To think that health professionals should not call me MUM

[Reallytired]

DD had her jabs today and the nurse kept on calling me "Mum" even though I said to her that I did not want her to call me "Mum". I told her that it was a biological impossiblity that I was her mother.

I have two children and I am happy for me to call me Mum, but I do have a proper name and I think health professionals should use it.

quite apart from the fact that robbo is a ghastly name, i do think it would be weird for a doctor to use someone else's affectionate name, tbh. creepy. i don't think that nicknames and proper names bear quite the same relationship here.

unless if you were upset with a doctor and they called you 'poointy wointy' in order to put you down? which is kinda what we're talking about here anyway?

Well Aitch - I'd be bloody confused if my daughters nurse said "has mum been for her bath yet". Are you saying that it would be fine to say "has your mum been for her bath yet". Why would a nurse be asking my daughter that?

why would someone ask my child if I had been for a bath?

yes, and the doctor does not have the relationship with you that would incline them to address you as 'mum'. your child does.

I must go for bath

And to read my copy of Health Care Profesisonal Weekly

Mumcentre, I am NOT the doctor's mum, that is the whole point!

ds can call me 'Mum', other people can call me 'ds's Mummy' if it's appropriate, someone talking to ds can refer to me as 'your Mummy' but* Dr Jones or Nurse Smith should not address me directly as 'Mum' because I am not their Mum!

It is rude, patronising and bad grammar.

• Actually ds can't call me Mum, it's Mummy all the way round here.

EXACTLY!

so why did a midwife come into my room while dd was in an incubator and ask her colleague that question?

cat, can you post for a bit without mentioning the fact you are a lwyer

I am not a health care professional so yes, I ca n read

Thanks aitch - now I really am going to bed, am totally lost here - maybe its the red wine, or possibly now the bang on the head.

MUM is off to bed everyone - bye.

lol @ marie/mum

You know that he knows you are not his mum..quite obvious...now I would be insulted if he called me Dad..but mum?...you are just being a pia and upsetting yourself for no reason..

I'm known as Mummy

you know that this is the sort of thing that gets discussed in professional publications? so assuming the hcps read, they DO know that they're offending people. i mean, not mumcentreplus (quite clearly) or pointy or marie, but others of us... and yet rather than say nothing at all they're persisting in calling us all 'mum'. i find that interesting, i must say.

again, lockets. you miss the point. why were they calling you 'mum'?

i am very bored with the 'i don't care what they call me so long as they treat my child' line, tbh.

how is that the case in any other profession, that we tolerate being called something that offends (some of) us because if we don't our children will be treated less well? it's an extraordinary position to be in, and again just underlines the tremendous power play going on.

but there was only one mum in the room, lockets, so they could just have said 'can you hold him' and you'd have been all over him like a rash. unless you're saying that without them saying mum your attention might have wandered over to someone else?