I’m not your mother.
- April Daniels Hussar, BettyConfidential.com
When Isabella was about 2, we briefly investigated the child-modeling route. We quickly decided it wasn’t for us, but not before she booked a cover shoot for a major parenting magazine. I’ll admit – it was an exciting prospect – imagining her beautiful little face gracing a holiday issue … and I’m afraid my addled head was filled with visions of glamour as I carried her into the giant, super chic loft space in Manhattan for her big shoot. I was once an aspiring actress, and walking into a professional set brought back memories of being backstage, or putting makeup on for a scene in one of the indie movies I was in (no you haven’t seen either of them). Ah yes … the lights, the camera, the snack table … I quickly lapsed into an mini-fantasy of the producer demanding I step into the shoot myself … (Let’s make it a mother-daughter shot! Why not, with this beautiful young mother right here? What are we, blind?!)
“Can you bring her over here, MOM?”
Uh, what?
I realized the hipster photographer – who was clearly a good several years OLDER than me, despite his oh-so-youthful and ironic horn rimmed glasses – was talking to me, though I distinctly did NOT recall giving birth to or adopting him. "April" was apparently too difficult to remember, so he was giving me a new, one-size-fits-all name, “Mom.” And he – and his assistant, and the producer, and the “baby handler,” and the makeup artist – would continue to do so for the entire time we were there.
I suddenly felt about as old and chic as, well, as MY mom’s mom jeans from 1983. I was not there as a person, but as a vehicle for my daughter, who I have to say, was adorable in the Christmas dress she modeled.
Unfortunately, that’s not the last time I was – or will be – called “Mom” by another adult.
I hate it!
Let me be perfectly clear. I love to be called mama by a certain someone, one small person who carries my heart in hers, who is unequivocally the light of my life. I remember waiting and waiting for my chubby little angel baby to be able to say “mmmm” and for it to mean me – and it was, and continues to be, the greatest gift.
But girlfriends, it’s a gift I don’t want to get from anyone except my own child, and especially not from some random soccer coach who is seriously not young enough to be calling me MOM. Am I being oversensitive and oh just a wee bit vain? Probably. But I don’t care!
And I’m not alone. A quick poll amongst my mommy friends reveals a universal and intense dislike for coaches, teachers, grocery store clerks, dentists, pediatricians, party store workers, police officers, principals, and yes, hipster photographers, who find it convenient to look at us, look at the little people we are stewarding about, and decide to hang a handy tag on us. “M-O-M.”
My friend Debora, who recently achieved her B.A. in political science and co-owns a restaurant with her husband here in New Jersey, sums up our feelings quite nicely, with a simple, eloquent, “Yuck!” She elaborates, “My daughter Anna's dentist says that, but at least I only have to see him twice a year! This must be the reason why I’m pro fluoride.”
Stephanie, my writer friend from Chicago with three children, says, “It bugged me when the OB or the nurse during delivery referred to me as MOM – even before I had the baby!”
My pal Suzy, an artist and New Jersey mother of two, finds it “repugnant.” She says, “It shows a lack of original thought. Ick.” (I second that “ick.”) And Erin, the founder of SmallBitesOnline.com who lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young children, dislikes it “immensely.”
But it is Lisa, a Canadian teacher turned stay-at-home mom and blogger, who best sums up what drives me crazy about it: “I’m more than that, and labeling me as ‘mom’ and not bothering to see beyond irks me. It’s condescending and presumptuous at same time.”
And that’s the real kicker. I’m a mother, yes, but I’m a lot of other things too. My identity doesn’t begin and end with the fact that I’m grateful to be called mama by one sweet little person. I’m a writer, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister, and most of all, I’m sure as hell not YOUR mom.
Plus – as Lisa so aptly says: “You assume I'm the mom? Maybe I'm the hot nanny!”
April Daniels Hussar is BettyConfidential’s Deputy Editor, and mom to one. Just one.
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