Comments on: Mommy/Mama

By: lothyn

lothyn — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:12:34 +0000

We agonized over what to call ourselves in the beginning! And i looked all over the internets for a discussion like this one to help us in our decision. I wanted to know what other women were doing, just to get some ideas!

In the beginning, i really wanted to just be Dad, and unhinge that title from my own gender – and be a Dad who was a woman.

For a few weeks we were mom and dad, which worked splendidly for me! When i was out in the world i could tell people that i was a new Dad, they would blink a few times and then “get it” and congratulate me.

But it put my partner in the position of having to come out of the closet all of the time, because folks would understandably assume that LittleE’s Dad was a man.

So we decided to be Mama E and Mama M, titles that imply that there is more than one Mama. When we’re together he refers to us as “The Mamas”. Which makes me feel like a rock star.

lothyn

By: Art-Sweet

Art-Sweet — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:02:35 +0000

Hah! We agreed: I am Mama, Pili is Mommy. But roughly a quarter of the time, the wrong names come out of our mouths. I am waiting to see what P’ito comes up with once he moves beyond the “ga! ki ka!” stage of language development.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:17:22 +0000

We were quite conscious of the possibility that my partner, as the non-bio mom, would be in a “one down” position in some people’s eyes, so we tried to give her “first dibs” anytime we could. Thus our son’s hyphenated last name starts with my partner’s last name, we fill out forms with her name in the Mother spot and mine in the crossed-out-and-edited Father field. She has been the drop-off parent for daycare and school, which has been great for shoring up credibility. When it came to mother names, I told her she could have whatever she wanted, and I would choose mine from what was left. I thought she’d call dibs on Mommy or Mama, but she decided that she’d prefer to have a unique mother name, and created Tama (rhymes with Mama), a combination of her first initial and “mama.” So she’s Tama and I’m Mommy, and we’re both his mothers. One of our son’s best friends in pre-school is of Indian and Pakistani descent, and calls his father Baba. I think it was really nice for D to have a friend who also had a “differently named” parent. One day at nursery school my partner came to pick D up, and one of the newer kids said, “D, your mom is here.” One of his friends from the previous year scornfully said, “That’s not his MOM, that’s his TAMA!” Like, duh.

By: Liza

Liza — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:54:50 +0000

At first, we also said that we would let Noah (or Smudge, as he was then known) figure out what how to differentiate us.

Then we bowed to the pressure and for awhile tried to call me Mama and Jill Mommy, but I was totally inconsistent about it, and so was everyone else.

For now, we’re both Mommy. Whoever is out of sight, if that is who Noah is talking to or about, is “oda Mommy.” I don’t think either of us feels “other mommy” in that context as a bad thing. If we’re both around, even if we aren’t looking at him, we can usually tell who he means.

The one thing I don’t entirely love is that we’re also observing the misinterpretation of “Mommy” as the word for “grown up woman.” But just like all monkey-type animals are “bobo” and anything growing out of the ground is either a tree or a “fwower,” I think that will pass.

By: Mo

Mo — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 22:37:24 +0000

We were like you, Trista, in that we really had no interest in trying to come up with names before the children did. We use the term “momma” and “mommy” pretty indiscriminately. Now Mitchell just calls my partner by her name and tries to call me just by my name as well. I prefer to have “mommy” in front of my name and always refer to my partner with “mommy” before her name. The funny thing is that I think he associates the word “mommy” with parent, even though he knows that other kids have “daddies” and we use that term when it comes up. He says things like “when I grow up and get to be a mommy, I’m going to…”

By: shelli

shelli — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 02:36:58 +0000

I am Eemah, Narda’s Mommy.

Malka can look at a picture of the two of us, and if I point to myself, and ask her who it is, she’ll say Uma (as in Uma Thurman… heh) And she’ll say “monnie” for Narda. (you know, 19 month old speech as it is.)

But if she’s wanting something? RIGHT NOW? It’s ALL “Monnie! Monnie! Monnie!”

What ultimately matters? Is the fact that when she falls down? it’s me or Narda she looks to for comfort. THAT is by far more important to me than my name. (but OK, I’ll back track from my idealistic BS here, and share that when she calls me “Monnie,” I correct her, and say Eemah…)

By: Whozat

Whozat — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 02:27:45 +0000

We’ve just started trying to conceive, so there’s no telling what our eventual child might actually end up calling us, but after years of discussing what to be called, it suddenly came to me.

I realized that, being a native Texan, I’ve always assumed I would someday be “Mama.”

My partner, being not-so-Southern, considers “Mom” to be the default name.

So, there it is. I will be Mama and she will be Mom.

(We already are, actually, to our pets.)

Recently, she’s told me that she’d like very much for the kid to call her “Mommy” when it’s little, but was worried that, as the bio mom, I would feel like that should be my name.

As much as I do like the idea of being “Mommy,” I like the idea of her wanting to be “Mommy” even more!

By: Mouse

Mouse — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:46:07 +0000

We tried to do the whole Mama/Mommy thing, but kept forgetting which one we’d assigned to each mother. We also weren’t that invested in it, fervently believing that Scooter would pick his own terminology. And he did. He took the word Mommy, divided it in half and doubled each syllable. So one of us is “Mama” and the other “Mimi.” Funny thing is that he uses “Mimi” for the biological mother. And sometimes he’ll use “mommy” as a generic term to refer to either mother.