Yes, that’s right! I’m going to be giving away not one, but three copies of And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents, and Our Unexpected Families
I’ll do one giveaway per week for a total of three weeks. Come back next Wednesday for the second one. Also, just for fun, I’ll be posting a variety of quotes from the book over the next few weeks.
For today’s drawing, I’ll pick the winner randomly from all of the people who leave a comment on this post with their answer to the following question:
Many of the essays in the book focus on the language we use for our families. How do you and your children (if you have any) refer to the members of your family—yourself and/or your co-parent(s), donor, birth mother, grandparents, or anyone else you consider part of your close family circle? If you don’t have kids, tell us what you call your own parents or what you think you’d like your kids to call you.
Comments must be left before 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time today, May 19 (that’s 2:59 a.m. Eastern time, May 20).
Thanks to Insomniac Press for making this possible.
Rules and restrictions: U.S. and Canada residents only, please. One entry per person. Don’t worry if your comment is moderated; once I approve it, it will appear based on the time you submitted it. Spam comments, including off-topic or purely commercial comments, will not count. If you win any one of the three drawings for this book, you cannot play again. If you are or have been a paying advertiser (or an employee of a paying advertiser) on Mombian, you can’t play.
You must also leave a valid e-mail address with your comment. Don’t leave a postal address, though. If you win, I’ll contact you by e-mail about shipping. I will then share the winner’s name and postal address with the publisher, for the sole purpose of allowing them to mail you your prize.
I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.
My son is 10 months old, so he doesn’t call us anything, yet. Girlfriend and I have been trying to figure out what our choices are — Mama and Mom(my) seem easiest to me. I kind of want to wait and see how he handles it.
I call my mother and father by their first names, and have since I was little. I’m not sure why! I imagine when we have kids it will be something like Mom and Mama, but we’ll see…
I call my parents Mom and Dad. Not very interesting.
My partner and I don’t have kids, yet, but this topic comes up from time to time. We’re both a little traditional about these things (she insists we get married before we get pregnant…seriously? We live in Georgia). So, I want to be the Mom/Mommy/Mama/Mother person.
And we’d both love for her to be called BaBa, a la Lesbian Dad. but because she’s Arabic, it would be almost like calling her “Dad”. I’m leaning towards “Oma,” which is, of course, the word for “grandmother” in some European cultures, but is also a nice form of “other mother.” In fact, I’m thinking of starting a crusade: lesbians adopt “Oma” and gays adopt “Oda” and let’s make those terms meaningful throughout *our* culture.
I’m Mama, my partner’s Mom. My partner’s parents are Gamma and Papa, and my parents are “Bogor” and Baba (a toddler adaptation of the persian Maman Bozorg and Baba Bozorg). Our donor, and all the close adults in our lives are referred to by their first names.
My fiance & I have yet to start our family, although we have started thinking & planning in that direction (which is what brought me to your site). Since both of us where raised by straight parents & dont’ have any gay friends w/kids, what our kids will call is something we’ve discussed at length, lol. So far, i’m leaning towards having our children call me mama & her mommy…. but I’m sure when it comes right down to it, our kids may have their own ideas. =)
It is definitely a whole new world and language has had to keep up with defining the relationships forged by technology. I am a single lesbian mother by choice and we are spending today visiting with my daughter’s half sibling (same unk donor father) and his divorced mother who is now pregnant with a boy from a different man. How do I describe to my 4 year old that the baby will be her brother’s brother, but not hers?!!! Right now I feel like an Aunt to my daughter’s brother and we have been trying to figure out the nomenclature for the complexities of our family structure. By the way, we live across the country from each other, but my daughter’s brother lives only minutes from my parents–small world!!
Oh my god I have been looking for this book ever since you guys announced it. Cant find it in stores and libraries in chicago DONT have it!
