Don't Call Me Mom

      I'm not your mother.  
      No, I'm not that prickly, but .. well, okay, sometimes I am, but this is really about my mother.    
      This is a sheepish You Were Right.      
      My Mother rocked.  She defied convention.  She was smart, beautiful, practical, capable, successful, and really funny.  She was a nurse, and slaughtered chickens.  She shopped in Bloomingdales and played the ukulele.  Large dinner parties didn't phase her, nor did dead bodies.  
      She could do anything, and did.  She had many titles. 
      Mom wasn't one of them.        
      She was our mother, and that was one of her most important relationships, but her identity was not being "a mom". School "mom", community organizer "mom", team "mom", 4-H "mom", yacht club "mom", working "mom", stay-at-home "mom", one of "the moms", etc.  Article and finger quotes are intentional. You'll either get that, or you won't. If you don't, stop reading here . 

      She was a very involved parent and active in our the community, and all that that meant. She never minded fundraising, or staying up all night sewing costumes and baking cookies, or planting trees on Arbor Day. What she did mind was the patronizing label "mom", and worse, the judgemental label, "good mom".       
      We busted her chops about it, regularly.  Used the word "mom" whenever we could, in just that tone, because we were bratty.    
      Jump ahead 25 years. I get it.  "Mom" actually isn't a nice word. Mom should be a name, never a label.  Unless a child is addressing their parent, it's dismissive, objectifying, and demeaning.* 
      I first noticed it in a professional capacity, before I had children of my own. I quickly learned, when conferring with other professionals, that the phrase Mom reports is part of the professional lexicon. Mom reports is a disclaimer. It's an unspoken take this for what it's worth.  It's an unspoken this means nothing but document it anyway.       
      I regularly have doctors and teachers address/refer to me as Mom.  Having been on the other side of the professional door, I know they're not being cute, friendly, or funny, but patronizing.  Addressing me as "Mom" is patronizing to me, and referring to me as Mom to "connect" with my daughters by being cool is patronizing to my daughters.  I usually ignore it, but there have been times when I have interrupted with my name.  My daughters will attest, with eyerolls.  
      Like everything else in our society, manners have relaxed, word use changes, and slang is more common. It's a natural occurrence. Factor in the evolution of advertising with slogans/catch phrases, and language is affected. Mom is more commonly used than mother/parent. It's shorter (especially on bumper sticker statements, like "soccer mom", "honors mom").  I get it, but we've progressed to the point where the overly familiar Mom is used even when a more formal, distant word should be, like in the news. "Mom accused of drowning children." It may be shorter, but violent headlines with the word Mom are chilling. 
     Mom is overused.  It shouldn't have to multitask.  It's a name, an endearment, and the word and the person deserve some exclusivity. 



Happy Mother's Day







   *and when used by a teenager. Only a teenager can drag a three letter word out to the count of five.