Beatrice got in here and liked this piece before me or Rachel could even open it - and we are both ON TOP OF IT! (Especially Rachel.) Thanks Beatrice and thanks for this piece, Rachel!
When I was a little kid, some 80+ years ago, my friends would call my Mom: 'Sheila's Mother'. I think none of the mothers ever told us what to call them, so we had to improvise. When we got older we called our friend's mothers: "Mother B", "Mother O", "Mother L" and the dreaded "Mother W". Only my mother was Mrs. Marks, and even her neighbor of 50 years called her that. I always go by Sheila, no matter what, even when I was teaching, because it was friendlier, and one of my life's goals is to accept my name. And friends still call me Jane's Mom. when they need advice. But the thing I really cannot stand is "Mother" - not "your mother" - but as in "What would "Mother want?" A woman who was managing an account for my Mother asked me that, and I would never, ever give her any money because she called her "Mother".
OK, I'm back! That is absolutely hilarious about your retaliation against the person who referred to Grandma as "Mother" and I'm so glad to know that story!
I know that we had to call our dad's mom "grandmother," but did dad have to call her "mother" also? Whenever I hear "mother" I assume fucker is coming next. And in a lot of cases… Oh well, I will leave it there. I love you, mom! You really make me laugh.
Mom!!!! I love you so so much! And I'm so happy that you commented! I'll come back here as soon as I get inside (it’s cold and windy here!) and write you more of a response. And I will call you (and probably James) tonight. Yay I love you!!
Sheila, that is so interesting, especially that Jane's friends still call you that. I'm trying to remember what I called my friends' parents as a kid. I think "Mr." or "Ms." or "Mrs." I distinctly recall dozens of conversations where my friends would call my dad "Mr. Bussel" and he would ask to be called by his first name, but I think that's intimidating for kids. I do not want my kid calling me by my name as a kid (maybe when she's older), and also, it would be even weirder if little kids were at my house saying, "Rachel, can I get a glass of water."
I also find "Mother" very stiff and formal and I'm not sure if I properly conveyed this in the essay, but I do think there's a huge difference between being called a generic "Mom," which is what happened in the original social media post that inspired my essay that I sadly can't find, and being called "Alice's mom" or "Jane's mom." In the post, the pediatrician said something like, "Mom, we're ready for you," and she found it odd that someone other than her kid was calling her "Mom."
ps. I do have friends' moms' numbers saved in my phone as "___'s mom" and don't always know their names. These are instances where we've met in person and I've had a reason to contact them.
This is such a great essay. People love to talk about how this thing or that thing is “dead” but I think it’s safe to say that nuance is dead.
However your essay has brought nuance back from the grave. People live in different contexts, and within those contexts they have different identities. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially if we maintain our own identity within ourselves and don’t let it disappear.
Yes! This is why I’ve never been bothered when people call me “CJ’s mom.” For the people who call me that, I’m likely just a temporary visitor in their lives, and they have the connection with my kid. Just as my friend might refer to CJ as “Robin’s kid.”
I have the same opinion about being called “insert one of my boys’ names here”’s mom. I love it. And I didn’t even plan on having kids.
But over 20 years ago I met this nice man in Los Angeles, and if you’ve been to Los Angeles you might hear that that’s a relatively rare occurrence. Well that man became my husband then the father of my two sons.
And those two children have changed me into a person I didn’t know it was possible to become.
I used to be a very negative, self-loathing person. But I changed because I didn’t want who I was before to parent my children and make them negative and self-loathing, too.
I love this story. Truly love it. I wanted to have a kid, as you may have heard, more than anything else in the world ever since I was a kid myself. So hearing the perspective of people who didn't have that urge and then how they are affected by having them anyway always moves me. I also always back women who don't want them in not having them. We have enough kids in this world.
It’s a subject that we will discuss further in AJPT, no doubt…the idea of women having personal choice regarding bringing more humans into this existence. I could talk about it endlessly.
I second that I'd love to see more by you about that process/path of not wanting kids to wanting them. My very private boyfriend who was already like "You used our photo?" because I didn't ask him about that first doesn't want me blasting his business everywhere so I'll just say he wasn't totally sure if he'd like being a dad but agreed because he knew how important it was to me is now the absolute sweetest dad. I tear up about once a day seeing him and my daughter together because for so long I wondered what would happen if he was miserable as a dad and now I truly can't imagine him as anything but our daughter's dad.
Yes - I am very, very, very hard on myself, but when I see my daughters and know they are doing so well in school, choosing wonderful (and hilarious) friends, and enjoying their hobbies, making me laugh, I feel like,"Okay - I can't be THAT bad." My children give me a lot of hope.
Dana, thank you for the kind words, and that's so sweet, both that you wound up loving having kids and changing for them. I've also been working very hard on my negative self-talk. We have all these board books called things like "I Love Myself" and they're so simple, going through parts of the body, "I love my hair" and "I love my legs" and sometimes they're about what that body part does for you. Lately I've been trying to teach my daughter about the belly button and that it exists and why it's there and there's something about watching small children just exult in their bodies' existence (I often see her just turning her hands back and forth in front of her and staring at them) that makes it hard to hate my own.
But I also wanted to say, I don't think having kids is right for everyone. The hard thing is how to know in advance. I don't think there's a perfect solution to that and in general believe too many people, especially women, are pushed by partners or parents/family or our culture into having kids and then resent it, even if they also love their kids/like some aspects of parenting. I think that's very wrong, but I think many formerly ambivalent people are like you and wind up treasuring the changes. I don't think it's possible to become a parent and not change in some ways.
So true, Rachel. When I got pregnant at 30, I was surprised, having been diagnosed with a big cause of infertility, and ambivalent. It took me a long time to feel comfortable as a mother. My kid turns 22 in February. Seeing how they move through the world fills me with so much pride and awe—for both of us. I’ll always be happy to be called “CJ’s mom.”
Hey! I met a nice man in Los Angeles, too! It happened less than two hours after I arrived on my first visit. I didn’t expect to fall in love with the city, but I did. And that nice man is still around nearly six years later.
Loved this. Years ago, I traveled to a small village in East Africa to report a story about a young Masai woman named Kakenya, and I was astounded that literally everyone in town called her mother “Mama Kakenya.” Even though the mother’s given name was Anna, and she had seven other children, she would always be known in relation to her eldest.
This seemed sooo exotic to me at the time. And yet, more than a decade later, when my daughter started making friends — Gen Alpha kids who, unlike us Gen Xers, were never instructed to call other grownups “Mrs. Lastname” or — I noticed that they automatically called me “Eliza’s mom.” As in, “Eliza’s mom, I need to go to the bathroom.” Every single one of them! I wonder if it’s something linguistically hard wired in us. Wherever it comes from, I find it delightful and love to hear it.
That's so interesting! I'm going to dig up a quote that I meant to include in this essay and then completely forgot because I didn't put the note in my draft about another culture that does this. That's fascinating about Gen Alpha kids. I'll be curious what my kid's friends call me. And while I love the age she is now (1) which is early for play dates, and when we do meet up with her little friends they recognize me but aren't talking enough to call me anything, I'm excited for when she'll be old enough to have friends over. I'm not domestic at all but am going to work on being a mom who can make fun snacks for kids.
