When people just call you “mum”

[newmumabouttown]

I’ve had a bit of a bug bear with health visitors that always refer to me as “mummy” or “mum” rather than my name. I even introduced myself to one, even thought my name was on her screen, and she literally said “Oh we don’t care about your name once the baby arrives” Way to help out any mothers losing their sense of identify…

DS has just started nursery, and all the nursery staff are doing it. I’m just called “mum”. I’ve learned all their names, I don’t call them “staff member” or “baby servant”.

Is this normal? Is it okay to ask they call me by name?

Oh, I’m the odd one out here… I liked it! Even my DDad referred to me as Mum once I’d had DS.
Mind you, I was extraordinarily chuffed that I’d grown and birthed this baby all by myself, i didn’t care what I was called 😁 The neighbourhood was full of old ladies knitting cardigans furiously and it was such a lovely time..DH and I were VIPs for a while! Itts a long time ago now, so perhaps the thinking has changed?

I can’t stand it either. I went for a pregnancy check up today for my first baby, I found it really odd the female doctor called me mum, even more so that I also work for the NHS and came straight from my professional role where I work with doctors to be then called mum by someone who could potentially become my colleague one day as I move around quite a lot in my role.
It’s degrading.

I think it's bizarre. I'm not their mum! Why can't they just say 'you'. Eg. What do you think and not 'what do you think, mum?'

I am a teacher and it takes two minutes to check a parent's name before I make a phone call. I would never call them just mum face to face. I might say 'are you X's mum?' but I wouldn't use the word 'mum' as someone's name.

It did piss me off at antenatal appointments. “Just pop up here, mum.” Probably irrational but it made me feel depersonalised and somehow patronised. If you can’t be bothered to look at my name on the notes just don’t use it in conversation and I wouldn’t have noticed. But ’mum’ is actively making a statement that they can’t bothered with patients’ names if they’re (about to be) mothers.

My friend calls it our super hero name. Lots of phone contacts that are a(b's mum).

I dislike it too and tried to avoid it as a professional but it’s ubiquitous. I wouldn’t say something if I were you, it’s annoying but it’s a bigger beast than you can take on I think!

Yep

It's normal but I hate it too. So depersonalising

I call my own mum, Nanna quite often. It's what my kids call her ❤️

It’s perfectly acceptable. If one child gets picked up by the Mum, Dad, Granny 1, Granny 2 - don’t honestly expect them to k ow everyone’s names? They probably won’t even have that information. Much easier to say ‘Dad, here are Lucy’s wet clothes’.

My MIL does this, even with her husband she is now only “nanna”.
She loves it too, but I find it quite sad that she’s lost herself, her husband sees her as “nanna” not her name or wife.
It’s interesting though the split responses, it’s very personal and there isn’t a right or wrong answer to this.

It took some time to get used to this after DD was born. I didn't like it the first few times but then got used to it. I get referred as 'wife' by all my DH's relatives and friends instead of my name as well so I do t get my name used a lot.

I'm 100% with you on this one. When they call me mum, I immediately interrupt with my name. If they don't get it, the second or third time I'll stop them and say "my name is waitingforthebus. Please don't call me mum."

Exactly.

Get over it, OP.

I think it's a blessing.

When I'm not around my kids, I am me.. but when it's about them and to do with them, I am more than happy to just be labelled as Mum. That's who I am xx

That's a fucking weird name. Think I'd rather be called mum if I had your misfortune.

Because when you work with the public, it's hard trying to remember everyone's name and some people get really angry if you accidentally get it wrong. Workers in Nurseries, Schools and Health Visitors etc have a rolling cohort of parents. That's an awful lot of names to remember, cut them some slack.

But she’s not lost herself. I’ve not stopped being me because I’m a parent. I’m now me and I’m a mum. It’s one facet of my personality.
Just like my job is part of me and being married is part of me and enjoying crafting and reading is part of me.
This is much more about how you perceive yourself.

I agree with PP if it's specifically in the context of the child. I.e. nursery workers, or the 1 year health visitor check thing.

But early post partum appointments are about the mother as well as the baby and if they can take two seconds to check the babies name before the appointment they can do the same for the mother and remember is for half an hour.

I specifically remember, on my day three newborn visit being asked 'hows your mental health, mum?' Which just about sums it up