Having a baby changes a lot of things: body-shape, sleep habits, recreational possibilities, you name it. But we were surprised to notice that it has changed our names, even before Lucy has begun to speak.
In the pre-Lucy days, we even discussed this issue. With great objectivity we opined, “We won’t need to refer to each other as ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa.’ Why not just keep calling each other ‘Jon’ and ‘Ann’? Why do parents call each other ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ anyway?”
It hasn’t quite worked out as we expected. For one thing, we are constantly talking *to* Lucy, so we naturally feel the need to refer to each other with parent-names. I suppose it is a good thing — we want to include Lucy in our conversation.
But it feels weird when ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’ creep into our vocabulary at unnecessary times. “Are you finished with your dinner, Papa?” “Mama, did you check the mail today?” It unearths deeper questions about the way our identities have changed since Lucy’s arrival. What does it mean to be a mother and a father? How does that affect our relationship? What should we do to protect our “couple-ness” when Lucy requires so much attention?
I’m not talking about the issue of formality vs. informality here, or about whether parents do (or should) break down a generation gap by teaching kids to address adults by first name. (See C. S. Lewis’s “_Voyage of the Dawn Treader_”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060234865/octothorppres-20, where Eustace Scrubb’s parents fall into this category.) For us, it’s more about what the defining relationships are: parent-child or husband-wife? Jon puts it like this: has Lucy’s gravitational field pulled us so totally into orbit around *her* that we’re primarily satellites of hers even in how we name ourselves — or are we still on a first-name basis with each other as spouses?
Jon and I feel really lucky to have a strong, healthy marriage. We think it is one of the best gifts we can give to Lucy. But of course becoming parents is a legitimately life-changing event, too! Having a baby in the house poses new challenges to our life together, but I think we are ready to take them on — and try to keep our first names in our vocabulary!
If I had any answers to offer, man I’d give them to you gladly. As it is… pass any advice you have our way. With Gabe, baby #2, and the business Ben recently purchased I am not sure whether to call Ben “Papa”, “Boss”, (the unknown) “Sir”, “Honey”, “Mr. Atkinson” or something that in some way indicates that we have been intimately and emotionally involved for several years now as husband and wife…
Andy and I still call each other by our given names. In fact, I have been trying really hard to start calling him Andrew….he has grown tired of Andy. Hopefully, it will one day it will be easy.
What is kind of funny though, is that there are times ( and unfortunately not extremely rare) when one of us will look at the other and say one of the names of our kids when we want to address our spouse.
And once in a while Andrew will call me mom….not addressing the mother of his children…. but his mother.
I think when kids begin to talk, calling you spouse by his or her name gets a little easier. When your child addresses you as mom or dad then you know that has connected and you dont need to be so intentional on the naming of that person. My two year old niece went through a stage when she called her parents by their first names. She thought it was really funny.
My sister only calls her husband by his name, beau, and as a result that is what the kids call him. I hate that! so Brian and I call each other “mom, dad, papa, popi, etc” when around maddy. then when with each other or at work we use the given names (actually when I really want him to hear me I call him Captain!) But this is all because I don’t want Maddy to call me Katrina.
We did make an effort not to use our real names around smaller kids learning names… but our older two now know that “papa’s real name is Daniel but we are the only ones who get to call him Papa instead, and that’s specialer.” Ditto for Mama/Kelly. The sentiment is right, and we’ll work on the grammar next :o) Sometimes we call each other mama or papa but try to use our proper names… or we simply use “sweetie” as the universal catchall name for whomever in the family we’re addressing. :o)
Emmett and I alternate between using first names and Mommy and Daddy. We’ll tell Evan to “give the hammer to Daddy,” etc. But we still use Emmett/Deborah within his earshot, if we’re just talking to each other. Evan says Mommy and Daddy most of the time. Occasionally, he’ll call me “honey” because that’s what I call him (and his daddy) sometimes.
Yeah, we alternate between Daddy/Mama and James/Nicole. Of course, Benjamin only says daddy thus far (and grandpa, doggie, kitty and a bunch of other words, but no mama)…
Well, I must have been calling the kids “Little Miss Abi” and “Little Miss Josi” alot. Recently Abi saw a picture of Baby Jesus and when I asked her if she knew who that was, she promptly said, “That’s Little Miss Jesus!”