Dammit I’ve written the asshole argument commenter comment so many times, thinking you’d prefer a peaceful hippie corner of the internet to vibe in. But I’ve got two degrees. One was fine arts, the other philosophy which I believe is the equivalent of a license to argue, because I spent 4 years in training.
Which, because I know you love a story - and a dish - reminded me that one of my most beloved professors was struck by a car the year after I left, and her husband (who we all hated) was going to fly her to Siberia to be cryogenically frozen. BUT WAIT… he could only afford to store her head, so that, is what he did (traumatized me following this on the 6 o’clock news) THERE’S MORE - he goes off to Russia with her head, and returns married to an 18yo girl that worked at the place that was going the freezing.
Not all of my stories are about bad things that happened to me, some are about other people. Anyway, I weep for my arguments lost to delete for peace.
As for this, I have no kids, but I correct people who do not use my full name. I was married when I was 33, so I spent a long time as my first 2 names. My husband didn’t usurp that identity, he merely got tagged on the end.
Did you ever toy with the title: Charlotte of Jane Pratt: Another Jane Pratt Creation?
I love the sound of that. So you mean that would be a new title for this site or the way people would address me or both? I'm thinking it through. And yes yes yes to loving stories. Thank you!
My original thought was it would be how you’d address people upon them meeting your daughter casually, to really get the Jane Pratt in there fr tax purposes.
But I suppose it has many uses.
I’ve an idea for your signature as a Jane Pratt tattoo aka Cabbage Patch kid style as well, so various butts might read Jane Pratt…friend, Jane Pratt… enemy, Jane Pratt… co-worker. On my mind it’s creating an entire world that is labeled as to how it pertains to you. Because it makes me laugh to pretend you are a raging egomaniacal maniac that must claim everything in her name. Shall we say, like The Sea of Jane Pratt, or The Jane Pratt Kennedy Center.
How about this weather in NY? Blustery!! I had to close with something that made me look less psychotic.
This is amazing. And I have put my name on a lot of stuff but I know you would never actually compare me to that dude. (It was really fun in 2016 when we got to watch a ton of buildings up and down the west side of Manhattan that had Trump on them having the Trump removed because nobody wanted to live there with that name on it. But apparently he didn't get the hint.)
No, I wouldn’t, that’s why it gives me giggles and that’s why it’s funny to imagine for a beat. You’re so nice, to me it makes it hysterical. Then again, I think I have a soft spot for third person humor.
Sort of off topic but , being from the south, this is reminding me of when kids started calling me Ma'am. I loved it, but I think I would like the full Madam even better.
In the South I was called Miss Gina - or worse - Miss Eugenia which seemed an unholy bastardized version of my Italian heritage, Madam.
I’ve always been fond of ‘Mistress’ as a title - not as a vocation. When I got married all my bridesmaids were referred to as Mistresses, made even better that half were men.
Because not everyone has 6 female friends. Tomboy kid, male friends. Interesting article now in the highly made up, make-upped ,hair done world of today. I’ve avoided that by having male friends who would make fun of me more for trying to wear heels and mascara then just be ‘normal.’ Which is a good deal of the reason why anything done to attract a man isn’t awesome, because if the kind of man that attracts.
I feel like I should get a license for comment bitchery. Which is my second favorite word to fuckery.
Replying just to say: based on that cryogenically frozen head story I think we might have attended the same college?? Did this by any chance happen in extreme northern NY?
[Edit: read the rest of your replies and saw you mentioned NNY, and I'm 100% sure we were at the same college. She really was a great professor (I took a course on folklore and mythology with her, and she was briefly my advisor before I transferred to a different school). And her husband really was a shitty abuser..Damn, I haven't thought about any of this stuff for years.]
I'm sorry, Aimee. It must have been hard to be a student of hers and find out about this. I'm mad at your college for not trying to intervene, which may be unfair since I don't know what they could have done, but the Pollyanna side of me says they could've tried to do something. I get irate knowing that guys like this abuser professor get away with their crimes because abuse is hard to prove and requires the one being abused to want to leave badly enough to overcome so many hurdles.
You worked it out before I got up! I think of her often, as she was the one who first encouraged me to write. I had a lot of 1 on 1 classes with her. Crazy that we went to the same college, but at least now I’m fact checked - because people never believe that story happened. Or that the news covered it…
Right? She was such an awesome lady, but always coming in with casts, bruises. I’d decimate her husband at philosophy forums because he was an unrepentant public garter and all around misogynistic ass.
I think when this small town news reporter started covering the story, she never knew it was going to get as weird as it did. I knew, he had a fucking fundraiser to take her head to Siberia because ‘he couldn’t afford to, and wanted one day to bring back the best part of her.’
Which in rereading what I wrote, I’ve been a cranky old man far longer than I thought 😂😂
I’ve found the most offensive thing in my book that some people have found is that I told abusive doctors to fuck off, and took over my own cancer case. In doing so, I became the sickest terminal cancer patient to ever make a full and complete recovery.
And it angers some people. That I pushed back on doctors that pushed me. That I thought I knew more. That I spoke out about the abuse.
Even though in my book I show from my medical book I was being starved, I was being deprived of oxygen, the doctor was harassing/mocking me - telling me he was going to make sure I died in that bed—
People still tell me: should have listened. Who are you to think…. You selfish egotistical blah blah.
And I think about that, and shrug. Because I think they missed the point.
And I always speak the unspeakable. That’s why a lot of people don’t like me 😂. Not polite enough to pretend that battery isn’t my business.
That we could prove, no. But her face said more than her silence on the issue. She was magnetic teaching great feminist writing - a seminar on Virginia Woolf, the Greek goddesses of retribution, so alive and passionate. Around him, that slump-shouldered eyes down whisper voice we’ve all seen.
I disliked him greatly. After he came back married, everyone did (I went to a small college in NNY) I’ve often felt sorry for the girl.. I don’t think she knew English.
The world shows itself everyday how it allows people to get away with… in this case I’ll say
I was already horrified and confused about the Siberia cryo-freezing because WHAT? and then I got to this part and I'm angry at him and sad on her behalf. That's so tragic, especially the part about her being a teacher of feminist writing. I remember a very, very long time ago in one of Elizabeth Wurtzel's books she wrote something like people say if only abuser's had a symbol on them that identified them as abusers, but there are people who are drawn to those types. Not consciously, but subconsciously. I wonder if that's true. Which is not to say I at all blame the victim, I blame the perpetrator, but I do think about how we can raise women to spot red flags and then actually do something about it before they get sucked into a cycle of abuse where it's so much harder mentally, emotionally, logistically, and financially to leave. It's infuriating that domestic violence seems to be as big of a problem as it was in the past (I have not looked at actual data, just anecdotally and knowing it's still happening all over).
I’m going to comment as Open Secrets for a moment because Safari, where I’m signed in as me, keeps pushing me opening the post to the app and I’m watching my kid and making sure she doesn’t eat chess pieces or take every record out of its sleeve. Thank you so much for taking this and getting it live so quickly, Jane! As a Sassy, Jane, xoJane and now AJPT reader, it’s an honor.
Thanks, Open Secrets! I appreciate this essay so much and also appreciate you keeping your priorities straight and watching that beautiful kid right now.
To clarify, this Open Secrets comment was by me. That's my magazine. I'm commenting now very early in the morning on my laptop, but most of the time I use my phone and I hate that Substack doesn't make it easier to toggle between different accounts. I know I'm not the only one having this issue either.