Im in my third year of college now and have had the “maybe baby….one day” with anyone who asks because you know being In a same- sex relationship some always ask “So you don’t want kids?” Where does that come from? Anyway, to answer the question, I plan on having 2.5(still trying to decide if a third is a good idea lol) with my partner one day. Im still young, in my early 20′s but I already plan for children. I have gotten a lot of flack for letting people in on what I want our children to call us. I am going the non-traditional parenting route to the extreme when it comes to names. We are perfectly fine with our kids calling us by are first names. TO US it teaches our children a real world function. In the real world you don’t call your boss mommy mama or daddy papa. If they choose to call us mommy and mama Im fine with that but I will not scold them by calling me or my partner by our first names. I’ve also been criticized by my parents for wanting to send said future children to a Montessori school. Oh no I’m going rouge!!! (rolls eyes)
FYI, the book just came out in the U.S. in May. I know it’s available at the major online bookstores, and you could probably ask your local ones to order it for you now, too.
Yeah Im a borders read a little before you buy and see if it fits kind of person. I hate waiting and having to deal with the hassle of internet shopping. I wish more bookstores carried books like this.
We have a soon-to-be 3 year old son. I’m Mommy. My partner is Mama. My parents are Grandma and Grandpa. My partner’s parents are Papa and Grannie. Our known donor who is our close friend is called Uncle [INSERT HIS NAME HERE].
I am mama; my partner is mommy. We had a challenge with the grandmas at first, as they both have the same first name. It worked out so that my mom is Oma, because I raised our first bilingual (German/English) and I am the German speaker in the household. My partner’s mother is grandma. Unfortunately no grandfathers in the mix :( . My sister is Tante (German for ‘aunt’) + her first name, her husband is Onkel (likewise, German for ‘uncle’) + his first name. My partner’s mom’s best friend is ‘Nanny’ + her first name because ‘Nanny’ is what she called her great-aunt when she was growing up. Nanny’s husband is Uncle + his first name. My partner’s best friend from college is Aunt + her first name.
Lately my partner and I have just been both turning into “mooooOOOOOoooommmmmm…”
My girlfriend and I don’t have children yet (coincidentally, we are about to honor the 1 year anniversary of our miscarriage), but while we were pregnant we decided that she would be Mama and I would be Mumma (prounounced MUM-ma). Having 4 animal “kids” already, we have already been referring to each other this way to the dogs and cats. They seem to like it. :)
I call my parents Mom and Dad. My kids’ other mom is Mimo (MEE-moh). It just came to us. I’m Mommy. I guess bc I called it.
That is such a good question, especially since I am due next week and I’m still wondering about what our new little baby will be calling me and my partner, and also my partner’s mom and my mom, and my birth mom, and my birth dad, and what about my birth dad’s wife? All I really know is that I want our child to have special names for everyone, because it’s an opportunity to create a special relationship. It sure is hard coming up with those names myself, I’m hoping she has some ideas too.
We decided to wait and see what our daughter (now 6) came up with. She calls both of us “Mommy or Mama” and “Other Mommy” (which makes our friends laugh) depending on who she is with at the moment. For example, kid to me: “When is other mommy going to get home?” My partner arrives home and kid runs to her saying “Mommy! Other mommy and I….” She goes back and forth seamlessly and we always know who she is referring to. When talking to others about us, she’ll sometimes use our first names to help them know which mom she’s talking about.
My partner and I call our donor “psychodonor” (not in front of our daughter!) because of the hell he has put us through. He was supposed to be Uncle ____.
My partner and I have an almost-two-year-old. We said from the beginning that we would both be “mom” and that he would probably figure out a way to distinguish when he could. And he did! About three months ago he started calling me “Mom” and my partner “Mom Leah” (although most of the time it comes out “ma eah”).
It’s the second most popular question we get (the first is, “How did you decide which one of you would get pregnant?”). People seem really hung up about what he’ll call us. It justs goes to show how important language and having a name for something is.
[...] use the word “peeps,” but it just sprang out of me, and I’m going with it) — Dana over at Mombian has been kind enough to promote And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents, and Our [...]
My partner and I are newley pregnant but have been discussing our “naming rights” for a long time. We like the idea of “mom” and “momma” and either one of us can be “mommy”. We have two dogs and have been using these titles with them for years. The problem is that WE keep messing it up! I imagine when the baby is born (January 2011) that we will use them interchangably and hope our child can do better with the name game than we can! We think our parents will be “Nonna and Poppa” and “Grandma and Grandpa”
We’re Mama (me) and mommy (wife) – we decided on these names before we even conceived! Our daughter was able to master “mama” before she could say anything remotely like “mommy”, so that was rough. I like that we each have a name that is easily recognized as meaning “female parent”. Even our kid’s 2 and 3 year old daycare pals are figuring out who is mama and who is mommy, and some have asked their parents for an extra mama/mommy in the house.
