“Wendy, look what I found!” my son calls out, as he comes prancing toward me with a brand-new rock he’s unearthed from deep in a mountain of snow. We are waiting at his bus stop with several other families. Everyone knows I’m his mom. Yet he calls me by my first name. I always wonder what people are thinking when this happens.
Sometimes people actually do tell me what they think when they hear this happen. Parents have told me my kid calling me by my first name is cute… but in a weird sort of way. Some think it’s straight-up hilarious.
Some parents — though they don’t always say this outright — think that by allowing our kids to call us by our first names, we are somehow limiting our authority as parents. Our kids aren’t our friends, right? They should call us by our proper titles!
I never assumed our kids would address us by our first names
I grew up calling my parents “Mommy” and “Daddy.” My husband and his siblings grew up calling his parents by their first names, though. So maybe that’s why it happened to us? Maybe it’s genetic? (I’m kidding, there, mostly.)
The thing is, we didn’t set out to have our kids call us by our first names
When our kids were little, we referred to each other as “Mommy” and “Daddy” and expected that our kids would follow suit. But once our first son realized we had first names, he started calling us that — and I guess we didn’t do enough to correct him?
Our second son called me “Mama” till he was two or three, and I thought it was the sweetest thing and wanted him to continue. But once he saw his big brother calling us by our names, he followed suit. Oh well.
The thing is, as strange as it sounds to outsiders, it’s just completely normal to us. We are still our kids’ mommy and daddy. We occupy the roles of disciplinarian, leader of the family, and parent. Our kids are no less affectionate with us, and I don’t think we are more “buddy buddy” with our kids than other parents might be.
We are normal parents, except our kids call us by our first names
I do think there’s a little of a rebellious, questioning spirit in our parenting, and in our kids themselves. I’ve asked my kids why they call us by our first names, and their answer is, “Because that’s your name, and that’s what everyone else calls you.”
They have also expressed that they think calling us by a title is just a little too formal — almost like we are a teacher or a doctor or something. Kind of an interesting perspective, right? But it also kind of makes sense.
To our kids, there is something warm and familiar about calling us by our first names
Whatever the case, and whatever the reasons, our kids calling us by our first names doesn’t really symbolize anything deep or important about us, our kids, or our parenting. That’s just what they decided to call us, we never bothered to correct them, and here we are.
Either way, it’s no big deal to us, even if the rest of the world thinks we are a little strange.