As I've told you in an email about this also, that really sucks. There is so much lacking when publishing from Substack Mobile and that now gets added to my list. I hope they address all the issues.
A few years ago I walked into my middle son’s school and several kids (separately) said, “Hi Jakob’s mom!” I thought that was a little strange because he looks just like my late husband and not at all like me, but then I found out there were only 3 white boys in 8th grade and 2 of them were named Jac/kob, so odds were good!
I have noticed that here in Canada, my kids’ friends are likely to call me Jakob’s mom. It’s a way of dealing with how different cultures use adult first names by kids.
That's interesting. Not totally related but the 2 Jac/kob's made me think about whether it's super weird to have been 1 of, say, 5 Lisas in a class. I imagine so. There were a few other Rachels in my classes/schools growing up but most spelled it Rachael and there weren't so many that it was overwhelming. I imagine it's often a grass is always greener situation where kids with common names wish theirs were more uncommon and kids with uncommon names with the opposite.
As a Celia (no extra Ce) I’ve always been in the unusual category unless I’m with Spanish speakers or Brits. My husband knew that our kids would struggle with their last name, so we gave them names that were immediately understandable (and pronounceable) by Canadians, but then spelled them in a Georgian way. My eldest is Alexandre, goes by Sandro. Has to put up with Sand-dro instead of Sahn-dro. Koba switched to Jakob in school because he was always called Kobe. My youngest is Giorgi, called Gio, pronounced Ghee-o like the butter. He will correct anyone who messes it up or deliberately mispronounces their name until they get his. So they all handle it differently.
I love name stories, too! My CJ is legally Clara Jane, after my grandmother Vivian Clara Jane Jones Berry. Since it’s a mouthful I always said that CJ could choose whatever version of the name that worked best. In third grade they opted for CJ because it was easy to write on homework. When they came out as nonbinary at 16, they already had a perfectly gender neutral name.
I love that! My first thought was that wasn’t an accident that they found the gender neutral name young.
I’m always fascinated by people legally named one time but whose families have never called them that, either due to using a nickname or a middle name or another reason. I’m also fascinated by famous people like Bob Dylan who’ve changed their names and always wonder if they would have gotten famous with their original name.
Long before I got pregnant, I chose Clara Jane as a name. Once I was pregnant, I was pretty adamant about being gender neutral where possible. CJ had crossed my mind at that point. And it’s all worked out! CJ and my grandmother had a lovely relationship. Their birthdays were two days apart and they were so much alike. CJ’s often said that they love their name because of that connection. And that makes me so happy.
Oh, as for Bob Dylan … I spend a lot of time around Bob Dylan scholars. So many of them call him Bobby or Zimmy (short for Zimmerman, his given surname) when discussing him, and it always makes me laugh.
If anyone who uses Threads comes across the original Thread, let me know and I'll comment with it or see if it can be linked. Note to writers: If you see a social media thread or article or anything else you might want to reference later, save it somewhere you can easily find it. I'll be doing that from now on.
I’m pretty sure it was a viral post on Threads but the only detail I remember closely was the poster being called “Mom” at their kid’s pediatrician appointment, which I acknowledge is very different than “___’s mom,” which is at least personal vs. a generic “Mom.”
I'm going to look for it and I do agree about the difference. I've been called Mom also and that didn't bother me either. But I get why it could.
This is only a tiny bit related and it's maybe too early for you to know this yet, but whenever I hear a kid yell "Mom", I think it's Charlotte and it sends my heart rate up in a not good way. And then I resent the kid for it.
As someone who comes from a family that is long gone, I would love to be referred as Dani's daughter or Greg's girl.
To be referenced as any one of my three adult children's mom would be a huge honor. I know who I am at my core, but to be associated with them is bonus.
I love this and you speak for me too (perfectly) when you say that you know who you are at your core, but to be associated with them is a bonus. Thanks for the kind and thoughtful comment!
That's so sweet, Michele. I think even if you aren't referred to in those ways, you'll always be their daughter and that's meaningful too, even if you don't get to hear it out loud.
My grandmother has passed but I will still reference her, especially on Martha's Vineyard, which can be like a big small town, and say "Shirley Cronig Smith" was my grandmother. She was the kind of person who would be traveling somewhere far from the east coast, meet someone who either vacationed there or wanted to vacation there, and invite them over. She was also always on top of all the family gossip and bought gifts for all the new babies in our family. I found little baby jeans in her dresser after she passed, for a new little one entering our family. So I try to retain those qualities of hers.
This is so weird. I just - as in the last 20 minutes — changed my mom’s name in my contacts back to MOM Mary June because the IOS Demons changed it. I love this essay too and feel as if we’re all on some JP wavelength
This reminds me of 2 things. I have a whole bunch of people in my phone as "Mom Friend ___" because I don't always know their last name.
Then there's this weird iPhone thing I've essentially given up on, but when I text people, it shows up as from A&A Car Service Bussel. I have never knowingly saved a contact as A&A Car Service, I've double checked that I've listed my name, Rachel Bussel, in my contacts, and have tried everything I can think of. Every time I meet someone new and text with them they ask me, "Do you have a car service?" The first time I told them what car service I use and they were like "No, you're in my phone as a car service." So strange.
SO strange!! I have a lot of weird things like that too, so it makes me feel better knowing I'm not alone and that maybe I'm not being specifically targeted by iPhone or something.
Interesting post! As a former at-home dad of now-young-adult daughters, I remember often being one of the only dads among many moms, so I think my name was easier for them to remember (an odd form of male privilege, I guess?). I do lament that it was hard for me to remember each mom's name, so the old "you're so-and-so's mom, right?" was common. Glad to know maybe some of those moms enjoyed that phrasing. :)
Speaking for myself, I would have been thrilled to be called "Charlotte's mom" by you. And lots of credit to you for doing the home-with-kids thing – though no more and no less than the Moms who do it. Thanks for commenting!
Thanks! And I agree. It was awkward to be applauded sometimes for being an at-home parent when the female at-home parent next to me did not receive the same praise even though we were doing the same job! (Another odd form of male privilege, I guess.)
RACHEL! or should I write: ALICE'S MOM!?!?!? :) Great essay - I would never think to be upset about being identified as Mom. Well, unless my daughters were doing something atrocious!!!
I completely relate to not remembering names since becoming a parent. I cover up with "sweetie" and "honey" to kids, and, for parents, I just am like "How do you spell your first name?" when they give me a cell phone number (and THEN I've got it!)
And, as an ESL teacher, my students show my female colleagues and I respect by calling us all "Miss". So I'm happy to be Miss, Mom, or ___________'s Mom. And then when I get to be Jenn, that means I can just be myself, shedding all those roles and getting to a break from all the responsibilities and just getting into whatever I want to do aside from all that. I love having all these different versions of myself.
Also, nothing feels better than people remembering your kids! I love that your daughter is making her impression on the world at such a young age. Children need to feel seen and heard in their communities, and I love every time people acknowledge my daughters in this way. For example, my daughters hang out at the library after school, and people are always like "OH! I saw Sofia at the library the other day!!!" And they seem excited to tell me that.
I love this whole upbeat comment. But I'm going to confess here that hearing you say that people reach out to tell you that they see your kids various places (similar to the reaction Rachel gets about "Alice" and all of the attention they all get when they are out and about) - and also your point about feeling better about yourself because of all of their successes - makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong as a mom. I think my daughter is a work of art and absolutely incredible but I don't share these experiences. That was a hard one to admit to, so thanks for letting me do it here, guys.