Growing up, my parents were mom and dad… grandparents were “grandma and grandpa” followed by their last names. Seems formal now!
My daughter’s grandparents are: Gramma and Papa, Nana (although she wasn’t interested in grandmotherhood at first, she now calls the house saying “hello! It’s nana!!”)… and nana’s non-cohabitating gentleman friend, Boppy. Not living with nana, they were not so sure about this “grandpa” stuff – so he offered a childhood nickname. It’s clear that Maddie sees him as a grandpa figure.
My partner and I are trying to get pregnant now. We are discussing my partner being mommy and I being mama. Also my partner has two biological kids that we have raised together for the past 12 years. They call me by my first name but refer to both of our families as grandma, grandpa, auntie. When telling their friends about me they refer to me as their mom. Can’t wait to figure out the naming with raising a child together from the start!
My wife and I are starting to do our TTC process. We have spoke about this. For us its great because, I am english (from Vancouver Island) and she is french (quebec). We live now in montréal. So our soon to be baby will call me mommy and my wife maman. We will be raising our child bilingual. Me speaking only english, and my wife speaking only french to our child.
With my close friends, I would like for them to call them auntie, or if they are french, tata. I grew up with calling my parents close friends that.
I’m not sure what our kids will call my wife and me. Maybe mama (me) and mommy (my wife), but that does seem confusing once the kids are older and they shorten them both to mom. Maybe mums or some similar variation for one of us? We’ll have to think more about what seems like it makes the most sense. And then, of course, our kids might decide on their own to do something entirely different!
Sounds like a great book! In our family, I’m mommy and my wife is mamma — she wanted mamma because she spent some of her youth in Sweden, and that’s what you call mothers there. (luckily, I preferred mommy, so we’re both happy). We have a known donor; our son knows he’s his donor and is able to explain it without pause. It’s totally natural and normal to him, even though many folks stumble when discussing this with him. As for other family members, they general have the traditional grandparent, aunt, uncle, etc. names.
Names were my partner’s job. I carried the baby. She picked our names. In the end she decided that I’m mommy and she’s momma. Our one year old son recently started adding meaning to some of his sounds and until today we thought he was using Mamom for both us. But we figured out that he usually uses Mamom when she holds him and Meme when I hold him. I hope his names for us stick, I would like knowing that our son played a part in what he will call us.
I’m Mommy or Mom, my partner is Mama. Sometimes our six year old, along with everyone else including us, gets the titles mixed up…but we usually know by context!
My mom lives next door, and she’s always been Grandma. My partner’s mom became Grandma Sue by default. However my dad, long ago divorced from my mom and now passed on, was Grandpa Howie, and my partner’s step-dad is Grandpa Joe.
Lots of our friends are honorary Uncles and Aunties and there are a couple Tantes, too. Yiddish, not German, for aunt in our case.
No unusual names in my family growing up, except that we called my Polish grandparents with the Polish words for Grandma and Grandpa: Babka and Dziadus. O.k., and then my older brother mispronounced names and my dad’s mom became Bami and my dad’s sister became Isty.
A whole other thread could be about where our children got their names from. We adopted our daughter and she was born in another country. We kept the name she was given by the children’s home she was living in as a baby. It’s a common name in her birth country, uncommon in ours. Lately she’s been noticing it’s unusualness and lamenting that. We’re hoping that over time she’ll come to love it’s uniqueness here – and it is a beautiful name.
The poor dear also has moms who have the same name..so there’s always a lot of talk about names when people first meet us!
I’m MamaE, she’s MamaM (and I say that with the disclaimer that our 1st kid was born BEFORE season 3 of the L-Word) The donor is Spuncle, and his ex is Spaunty. Our kids also have a grandma, a bubbe, a nana, a papa, a papadoat, an oma, an opa, a mutti, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, and a fairy godmother. As well as aunts/uncles and other people who chose to go by their given names.
