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THEREFORE I AM: Even with kids, one Mom is plenty
I already have a Mom, a good one. I don't really need another one. Yet here I am, 38 years old, and there sits yet another Mom, and this one lives in my house, folds my underwear and sometimes even steals the covers in the middle of the night.
Anyone with kids, young ones or grown-up ones, knows what I'm talking about. We have a 5- and 7-year-old, Phil and Anna. Often when Shelia and I are in the same room with the kids, Shelia calls me "Dad," and I call her "Mom." I'm not sure what Freud would have to say about the practice, but that's just what we do. Before you call us a bunch of weirdoes, I've seen lots of other people do it, too. If we're weirdos, we have plenty of company.
The practice is such an ingrained part of the parental experience that I don't think anyone has given it much thought, but all of a sudden I've given it some thought. (I know, my mistake.) Really, though, what's going on here? It's like some crazy twisting Oedipal somersault with a half-nelson.
We all know how it starts. (It's when a man discovers that he likes his wife's apple crumb cake better than his mother's. Kidding.) When my kids were very, very young, we wanted to "model" for them how to address people. When my Mom came over to visit, I called her Grandma when my kids were around so they'd learn who she was and what to call her. I called my Dad Grandpa. I called my wife's parents Grammy and Papa. I called my sister Aunt Kris, and I called my brother-in-law Uncle Doug. It was a kid-centered universe, at least for a while, and part of that kiddieverse was that (sigh) I called my wife "Mom."
After a couple of years, however, things began to change. I no longer address my Mom as Grandma, and I don't call my Dad Grandpa. The kids have figured out that my Mom is their Grandma, and my Dad is their Grandpa. My kids know who is who, and, for the most part, everyone has returned to a more normal mode of talking.
For the most part ...
Even though the family tree has been well-defined and clearly established for some time now at our home, I still find myself calling my wife "Mom" from time to time. Why? What's going on here? My kids know who my Mom is, and, more importantly, they know who their Mom is. We no longer need to teach them who Mom and Dad are, but for some strange, potentially psychologically detrimental reason, my wife and I still call one another "Mom" and "Dad" sometimes.
I should really emphasize the "sometimes" part. We don't ALWAYS call each other Mom and Dad. That would be much, much too weird. Picture it: We're sitting in a nice Italian restaurant on a "date night" with the kids miles away with an $8 an hour babysitter — or better yet a $0 an hour grandparent who, quite frankly, I don't know what to call anymore. The spouse and I are enjoying a long, lingering meal filled with vino, appetizers, dessert and entrees made with a bizarre fish I've never heard of. The lights are low, there's a single candle on the table, and in the distance Dean Martin is crooning cliché, yet somehow still very romantic, song lyrics. Love is in the air, blah, blah, blah.
I lean over to Shelia and say, "Mom, would you like another glass of wine?"
No! No! No! That would pretty much be the end of the evening — a perfectly good "date night" and a perfectly good babysitter blown out of the water. We're not quite that weird.
We have our limits on the whole Mom and Dad identifications, but I can't help but wonder when it will totally cease, or if it ever will. They say once a Marine, always a Marine. Once you're an alcoholic you're always an alcoholic. I don't know what that says about alcoholic Marines, but I do know that once you're a parent you will always be a parent. Parenting doesn't end when your child turns 18 or 28 or 58. I will always be Dad to Anna and Phil, even when they're long since out of the house and having kids of their own.
Of course, by then, I'll be Grandpa — at least around their houses, but certainly not at a romantic Italian restaurant.
David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday.
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