No - don’t think that!! I am not a public figure, and we live in an “everybody’s up in your business” small neighborhood in Boston! And also having three girls close in age - they are a crew! Honestly, when I go out with friends, I go to the little ‘burbs adjacent to Boston, so I don’t see everyone!!! Also, I am NOT a public figure/OG editor - and def NOT profiled in NY Mag or anything. Like I would feel stalkerish if I was like: “I saw your daughter!” to you because you’re FAMOUS! felt like this when I saw my absolute fav public figure/icon/idol in a grocery store - but I saw her daughter first and blurted out something about that to her, and then felt VERY embarrassed as I sounded like a weird stalker or something!!!
Thank you for saying all of that and giving me that perspective. And I don't want to do that thing ever of comparing myself to someone else's achievements. But your story about the grocery store reminded me of a funny time that I made a major faux pas wirh Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow. I'll come back here and write it out. Love you and thank you!
OK, back here to add that years ago at a small gathering in someone's home in Los Angeles, I was introduced to Blythe Danner and I said to her oh well I know your daughter, but I don't know you meaning that I actually knew Gwyneth in real life. But her face turned to ice, and I think she thought that I meant, I knew of her daughter and not of her. We did not speak anymore after that. I felt terrible.
I'm up with insomnia after a long day and now of course it's 2 a.m. and I'm like, "What a cliffhanger, Jane! What happened with them?" And I'm having an ADHD moment because I swear I came here to add to the general discussion and completely forgot what I wanted to post (I can't be the only one that happens to, right?)
Jenn, I loved this: "all these different versions of myself." There really are so many. And you'll like this. My daughter and I go almost every week to a local takeout prepared food place. I usually buy something for her to eat while we're walking around and it's a tiny shop so the staff all coo over her and are excited to watch her hungrily devour their food. Yesterday I was busy so my babysitter took her. The staff said, "Look, our favorite customer!" and gave her free food. That charmed me so much. And the babysitter sent photos of her hugging stuffed animals at the library, which is like her home away from home. Or should I say "one of the libraries" because we belong to and go to 4 of them regularly (2 are part of my county system and the other 2 are super close by in neighboring towns but are independent libraries so I now have 3 library cards).
I never responded to one part of this, which is that you are definitely not the only person that comes in here to make a comment and then gets caught up in another conversation and forgets why you came. I do it ALL the time. I also wish the threading worked differently in these comments, so we didn't have to click through to see more and then click back. The comments on AJPT should be a seamless reading experience, as wonderful as the writing and thoughts in them are, IMHO.
The kind of conversations we have on AJ PT have actually led us to max out the number of subthreads this platform allows on a few occasions. Do they not understand we need to ramble and go on as many tangents as we want to get to the really good stuff?!
There's my mini rant. And I can't thank you enough for that beautiful post you did today about just what I'm talking about – our comments section. I'll write you more about it there.
I'm laughing at the fact that AJPT has maxed out the subthreads allowed. I'm good at maxing out things - I've been tinkering with an essay on maxing out people I'm following on Instagram (7500) and the way that's connected to my ADHD need to know everything about everyone, or at least, have it accessible at my fingerprints, combined with being naturally interested in many different people and companies, mostly bookstores and publishers.
Rachel, you and I are so alike. Here I am at 2:21 letting you know that I just answered your question by editing my comment above! Get some rest whenever you can!
Ha! I love that. And I'm picturing you wanting to take back how you said that and rephrase it even though you meant it the way you meant it. I wonder how many of these seemingly small, random memories we all have that we wish had happened a different way, things you don't think about often but when reminded of them, they come back with full clarity.
It’s funny how we replay certain moments in our heads and feel bad about them. But what can we do? It’s over. There is just this awkwardness in life that we have to sit through sometimes, and it’s SO uncomfortable!!!
I understand that particularly with Spanish speaking ELL students, calling your teacher "Miss" is the equivalent of addressing her as "Senora," which is considered polite. My students, however, are just lazy. 😑
What a lovely article, Rachel! Your daughter will feel honored when she reads it, someday! I myself am not a mom (except to my beloved pet) and I always knew it wasn't my path in life, but I can relate to wanting to be known, identified, and appreciated for the things that make me who I am. 💖
Personally, I find the tendency of my students to address me (and all of their teachers) as "Miss" instead of "Ms.Krawczyk" (in my case) to be extremely annoying. We have names - use them! (I'm so grateful for these two weeks away from school! 🤣)
Thank you, Alyssa! That's interesting about the Miss vs. Ms. Would you rather they call you Alyssa or Ms. Krawczyk? If I remember correctly, until junior high/high school I didn't know my teachers' first names, and probably didn't care. It just wasn't on my radar. But when I was older I think I knew some of them.
Hi Rachel! Oh, it's not a "Miss vs. Ms." thing: it's the fact that they think it's appropriate to use "Miss" as a full form of address, sort of like if I addressed them all as "Student" interchangeably. Oh God - I'm way too old school for that. They all know our first names, as they're printed on their schedules, but I'd have a fit if they thought it was okay to call me "Alyssa!" 🤣
OK now you have me all confused. What do you prefer that they call you? I'm also just goading you to talk more about your students and your annoyances with them because it cracks me up.
To further elucidate: When I'm being nice and someone drops their scarf, it's either "sir" or “miss”. But when someone almost hits me with their E bike or walks into me because they're looking at their phone, it's always “dude!” I must say dude 15 times a day in New York City.
As another mom who had to truly work to become a mother (one through adoption and one biological-both miracles) I have loved being called someone’s mom since they were born. They are now 26, and I am still proud to be identified through them. I’m so enamored of who they grew up to be that I’ll always be happy for my identity to be tethered to them. The flip side is that I want them to be equally proud to be called “Leslie’s daughter or son.” Both things are true.
(*Coincidentally, I came across this piece an hour after I reposted an earlier article I wrote about my trudge toward motherhood called “Both: A Twisted Version of Twins.”
Beatrice got in here and liked this piece before me or Rachel could even open it - and we are both ON TOP OF IT! (Especially Rachel.) Thanks Beatrice and thanks for this piece, Rachel!
When I was a little kid, some 80+ years ago, my friends would call my Mom: 'Sheila's Mother'. I think none of the mothers ever told us what to call them, so we had to improvise. When we got older we called our friend's mothers: "Mother B", "Mother O", "Mother L" and the dreaded "Mother W". Only my mother was Mrs. Marks, and even her neighbor of 50 years called her that. I always go by Sheila, no matter what, even when I was teaching, because it was friendlier, and one of my life's goals is to accept my name. And friends still call me Jane's Mom. when they need advice. But the thing I really cannot stand is "Mother" - not "your mother" - but as in "What would "Mother want?" A woman who was managing an account for my Mother asked me that, and I would never, ever give her any money because she called her "Mother".
OK, I'm back! That is absolutely hilarious about your retaliation against the person who referred to Grandma as "Mother" and I'm so glad to know that story!
I know that we had to call our dad's mom "grandmother," but did dad have to call her "mother" also? Whenever I hear "mother" I assume fucker is coming next. And in a lot of cases… Oh well, I will leave it there. I love you, mom! You really make me laugh.
