7-Year-Old Daughter

 The Evolution of Maternal Address According to My 7-Year-Old Daughter

I’m not just saying this because she is my daughter, but I think my kid is a little genius. The other day, she called my name about a thousand times. And if you didn’t know, my name is Mommy. I was trying to focus on my writing, but she needed this and she needed that. She had a question and then she had another one.

It was distracting, so I snapped.

“How many times are you going to say mommy' today? And why do you even call me mommy? I call my mother ma.”

“Well, you call your mother ma because you’re old. I call you mommy because I’m a kid.”

“How so?”

“Didn’t you know? Babies and toddlers call their mothers' mama. Big kids like me call their mothers’ mommy. When I become a teenager, I’ll be too big to call you mommy so I’ll call you mom. And when I’m older, I’ll call you Ma, just like you call grandma. That’s how it is.”

“That’s how it is?”

“Yup.”

I had to think about this for a minute and it made so much sense.

The emotional connection between children and their mothers evolves across different stages of life, leading to shifts in the terms used to address mothers.

Babies and toddlers call their mothers’ mama. Big babies call their mother’s mommy. Teenagers say mom and some adults say ma or mom.

I realized that it made so much sense, and I was mind-blown.

Mama

One of my daughter’s first words was mama. I can still remember the day I heard that word come out of her mouth. Her innocent little voice carried the weight of our unbreakable bond, affirming my role as her mother.

In that precious moment, time stood still for just me and her, and I cried tears of joy because I was the recipient of her very first spoken expression of love and trust.

During infancy, a strong bond forms between a child and their mother through consistent care, nurturing, and responsiveness. This attachmenta

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