Please Stop Calling Me Mom
For 99.4% of my adult life, every healthcare provider I’ve ever met has called me by my name — Jessica. But since my son, Henry, was born, I no longer exist as a person at the doctor’s office. I no longer have a name. I am Mom. As in:
· “Mom, what pharmacy do you use?”
· “Mom, do you need to use the bathroom before we get started?”
· “Mom, what concerns do you have for us today?”
I realize there are a lot of healthcare problems I could blog about — healthcare inequality, the demise of Roe, physician burnout, long-term COVID, the flu season, the rising cost of healthcare spending in relation to our GDP, but I just thought I’d like to add something a little bit lighter to the list of grievances.
I asked my Mom friends (they have names — Beth, Sam and a fellow Jessica) if they experienced the same thing at the doctor’s office. Their responses:
“LOL! Hmmm…I never noticed until you said something.”
“It doesn’t bother me at all, honestly. I think it’s sweet. I love being a mom and for me, it doesn’t take away from me being Sam, especially in a setting where I’m very much there to be a mom.”
“It drives me crazy! They don’t remember my name. That’s why they use Mom. They have the baby’s chart with the name right there, but the parent’s name takes more searching. My feelings about patriarchy, feminism and gender roles have evolved so much since pregnancy and birth.”
Yep. A range of reactions. And not surprising because being a Mom can bring so many different feelings and emotions.
My gripes about being called Mom aren’t on the same level as Grimes (Elon Musk’s ex-girlfriend who told Glamour she doesn’t identify with the word “Mom”), but I can’t shake how being called a Mom at a doctor’s office has thrown me for a loop. When I check in for his appointment, I don’t say, “Hi, I’m Mom Levco.” And if I’m being referred to as Mom, why don’t they just call Henry, “Child”?
But to some degree, I get it. Doctors and nurses are busy. It’s too many names to remember. We’re not special. We’re just a Mom and Child, a cog in the healthcare wheel, where our doctor has seen ten duos before us and will likely see another ten after us.
Yet the biggest complaint I’ve heard from my friends about motherhood is this: They want to be seen. They want to be heard. They want to be acknowledged. For some of us out there, maybe part of the first step toward feeling better about our new titles is just having healthcare professionals address us by our names.
For me, there’s only one person who I want to call me Mom. So far, that hasn’t happened. His favorite word is Dada.