Jane, the "I assume fucker is coming next" line cracked me up!
Saaaaame! Because it’s true! 😹
Mom!!!! I love you so so much! And I'm so happy that you commented! I'll come back here as soon as I get inside (it’s cold and windy here!) and write you more of a response. And I will call you (and probably James) tonight. Yay I love you!!
I’m so thrilled that Jane’s mom is commenting. 🥹 Hi, Sheila!
That's so sweet of you, Dana, and I am too!
Sheila, that is so interesting, especially that Jane's friends still call you that. I'm trying to remember what I called my friends' parents as a kid. I think "Mr." or "Ms." or "Mrs." I distinctly recall dozens of conversations where my friends would call my dad "Mr. Bussel" and he would ask to be called by his first name, but I think that's intimidating for kids. I do not want my kid calling me by my name as a kid (maybe when she's older), and also, it would be even weirder if little kids were at my house saying, "Rachel, can I get a glass of water."
I also find "Mother" very stiff and formal and I'm not sure if I properly conveyed this in the essay, but I do think there's a huge difference between being called a generic "Mom," which is what happened in the original social media post that inspired my essay that I sadly can't find, and being called "Alice's mom" or "Jane's mom." In the post, the pediatrician said something like, "Mom, we're ready for you," and she found it odd that someone other than her kid was calling her "Mom."
ps. I do have friends' moms' numbers saved in my phone as "___'s mom" and don't always know their names. These are instances where we've met in person and I've had a reason to contact them.
Add me to the list of people who don’t like “Mother.” It has strong Norman Bate’s vibes.
You and my mom both being so astute and so in sync is making my day!
You nailed it!
This is such a great essay. People love to talk about how this thing or that thing is “dead” but I think it’s safe to say that nuance is dead.
However your essay has brought nuance back from the grave. People live in different contexts, and within those contexts they have different identities. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially if we maintain our own identity within ourselves and don’t let it disappear.
Thank you! I never wanted it to seem like I was saying everyone should feel this way, just that I do.
Yes! This is why I’ve never been bothered when people call me “CJ’s mom.” For the people who call me that, I’m likely just a temporary visitor in their lives, and they have the connection with my kid. Just as my friend might refer to CJ as “Robin’s kid.”
I have the same opinion about being called “insert one of my boys’ names here”’s mom. I love it. And I didn’t even plan on having kids.
But over 20 years ago I met this nice man in Los Angeles, and if you’ve been to Los Angeles you might hear that that’s a relatively rare occurrence. Well that man became my husband then the father of my two sons.
And those two children have changed me into a person I didn’t know it was possible to become.
I used to be a very negative, self-loathing person. But I changed because I didn’t want who I was before to parent my children and make them negative and self-loathing, too.
Anyway, I really enjoyed your piece.
I love this story. Truly love it. I wanted to have a kid, as you may have heard, more than anything else in the world ever since I was a kid myself. So hearing the perspective of people who didn't have that urge and then how they are affected by having them anyway always moves me. I also always back women who don't want them in not having them. We have enough kids in this world.
It’s a subject that we will discuss further in AJPT, no doubt…the idea of women having personal choice regarding bringing more humans into this existence. I could talk about it endlessly.
Me too and let's do!
I second that I'd love to see more by you about that process/path of not wanting kids to wanting them. My very private boyfriend who was already like "You used our photo?" because I didn't ask him about that first doesn't want me blasting his business everywhere so I'll just say he wasn't totally sure if he'd like being a dad but agreed because he knew how important it was to me is now the absolute sweetest dad. I tear up about once a day seeing him and my daughter together because for so long I wondered what would happen if he was miserable as a dad and now I truly can't imagine him as anything but our daughter's dad.
Yes - I am very, very, very hard on myself, but when I see my daughters and know they are doing so well in school, choosing wonderful (and hilarious) friends, and enjoying their hobbies, making me laugh, I feel like,"Okay - I can't be THAT bad." My children give me a lot of hope.
Dana, thank you for the kind words, and that's so sweet, both that you wound up loving having kids and changing for them. I've also been working very hard on my negative self-talk. We have all these board books called things like "I Love Myself" and they're so simple, going through parts of the body, "I love my hair" and "I love my legs" and sometimes they're about what that body part does for you. Lately I've been trying to teach my daughter about the belly button and that it exists and why it's there and there's something about watching small children just exult in their bodies' existence (I often see her just turning her hands back and forth in front of her and staring at them) that makes it hard to hate my own.
But I also wanted to say, I don't think having kids is right for everyone. The hard thing is how to know in advance. I don't think there's a perfect solution to that and in general believe too many people, especially women, are pushed by partners or parents/family or our culture into having kids and then resent it, even if they also love their kids/like some aspects of parenting. I think that's very wrong, but I think many formerly ambivalent people are like you and wind up treasuring the changes. I don't think it's possible to become a parent and not change in some ways.
So true, Rachel. When I got pregnant at 30, I was surprised, having been diagnosed with a big cause of infertility, and ambivalent. It took me a long time to feel comfortable as a mother. My kid turns 22 in February. Seeing how they move through the world fills me with so much pride and awe—for both of us. I’ll always be happy to be called “CJ’s mom.”
Hey! I met a nice man in Los Angeles, too! It happened less than two hours after I arrived on my first visit. I didn’t expect to fall in love with the city, but I did. And that nice man is still around nearly six years later.
That’s wonderful!
Loved this. Years ago, I traveled to a small village in East Africa to report a story about a young Masai woman named Kakenya, and I was astounded that literally everyone in town called her mother “Mama Kakenya.” Even though the mother’s given name was Anna, and she had seven other children, she would always be known in relation to her eldest.
This seemed sooo exotic to me at the time. And yet, more than a decade later, when my daughter started making friends — Gen Alpha kids who, unlike us Gen Xers, were never instructed to call other grownups “Mrs. Lastname” or — I noticed that they automatically called me “Eliza’s mom.” As in, “Eliza’s mom, I need to go to the bathroom.” Every single one of them! I wonder if it’s something linguistically hard wired in us. Wherever it comes from, I find it delightful and love to hear it.
That's so interesting! I'm going to dig up a quote that I meant to include in this essay and then completely forgot because I didn't put the note in my draft about another culture that does this. That's fascinating about Gen Alpha kids. I'll be curious what my kid's friends call me. And while I love the age she is now (1) which is early for play dates, and when we do meet up with her little friends they recognize me but aren't talking enough to call me anything, I'm excited for when she'll be old enough to have friends over. I'm not domestic at all but am going to work on being a mom who can make fun snacks for kids.
Dammit I’ve written the asshole argument commenter comment so many times, thinking you’d prefer a peaceful hippie corner of the internet to vibe in. But I’ve got two degrees. One was fine arts, the other philosophy which I believe is the equivalent of a license to argue, because I spent 4 years in training.
Which, because I know you love a story - and a dish - reminded me that one of my most beloved professors was struck by a car the year after I left, and her husband (who we all hated) was going to fly her to Siberia to be cryogenically frozen. BUT WAIT… he could only afford to store her head, so that, is what he did (traumatized me following this on the 6 o’clock news) THERE’S MORE - he goes off to Russia with her head, and returns married to an 18yo girl that worked at the place that was going the freezing.
Not all of my stories are about bad things that happened to me, some are about other people. Anyway, I weep for my arguments lost to delete for peace.