I would have given anything to read a list of names like this while we were expecting our first. We had no idea what to call ourselves.
Our 23mon old son – brought into our family through domestic adoption – calls me Daddy or dada and calls his other dad papa. It gets complicated for the rest of the family. I grew up with lesbian moms who are Gammy and Nana – but he is not saying those names yet.
My partner is Mommy, & I am Amma. My partner gave birth to the kids while she was in the military. I was the stay at home parent, or, depending on who asked, the nanny. Amma means “mother” in Sri Lanka, where I spent a semester in college. It also means “nanny” in China. When people asked what it meant, we picked whichever was appropriate. We taught the kids that an Amma is someone who loves you and takes care of you, until they were old enough to know more.
I refer to my mother as “mom” or “mama” and my father as “daddy.” I refer to my spouse, (who, because we are both females, I cannot be legally married to in the state of FL) as “spouse” or “wife,” not “partner” and not “girlfriend.” She also refers to me as “spouse” or “wife.” She refers to her mother as “mama” and her father as “dad.” I call her parents by name and she calls my parents by name. We do not have children yet, though we will be trying soon. We don’t know for sure what we will want them to call us, but probably some form of “mother” for both of us, maybe “mommy” and “mama.”
Our nieces and nephews call their aunts and uncles Aunt So-and-so or Uncle So-and-so. However, because we are not viewed as a “legitimate” couple by our siblings, they refrain from introducing that language to their children regarding whichever of us is non-biological. For example, with my wife’s sister’s children, my wife is “Aunt Debbie” and I am simply “Kari” and vice versa with my family. We have even heard my wife’s sister slip up and almost say “Aunt Kari,” but then pause and stumble, sort of taking it back. We will have our children call their aunts and uncles “Auntie So-and-so” and “Uncle So-and-so,” following in my wife’s Jamaican tradition with the “auntie.”
I wrote a comment on the blog a while ago about changing my last name. I am proud to announce that after much effort and money, multiple fingerprints and countless phone calls, and after nine years married, we have moved from two family names to one family name. I have taken my wife’s last name, Chin. We mailed announcements to our families this week, and don’t expect that they will take the news well. Nonetheless, we celebrate!
my son calls me mommy…or occasionally by my first name. his other mother is mama. we’ve gone by these names since he was born. as soon as he could point/gesture, he would answer ‘where’s mommy? where’s mama?’
he calls his grandparents on both sides by either grandma, bubbi, or name. we have close family friends that we consider ‘family’ and use aunty interchangeably. amusingly, he calls my brother’s gf Uncle-name…
I noticed that I extended the use of third-person talking ‘come see mommy’ when out in public in order to ensure that people wouldn’t think i was the babysitter when he chirped ‘where’s mama?’ ‘she’s at work’. queer family visibility!
We have a 2.5 month old son and decided that I will be called Mama and my wife will be called Mommy. Of course…this may all change when he is old enough to begin talking and/or when he gets older. We are perfectly open to our names being changed by names he picks for us.
Grandparents on my side are Nana and Grandpa. Grandparents on my wife’s side are Nannie and Grandpapa.
We both read through these comments and were really excited to see what others are using or plan on using.
[...] me also say: Wow, the comment thread! Contest or no, it’s worth a read to learn about the many ways we name our families. Please [...]
I’m coming late to the party, but I just want to contribute that we are Mama and Mummy (the latter is a nod to my partner’s half-English heritage). My dad chose “Gramps” for himself, and my mom is “Grandma.”
My partner and I began using our chosen names as soon as our 1st child was born. We make a point of doing it in front of caregivers and friends, so that we all can speak the same language (and as queermommy said, it clarifies that our familial roles). But we don’t correct anyone who gets the names wrong.
My daughter doesn’t talk yet, but my son said the words Mama and Mummy for a long time before they meant us. “Mama” was a banana, and “Mummy” was his stuffed mandrill Manny. So flattering, right? The first time he said “Mama” to me, and meant it, was one of the best moments of my life.
I’m “Mommy” and my wife is “Mama”. Our 8 month old already gets this. When we say, “where’s Mama?” he looks are her. When we say, “where’s Mommy?” He looks at me.
