Settling In to Being Someone's Mom
Submitted by divaraven
My daughter was only 9 months old when I had my first Mother's Day. Since she couldn't speak yet, I had never actually been addressed as "Mommy" by anyone, except perhaps the guys hanging out on the corner who appreciated my voluptuous figure—but they didn't mean "mommy" in the maternal sense of the word.
So even though I wasn't exactly a new parent, it came as quite a shock to me when I heard a stranger on the street say, "Happy Mother's Day!" I looked around and tried to figure out who he was talking to. Was my mother around? Was there a battalion of mamas trailing me? Then it hit me: He was talking to me! I was a mom, after all, and yet for some reason, I got goose bumps when I realized he meant me.
Throughout that day, I was called "mom"—a lot. I was called "mom" by the hostess and the waiter at the restaurant where we had brunch, by my husband when paying the brunch bill, by my mom and dad during separate phone calls and by the counterman at the pharmacy where I picked up some much-needed aspirin.
To me, being called mom (by anyone other than my daughter) just sounds so ... limited. I'm not just a mom; I'm a writer and performer and wife and friend. And while I am a mother first, I hate being reduced to just that title. But when I'm with my daughter, that's what people see—not just on Mother's Day, but every day. That change in image takes a lot of getting used to, and frankly, I think I may never truly be 100 percent OK with it.
Submit!