As for this, I have no kids, but I correct people who do not use my full name. I was married when I was 33, so I spent a long time as my first 2 names. My husband didn’t usurp that identity, he merely got tagged on the end.
Did you ever toy with the title: Charlotte of Jane Pratt: Another Jane Pratt Creation?
It’s very distinguished and British.
I love the sound of that. So you mean that would be a new title for this site or the way people would address me or both? I'm thinking it through. And yes yes yes to loving stories. Thank you!
My original thought was it would be how you’d address people upon them meeting your daughter casually, to really get the Jane Pratt in there fr tax purposes.
But I suppose it has many uses.
I’ve an idea for your signature as a Jane Pratt tattoo aka Cabbage Patch kid style as well, so various butts might read Jane Pratt…friend, Jane Pratt… enemy, Jane Pratt… co-worker. On my mind it’s creating an entire world that is labeled as to how it pertains to you. Because it makes me laugh to pretend you are a raging egomaniacal maniac that must claim everything in her name. Shall we say, like The Sea of Jane Pratt, or The Jane Pratt Kennedy Center.
How about this weather in NY? Blustery!! I had to close with something that made me look less psychotic.
Gina. Friend of Jane Pratt. (Not tattooed yet)
This is amazing. And I have put my name on a lot of stuff but I know you would never actually compare me to that dude. (It was really fun in 2016 when we got to watch a ton of buildings up and down the west side of Manhattan that had Trump on them having the Trump removed because nobody wanted to live there with that name on it. But apparently he didn't get the hint.)
No, I wouldn’t, that’s why it gives me giggles and that’s why it’s funny to imagine for a beat. You’re so nice, to me it makes it hysterical. Then again, I think I have a soft spot for third person humor.
Sort of off topic but , being from the south, this is reminding me of when kids started calling me Ma'am. I loved it, but I think I would like the full Madam even better.
In the South I was called Miss Gina - or worse - Miss Eugenia which seemed an unholy bastardized version of my Italian heritage, Madam.
I’ve always been fond of ‘Mistress’ as a title - not as a vocation. When I got married all my bridesmaids were referred to as Mistresses, made even better that half were men.
Because not everyone has 6 female friends. Tomboy kid, male friends. Interesting article now in the highly made up, make-upped ,hair done world of today. I’ve avoided that by having male friends who would make fun of me more for trying to wear heels and mascara then just be ‘normal.’ Which is a good deal of the reason why anything done to attract a man isn’t awesome, because if the kind of man that attracts.
I feel like I should get a license for comment bitchery. Which is my second favorite word to fuckery.
You get a license to say whatever the hell you want here for life. It's all so fascinating.
Now that is an exciting proposition, Madam!
Replying just to say: based on that cryogenically frozen head story I think we might have attended the same college?? Did this by any chance happen in extreme northern NY?
[Edit: read the rest of your replies and saw you mentioned NNY, and I'm 100% sure we were at the same college. She really was a great professor (I took a course on folklore and mythology with her, and she was briefly my advisor before I transferred to a different school). And her husband really was a shitty abuser..Damn, I haven't thought about any of this stuff for years.]
I'm sorry, Aimee. It must have been hard to be a student of hers and find out about this. I'm mad at your college for not trying to intervene, which may be unfair since I don't know what they could have done, but the Pollyanna side of me says they could've tried to do something. I get irate knowing that guys like this abuser professor get away with their crimes because abuse is hard to prove and requires the one being abused to want to leave badly enough to overcome so many hurdles.
You worked it out before I got up! I think of her often, as she was the one who first encouraged me to write. I had a lot of 1 on 1 classes with her. Crazy that we went to the same college, but at least now I’m fact checked - because people never believe that story happened. Or that the news covered it…
What the fucking fuck with your professor and her husband. 😳
Right? She was such an awesome lady, but always coming in with casts, bruises. I’d decimate her husband at philosophy forums because he was an unrepentant public garter and all around misogynistic ass.
I think when this small town news reporter started covering the story, she never knew it was going to get as weird as it did. I knew, he had a fucking fundraiser to take her head to Siberia because ‘he couldn’t afford to, and wanted one day to bring back the best part of her.’
Which in rereading what I wrote, I’ve been a cranky old man far longer than I thought 😂😂
Yeah, the difference in how we are with other people compared to how we are with the abusers in our lives says everything.
I’ve found the most offensive thing in my book that some people have found is that I told abusive doctors to fuck off, and took over my own cancer case. In doing so, I became the sickest terminal cancer patient to ever make a full and complete recovery.
And it angers some people. That I pushed back on doctors that pushed me. That I thought I knew more. That I spoke out about the abuse.
Even though in my book I show from my medical book I was being starved, I was being deprived of oxygen, the doctor was harassing/mocking me - telling me he was going to make sure I died in that bed—
People still tell me: should have listened. Who are you to think…. You selfish egotistical blah blah.
And I think about that, and shrug. Because I think they missed the point.
And I always speak the unspeakable. That’s why a lot of people don’t like me 😂. Not polite enough to pretend that battery isn’t my business.
Wait, was he abusing her?
That we could prove, no. But her face said more than her silence on the issue. She was magnetic teaching great feminist writing - a seminar on Virginia Woolf, the Greek goddesses of retribution, so alive and passionate. Around him, that slump-shouldered eyes down whisper voice we’ve all seen.
I disliked him greatly. After he came back married, everyone did (I went to a small college in NNY) I’ve often felt sorry for the girl.. I don’t think she knew English.
The world shows itself everyday how it allows people to get away with… in this case I’ll say
My app went bonkers and maybe I should have left it, but it’s supposed to say:
Unspeakable acts of cruelty. Unspeakable in that witnesses say nothing.
I was already horrified and confused about the Siberia cryo-freezing because WHAT? and then I got to this part and I'm angry at him and sad on her behalf. That's so tragic, especially the part about her being a teacher of feminist writing. I remember a very, very long time ago in one of Elizabeth Wurtzel's books she wrote something like people say if only abuser's had a symbol on them that identified them as abusers, but there are people who are drawn to those types. Not consciously, but subconsciously. I wonder if that's true. Which is not to say I at all blame the victim, I blame the perpetrator, but I do think about how we can raise women to spot red flags and then actually do something about it before they get sucked into a cycle of abuse where it's so much harder mentally, emotionally, logistically, and financially to leave. It's infuriating that domestic violence seems to be as big of a problem as it was in the past (I have not looked at actual data, just anecdotally and knowing it's still happening all over).
I’m going to comment as Open Secrets for a moment because Safari, where I’m signed in as me, keeps pushing me opening the post to the app and I’m watching my kid and making sure she doesn’t eat chess pieces or take every record out of its sleeve. Thank you so much for taking this and getting it live so quickly, Jane! As a Sassy, Jane, xoJane and now AJPT reader, it’s an honor.
Thanks, Open Secrets! I appreciate this essay so much and also appreciate you keeping your priorities straight and watching that beautiful kid right now.
To clarify, this Open Secrets comment was by me. That's my magazine. I'm commenting now very early in the morning on my laptop, but most of the time I use my phone and I hate that Substack doesn't make it easier to toggle between different accounts. I know I'm not the only one having this issue either.
As I've told you in an email about this also, that really sucks. There is so much lacking when publishing from Substack Mobile and that now gets added to my list. I hope they address all the issues.
