T A B L E++T A L K

Is there a "best" age to become a parent? Discuss when you chose to have kids in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Are we there yet?
By Ann Hood
What had I left in the Florida of my childhood vacations that I wanted my children to find?
(06/17/98)

Nursing death
By Dawn MacKeen
Can breast-feeding be deadly?
(06/16/98)

Ballad of a bohemian childhood
By Maccabee Montandon
Other kids ate Fritos while I munched macrobiotic chips
(06/15/98)

Wax on
By Joan Walsh
A bikini-waxer muses on the fine line between pleasure and pain
(06/11/98)

Second Thoughts
By Sallie Tisdale
We are all criminals
(06/11/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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DON'T CALL ME MOM | PAGE 1, 2
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Far from being a rebel against tradition, I am tradition's little wannabe and that is why my own children call me by my name. It is still what seems natural to me. It causes some people to guess that I am a stepmother rather than a mother -- why else would they not call me Mom? -- but that's easy enough to clear up. My kids say they find the queries of their peers annoying but not traumatic. Perhaps they are simply shielding me, since I am so sensitive.

Yet strangers persist in referring to me as a mom, or even -- at the pediatrician's office, for example -- addressing me as Mom. Being called Mom by someone who is not my child is an unwarranted familiarity. And in my case, since even my children don't call me Mom, it's like someone who calls you by the wrong nickname -- Willy, when your friends call you Bill; Brucie-Boy, when your friends call you the Boss; Bimbo, when your friends call you Posh Spice: It is an erroneous familiarity.*

But even more than the phony familiarity, I object to the assumption of uniformity, the assumption that there's only one way to be, only one thing a child could call its mother. I suspect that the step after that is the assumption that uniformity is natural and good: We're all alike in this -- and we should be all alike -- what kind of cold, unloving monster doesn't let her children call her Mom?

Moms are easily stereotyped, something that's no more welcome to people whose children call them Mom than it is to me. I've met some who accept the stereotyping in the hopes of fighting it, or even of gaining the clout of numbers. Women who proclaim, "I'm a soccer mom and I'm not ashamed of it" are trying to reclaim an epithet that has been used with an insulting tone. Yeah, I'm black, is there a problem with that? Grrrl Power! Dead white males, unite! We're here, we're queer, get used to it! Soccer moms are people too!

I resent the stereotype. I resent enforced Momdom the way I resent those ghastly mass-produced flags for the home that have swept the country in recent years, with their colorful bunnies and autumn leaves and pineapples (ancient symbol of hospitality).

I hate those flags because they are insipid, because they look like mall decorations, but mostly because they are so riddled with cheesy assumptions about how we all think alike at any given time. It's December! Our thoughts turn to snowmen! Even if it doesn't snow here and we've never made a snowman in our lives! It's spring! Our thoughts turn to tulips! Even if we dislike tulips! It's mid-March! Our thoughts turn to leprechauns! Even if we're not Irish! Or even if we're Irish and despise leprechauns! Even if our religion teaches that leprechauns are satanic! It's no particular time of year! Our thoughts turn to pineapples! Even if pineapples cause our loved ones to turn red, swell up and grope their way to the phone to dial 911! Smile!

No doubt there are flags for Mother's Day, and no doubt they say "Mom."
SALON | June 18, 1998

Susan McCarthy is a San Francisco freelance writer and the author with Jeffrey Masson of "When Elephants Weep" (Delacorte, 1995).

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* And, instead of Mom and Dad or names, some children call their parents Mama, Mum, Papa or Da. I've always longed to encounter those fabled British schoolchildren who call their parents Mater and Pater.