Re: Mommmmmmmmm!

["Virginia L. Krenn" <asdxvlk -at- OKWAY -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>]

     My father (from San Antonio) called his mother, "Mother". She was
     raised in South Dakota.
     My mother (from Temple, Texas) called her parents "Mom" and "Pop".
     They were from Czechoslovakia.
     I (raised in Oklahoma) called my parents "Mama" and "Daddy" when I
     was a child and "Mom" and "Dad" as an adult. (My sister continued to
     say "Mama" throughout her adult life.)
     We called our maternal grandparents "Grammaw" and "Grampaw", but
     wrote it as "Grandma" and "Grandpa".
     We called our paternal grandmother "Donna". (This was not her name.
     She adapted the Spanish "Dona" because she didn't want to be called
     "Grandmother".)
     My children and grandchildren use the same terms that I did.

     _________________________ Reply Separator ________________________
     Author:  Melissa Hunter-Kilmer <mhunterk -at- bna -dot- com> at SMTP

     I suspect that Laurie has a point in referring to the personal
     relationship being shown by the names parents use.

     My mother insists on being called "Mother" and loathes the word "Mom."
     Her mother went by "Mother" and so did my dad's mother.  Her parents
     went by "Grandmother" and "Grandfather" to us, and now my parents do
     the same for my kids.  I think my dad went along with that because of
     social climbing -- he came from a working-class background and wanted
     to achieve, and she came from an shabby-genteel well-educated
     background, which he wanted to emulate.  My mother is also a social
     climber to some extent; the formality seems to go along with that.

     My mother's parents went by "Mr. and Mrs. Stookey" to my father.  Talk
     about formal!  My parents tried to go by "Mother and Father Hunter" to
     my husband, but he wasn't having any of it; he calls them "Mother and
     Dad," as I do.

     My in-laws go by "Mama" (or "Nana" to the grandkids -- my
     mother-in-law is an American raised in France by Americans) and
     "Daddy" ("Grandaddy" -- he's from New Jersey).  I like this a lot
     more, and my husband and I go by "Daddy" and "Mama." But when I have
     grandchildren, I plan to be "Grandma" (pronounced "Grammaw"), since I
     would like to be the kind of grandmother that my father's mother (also
     Grandma) was.

     People get to be called what they want to be called, in my book. (I
     can't always convince my husband of this -- see above.)  I hate to be
     called "Mother" and "Mommy," so I've taught my kids to call me "Mama"
     or "Mom."

     And by the way, I'm an Army brat raised mostly in Virginia and Germany
     but also in Kansas, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, and I've also lived
     in Ohio, Connecticut, and California.  My parents and their parents
     come from Illinois.

     I do love language . . .