A few years ago I walked into my middle son’s school and several kids (separately) said, “Hi Jakob’s mom!” I thought that was a little strange because he looks just like my late husband and not at all like me, but then I found out there were only 3 white boys in 8th grade and 2 of them were named Jac/kob, so odds were good!
I have noticed that here in Canada, my kids’ friends are likely to call me Jakob’s mom. It’s a way of dealing with how different cultures use adult first names by kids.
That's hilarious about the odds being good that you would be a Jacob's mom. And of course, true!
That's interesting. Not totally related but the 2 Jac/kob's made me think about whether it's super weird to have been 1 of, say, 5 Lisas in a class. I imagine so. There were a few other Rachels in my classes/schools growing up but most spelled it Rachael and there weren't so many that it was overwhelming. I imagine it's often a grass is always greener situation where kids with common names wish theirs were more uncommon and kids with uncommon names with the opposite.
As a Celia (no extra Ce) I’ve always been in the unusual category unless I’m with Spanish speakers or Brits. My husband knew that our kids would struggle with their last name, so we gave them names that were immediately understandable (and pronounceable) by Canadians, but then spelled them in a Georgian way. My eldest is Alexandre, goes by Sandro. Has to put up with Sand-dro instead of Sahn-dro. Koba switched to Jakob in school because he was always called Kobe. My youngest is Giorgi, called Gio, pronounced Ghee-o like the butter. He will correct anyone who messes it up or deliberately mispronounces their name until they get his. So they all handle it differently.
That’s fascinating! I looooove hearing about names and where they come from. I’m named after a great grandmother I never met, Rose.
I love name stories, too! My CJ is legally Clara Jane, after my grandmother Vivian Clara Jane Jones Berry. Since it’s a mouthful I always said that CJ could choose whatever version of the name that worked best. In third grade they opted for CJ because it was easy to write on homework. When they came out as nonbinary at 16, they already had a perfectly gender neutral name.
I love that! My first thought was that wasn’t an accident that they found the gender neutral name young.
I’m always fascinated by people legally named one time but whose families have never called them that, either due to using a nickname or a middle name or another reason. I’m also fascinated by famous people like Bob Dylan who’ve changed their names and always wonder if they would have gotten famous with their original name.
Long before I got pregnant, I chose Clara Jane as a name. Once I was pregnant, I was pretty adamant about being gender neutral where possible. CJ had crossed my mind at that point. And it’s all worked out! CJ and my grandmother had a lovely relationship. Their birthdays were two days apart and they were so much alike. CJ’s often said that they love their name because of that connection. And that makes me so happy.
Oh, as for Bob Dylan … I spend a lot of time around Bob Dylan scholars. So many of them call him Bobby or Zimmy (short for Zimmerman, his given surname) when discussing him, and it always makes me laugh.
If anyone who uses Threads comes across the original Thread, let me know and I'll comment with it or see if it can be linked. Note to writers: If you see a social media thread or article or anything else you might want to reference later, save it somewhere you can easily find it. I'll be doing that from now on.
So it was on Threads that you saw that comment from the other mom that sparked this idea? I'll go hunting, for sure.
I’m pretty sure it was a viral post on Threads but the only detail I remember closely was the poster being called “Mom” at their kid’s pediatrician appointment, which I acknowledge is very different than “___’s mom,” which is at least personal vs. a generic “Mom.”
I'm going to look for it and I do agree about the difference. I've been called Mom also and that didn't bother me either. But I get why it could.
This is only a tiny bit related and it's maybe too early for you to know this yet, but whenever I hear a kid yell "Mom", I think it's Charlotte and it sends my heart rate up in a not good way. And then I resent the kid for it.
This is why I have 232 tabs open in my phone’s browser.
As someone who comes from a family that is long gone, I would love to be referred as Dani's daughter or Greg's girl.
To be referenced as any one of my three adult children's mom would be a huge honor. I know who I am at my core, but to be associated with them is bonus.
Great essay, Rachel & Jane.
I love this and you speak for me too (perfectly) when you say that you know who you are at your core, but to be associated with them is a bonus. Thanks for the kind and thoughtful comment!
That's so sweet, Michele. I think even if you aren't referred to in those ways, you'll always be their daughter and that's meaningful too, even if you don't get to hear it out loud.
My grandmother has passed but I will still reference her, especially on Martha's Vineyard, which can be like a big small town, and say "Shirley Cronig Smith" was my grandmother. She was the kind of person who would be traveling somewhere far from the east coast, meet someone who either vacationed there or wanted to vacation there, and invite them over. She was also always on top of all the family gossip and bought gifts for all the new babies in our family. I found little baby jeans in her dresser after she passed, for a new little one entering our family. So I try to retain those qualities of hers.
She sounds like a beautiful soul. ♥
This is so weird. I just - as in the last 20 minutes — changed my mom’s name in my contacts back to MOM Mary June because the IOS Demons changed it. I love this essay too and feel as if we’re all on some JP wavelength
That's amazing! I do think that we are all in sync. And if I still had a period, we'd probably all be getting that at the same time too.
This reminds me of 2 things. I have a whole bunch of people in my phone as "Mom Friend ___" because I don't always know their last name.
Then there's this weird iPhone thing I've essentially given up on, but when I text people, it shows up as from A&A Car Service Bussel. I have never knowingly saved a contact as A&A Car Service, I've double checked that I've listed my name, Rachel Bussel, in my contacts, and have tried everything I can think of. Every time I meet someone new and text with them they ask me, "Do you have a car service?" The first time I told them what car service I use and they were like "No, you're in my phone as a car service." So strange.
SO strange!! I have a lot of weird things like that too, so it makes me feel better knowing I'm not alone and that maybe I'm not being specifically targeted by iPhone or something.
This is such a sweet essay!
This is a cheerful and balanced take on work and family life and how would impacts our identity.
Thank you, Ellie!
Interesting post! As a former at-home dad of now-young-adult daughters, I remember often being one of the only dads among many moms, so I think my name was easier for them to remember (an odd form of male privilege, I guess?). I do lament that it was hard for me to remember each mom's name, so the old "you're so-and-so's mom, right?" was common. Glad to know maybe some of those moms enjoyed that phrasing. :)
Speaking for myself, I would have been thrilled to be called "Charlotte's mom" by you. And lots of credit to you for doing the home-with-kids thing – though no more and no less than the Moms who do it. Thanks for commenting!
Thanks! And I agree. It was awkward to be applauded sometimes for being an at-home parent when the female at-home parent next to me did not receive the same praise even though we were doing the same job! (Another odd form of male privilege, I guess.)
Exactly! I will now double down by praising you for "getting it" in a way that some men don't. Though all women do! This could go on and on ha ha
RACHEL! or should I write: ALICE'S MOM!?!?!? :) Great essay - I would never think to be upset about being identified as Mom. Well, unless my daughters were doing something atrocious!!!
I completely relate to not remembering names since becoming a parent. I cover up with "sweetie" and "honey" to kids, and, for parents, I just am like "How do you spell your first name?" when they give me a cell phone number (and THEN I've got it!)
And, as an ESL teacher, my students show my female colleagues and I respect by calling us all "Miss". So I'm happy to be Miss, Mom, or ___________'s Mom. And then when I get to be Jenn, that means I can just be myself, shedding all those roles and getting to a break from all the responsibilities and just getting into whatever I want to do aside from all that. I love having all these different versions of myself.
