To HATE the word 'Mama'?!

[grimupnorth1]

Just a lighthearted whinge really.
Why is the word mama suddenly everywhere?! I'm 24 weeks and feel like every other day someone says something like 'Are you excited to be a mama?' Or I see t shirts etc with 'mama' on. One of the midwives even uses it!

Makes me cringe beyond belief.

I don't think I've come across this much. I don't love it, but to me it's not as irritating as Mummy. I always wanted to be called Mum, it's the only one that doesn't sound soppy to me.

I use mommy and my dd 4 calls me mommy, although she has started to call me mom over Christmas and I wasn't mentally ready for 'mommy' to end just yet!! My ds 1 calls me mama though and it's so cute 🥰
However I would never wear one of those T-shirt's that says 'mama' cringe !!!

Mama is the first word most babies use for their mothers. I think it’s absolute lovely. My 5yo is still calling me mama for now and I think I’ll be sad when it stops.

I don’t mind being called Mama but I agree with pp that I now associate it with wanky east London hipster Mamas whose “mama hearts” are bursting as they twin with their babies in “Mama bird” and “baby bird” t shirts with retro fonts and have mugs with “you got this, Mama!!!” on them. Mama mia.

I was going to say what speakout said up-thread. "Mama" is actually far more universal than anything else, it's used across multiple languages/cultures. Whatever else you may think is mainstream is in fact a smaller and relatively more local alternative.

My lot call me mama. Started when my barely talking eldest watched the gruffalo on TV when it came out, heard the little squirrel calling it’s mother ‘mama’ and started using it for me! I hated it at first but I’m just used to it now, it’s been passed down the line of DC .

I still grimace when it’s said in conjunction with something pretentious sounding in a ringing voice in public though - such as ‘mama! Do we need two aubergines or three?’/‘mama! Can we have Dahl for tea?’. Having a dad with an English accent, they’ve picked up a lot of his speech patterns and as a result they’re accents can sound quite ‘posh’ in the depths of the S.Welsh valleys (any English sounding accent around here is considered ‘posh’ - it’s a weird phenomenon!!) so ‘mama’ can sound fairly wanky at times! I mostly don’t notice it now, and they do shorten it to the welshier sounding ‘maaaaam’ more nowadays.

Fine from babies as first attempt at Mummy, fine in cultures where mama is mummy in their language. Tolerable when initiated by the child rather than the parent, but still sounds wanky.

From a native English speaking adult it sounds what it is, ridiculously pretentious and an affectation.

My children address me as maMA as per costume dramas/Jane Austen adaptations
😁

My children address me as maMA as per costume dramas/Jane Austen adaptations

I call my mother the same

Ah, I missed out the ironic MaMA. That one’s fine

So twee. Can't beat it.

*bear

One of my best parenting moments was when ds4 shouted up the stairs for me "MAMA". In perfect unison, from various parts of the house, my three older children sang "Oo-oo-oo-oo" in the style of Freddie Mercury. It was brilliant

My baby calls me mama because it's the only sound she can make consistently and my 2 year old calls me Mumma because he does. Obviously they got it from Instagram and they're trying to be hipster I guess they do both quite like avocado.

Obviously they got it from Instagram and they're trying to be hipster hmm

Your children are a credit to you Reallybadidea. But they could also have given you a spirited Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, ABBA style.

Children using it is fine. It's when adult women refer to each other or themselves as mummies or mamas that it grates. So infantile.

Yanbu - see also mumma and momma.

However, it's very cute when my 2yo reverts to saying mama (after many months of calling me mummy!)

Bloominglovely

I know someone like this too. She is also a wannabe Insta hipster Mummy.

She now calls her parents Mama & Pa - for the first 30 odd years of her life it was Mum and Dad.

Definitely an aspirational thing in her case.

Fine if the kid initiates it. But agree it's become a cringey SM thing to be a 'mama', as if breastfeeding is some wonderful discovery that the enlightened middle classes have made and necessitates posting arty shots of your 'cub' suckling you so that the world can see how you are doing parenting as nature intended. Oh, and the #mamabear hashtag on insta is ubercringe...'just me feeding my daughter in the Balinese jungle'. Bleurgh!

Sorry, rant over!

My late mum’s 1950s baby doll says ‘mama’ when you tip it.

My eldest calls me ‘Mother’ in a exasperated tone.
My youngest calls me ‘mama’ as an exact mimic of the scary old baby doll.

Kids are dead weird.

My DCs call me Mama too. I didn’t intend for it, it just happened. They don’t call their father Dad/daddy either. Again, it just happened! Can’t say I’ve noticed it many other places though.

DS (nearly 2) calls me 'mama', it's not something we pushed on him, just what he decided.
I much prefer it to 'mummy' personally, but he'll make his own mind up as he gets older.

Said it before on previous threads, but I really can't get worked up about how someone else's child refers to them, or if someone chooses to use it themselves.

Mumma is worse.

Mumma is worse.

Why?