world does not mean she is “mine.” What I want is her highest good, and if others can help me support her in that, then I thank them from the bottom of my heart. So if it came to her calling another woman “Mom” or “Mommy,” I would probably try to put aside my own ego and just recognize that she is feeling love from that other person. Come to think of it, my daughter DOES call someone else “Mommy” – her daycare teacher! I’ve heard her say, “Mommy, Mommy,” to her teacher Joanna and I laugh. I know it’s just because teacher Joanna treats her with love and tenderness, and it frees me up to go to work and give it my all without having to worry about the quality of my daughter’s care. I hope this helps!!
My 6 year old calls his step-father, “Dad.” It wasn’t something we asked him to do, or something we pressured him into. It is something he seriously thought about for over a year and questioned me about on a regular basis. I explained that “mommy” and “daddy” we’re very important names that are given to people that you feel love you very much. That just because he had a daddy that lived away from us, he could still call Scott daddy if that is what he wanted (he brought up the subject to me, not visa-versa). I simply explained to him since Scott was not his biological faith, if he felt that he had earned the privilege to be called daddy then he was more than welcome to talk to him about it. I also explained to him that it was something very special and very important and if he made that decision then he needed to make sure he was 100% about it. About a year later, my newly turned 5 year old was doing a project with Scott and asked if he would mind if the started calling him dad. Scott told Brycen how much he loved him and said he would feel privileged to be called daddy if that is what he wanted. We never pressured Brycen to call him daddy and left the decision completely up to him. My ex was a little taken back when he heard Brycen was calling another man daddy, but I explained to him that he was not around (he hasn’t seen my 6 year old since he was 3 & calls MAYBE every 1 1/2 years) and it was a decision Brycen made. He never said another word about it.
I wouldn’t make an issue about whether or not she called you mom or your name, if she ever questions it, I would just tell her that it is her choice and either way, you love her and are there for her…
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