Also, nothing feels better than people remembering your kids! I love that your daughter is making her impression on the world at such a young age. Children need to feel seen and heard in their communities, and I love every time people acknowledge my daughters in this way. For example, my daughters hang out at the library after school, and people are always like "OH! I saw Sofia at the library the other day!!!" And they seem excited to tell me that.
I love this whole upbeat comment. But I'm going to confess here that hearing you say that people reach out to tell you that they see your kids various places (similar to the reaction Rachel gets about "Alice" and all of the attention they all get when they are out and about) - and also your point about feeling better about yourself because of all of their successes - makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong as a mom. I think my daughter is a work of art and absolutely incredible but I don't share these experiences. That was a hard one to admit to, so thanks for letting me do it here, guys.
No - don’t think that!! I am not a public figure, and we live in an “everybody’s up in your business” small neighborhood in Boston! And also having three girls close in age - they are a crew! Honestly, when I go out with friends, I go to the little ‘burbs adjacent to Boston, so I don’t see everyone!!! Also, I am NOT a public figure/OG editor - and def NOT profiled in NY Mag or anything. Like I would feel stalkerish if I was like: “I saw your daughter!” to you because you’re FAMOUS! felt like this when I saw my absolute fav public figure/icon/idol in a grocery store - but I saw her daughter first and blurted out something about that to her, and then felt VERY embarrassed as I sounded like a weird stalker or something!!!
Thank you for saying all of that and giving me that perspective. And I don't want to do that thing ever of comparing myself to someone else's achievements. But your story about the grocery store reminded me of a funny time that I made a major faux pas wirh Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow. I'll come back here and write it out. Love you and thank you!
OK, back here to add that years ago at a small gathering in someone's home in Los Angeles, I was introduced to Blythe Danner and I said to her oh well I know your daughter, but I don't know you meaning that I actually knew Gwyneth in real life. But her face turned to ice, and I think she thought that I meant, I knew of her daughter and not of her. We did not speak anymore after that. I felt terrible.
I'm up with insomnia after a long day and now of course it's 2 a.m. and I'm like, "What a cliffhanger, Jane! What happened with them?" And I'm having an ADHD moment because I swear I came here to add to the general discussion and completely forgot what I wanted to post (I can't be the only one that happens to, right?)
Jenn, I loved this: "all these different versions of myself." There really are so many. And you'll like this. My daughter and I go almost every week to a local takeout prepared food place. I usually buy something for her to eat while we're walking around and it's a tiny shop so the staff all coo over her and are excited to watch her hungrily devour their food. Yesterday I was busy so my babysitter took her. The staff said, "Look, our favorite customer!" and gave her free food. That charmed me so much. And the babysitter sent photos of her hugging stuffed animals at the library, which is like her home away from home. Or should I say "one of the libraries" because we belong to and go to 4 of them regularly (2 are part of my county system and the other 2 are super close by in neighboring towns but are independent libraries so I now have 3 library cards).
I never responded to one part of this, which is that you are definitely not the only person that comes in here to make a comment and then gets caught up in another conversation and forgets why you came. I do it ALL the time. I also wish the threading worked differently in these comments, so we didn't have to click through to see more and then click back. The comments on AJPT should be a seamless reading experience, as wonderful as the writing and thoughts in them are, IMHO.
The kind of conversations we have on AJ PT have actually led us to max out the number of subthreads this platform allows on a few occasions. Do they not understand we need to ramble and go on as many tangents as we want to get to the really good stuff?!
There's my mini rant. And I can't thank you enough for that beautiful post you did today about just what I'm talking about – our comments section. I'll write you more about it there.
I'm laughing at the fact that AJPT has maxed out the subthreads allowed. I'm good at maxing out things - I've been tinkering with an essay on maxing out people I'm following on Instagram (7500) and the way that's connected to my ADHD need to know everything about everyone, or at least, have it accessible at my fingerprints, combined with being naturally interested in many different people and companies, mostly bookstores and publishers.
Rachel, you and I are so alike. Here I am at 2:21 letting you know that I just answered your question by editing my comment above! Get some rest whenever you can!
Ha! I love that. And I'm picturing you wanting to take back how you said that and rephrase it even though you meant it the way you meant it. I wonder how many of these seemingly small, random memories we all have that we wish had happened a different way, things you don't think about often but when reminded of them, they come back with full clarity.
Awwww!!! What a little charmer!!! And I gotta say - I LOVE that you have a rotation of four regular libraries. 💕💕💕💕💕
It’s funny how we replay certain moments in our heads and feel bad about them. But what can we do? It’s over. There is just this awkwardness in life that we have to sit through sometimes, and it’s SO uncomfortable!!!
I understand that particularly with Spanish speaking ELL students, calling your teacher "Miss" is the equivalent of addressing her as "Senora," which is considered polite. My students, however, are just lazy. 😑
Ha! The way you talk about your students makes me laugh every time. I love the bluntness.
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What a lovely article, Rachel! Your daughter will feel honored when she reads it, someday! I myself am not a mom (except to my beloved pet) and I always knew it wasn't my path in life, but I can relate to wanting to be known, identified, and appreciated for the things that make me who I am. 💖
Personally, I find the tendency of my students to address me (and all of their teachers) as "Miss" instead of "Ms.Krawczyk" (in my case) to be extremely annoying. We have names - use them! (I'm so grateful for these two weeks away from school! 🤣)
Thank you, Alyssa! That's interesting about the Miss vs. Ms. Would you rather they call you Alyssa or Ms. Krawczyk? If I remember correctly, until junior high/high school I didn't know my teachers' first names, and probably didn't care. It just wasn't on my radar. But when I was older I think I knew some of them.
Hi Rachel! Oh, it's not a "Miss vs. Ms." thing: it's the fact that they think it's appropriate to use "Miss" as a full form of address, sort of like if I addressed them all as "Student" interchangeably. Oh God - I'm way too old school for that. They all know our first names, as they're printed on their schedules, but I'd have a fit if they thought it was okay to call me "Alyssa!" 🤣
OK now you have me all confused. What do you prefer that they call you? I'm also just goading you to talk more about your students and your annoyances with them because it cracks me up.
"Ms. Krawczyk" would be lovely! (I'm sure I'll have plenty of post-break stories/reasons to vent, coming up!) 🤣
Sounds good, Ms. Krawczyk!
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Oh, just “Miss” - that’s so weird. Like that’s what you say to flag down someone who drops their scarf.
To further elucidate: When I'm being nice and someone drops their scarf, it's either "sir" or “miss”. But when someone almost hits me with their E bike or walks into me because they're looking at their phone, it's always “dude!” I must say dude 15 times a day in New York City.
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Ha ha ha. Exactly. And only then!
Exactly! 🤣
As another mom who had to truly work to become a mother (one through adoption and one biological-both miracles) I have loved being called someone’s mom since they were born. They are now 26, and I am still proud to be identified through them. I’m so enamored of who they grew up to be that I’ll always be happy for my identity to be tethered to them. The flip side is that I want them to be equally proud to be called “Leslie’s daughter or son.” Both things are true.
(*Coincidentally, I came across this piece an hour after I reposted an earlier article I wrote about my trudge toward motherhood called “Both: A Twisted Version of Twins.”