Our 2 and 1/2 year old sometimes calls us the wrong name and he giggles and thinks it is hilarious: “I accidentally called you Mama, Mommy.”
Her parents (who are also gay) are “Granny” and “Granna” (my wife’s partner’s name is “Anna” so she became GrAnna). My parents are “Nana” and “Papa”. Her dad is “Grandpa” And our kids have two great-grandmas that they call “Grandma”
Growing up, my wife called her parents “mom” and “anna” and “dad”.
I called my parents “mom” and “dad” (mommy and daddy when I was little)
My sister’s kids call us “T.T.” and “K.T” (my initials are T.T. but that is also the Latino nickname for Auntie- we happen to not be latino, but have a lot of friends that speak spanish and when my sister had her oldest that just stuck. Now our sons also call my sister “T.T.” and her husband, “uncle Bill”
“my wife’s MOM’s partner…”
I’ve missed the giveaway but that’s ok. I haven’t seen this answer so I’ll add it. My wife carried both kids so she got first pick of names and she wanted to be Mama. But we felt that mama, mommy, mom are all variations and too close to expect the kid to distinguish. So she’s got all of those. I actually posted a note on a bb before the first was born asking for suggestions and one of the suggestions which was really fitting was to have the kids call me Ima. It’s from the Hebrew for mother and I’m Jewish but more culturally than religiously so. It fit very well and distinguishes us well. Plus, other people clearly acknowledge it as a parenting name as opposed to if the kids called me “Debra”.
The kids call all their Aunts & Uncles Aunt so and so or Uncle so and so or just so and so. They call my partner’s parents Grandma and Granddaddy but that was decided many many years ago when my in-laws had their first grandchildren. My mother died before my son was born but we call her “Grandma Susi” when telling stories about her. Her partner is Nana … which has always been her name for her grandchildren to call her. And my father is Grandpa Paul.
Another too-late-for-the-giveaway-but-want-to-post-anyway here. I started out as a single mother by choice, and my son called me “Mama” when he was little and then switched to “Mom” as he got older. My partner entered our lives when my son was almost 9, and he has always called her by her first name or a diminutive of it.
But he recently told us that after we get married (next month!) he’d be willing to call my partner “Mom” if she wanted him to. We both deeply appreciated the sentiment, but agreed with him that calling us both “Mom” might be confusing. And we have yet to figure out an alternative. He’s almost a teenager, which seems far too old (at least in our socioeconomic/geographic area) to have him call her Mommy or Mama. And we don’t have any deep ties to another culture to pull in a mom-type name from there. So we’re a bit stumped.
And when we talk to the cat (who was originally my partner’s), my partner is “Mom” and I’m “Mama2.” :-)
We’re due in October. So far I’ve been calling myself Robot Mom – as in non-biological, as my partner is the oven with the bun in it! It’s great to see this thread because we’ve gone back and forth about this. It’s nice to see so many mama/mommy combos work – we tried to do this a bit with our pets (don’t laugh!) and always got it messed up. We both desperately want to be mom, but I assume it will work itself out!
I am so nervous about this to be honest. I am 8 months pregnant right now and my partner and I split up when I was three months pregnant. It was very ugly and violent and I havent heard or seen from her since ( which is a good thing), but what do I tell my baby now? Do I even tell her about her other mother, or just pretend I planned her all on my own. I know she will call me mommy cause I am the only one here.
Also late to the party. In our family, I’m Mommy and my wife is Mudha (rhymes with Buddha – sort of a Canadianized version of moeder – the Dutch word for mother).
@ Bonnie – tough one. Luckily, that discussion won’t have to happen for a while. Maybe you could take the middle ground and say you had a girlfriend when you first got pregnant and then you broke up. It acknowledges there was someone else there, but provides a description of her relationship to you rather than to your child.
[...] be giving away another one this Wednesday, so stop back. (And if you haven’t read the comment thread from the last contest, about the names we use for members of our family, please do. Lots of great [...]
I’m Daddy, my husband is Papa, egg donor for both kids is Miss Andrea, our son’s surrogate (and godmother) is Miss Sandy, and our daughter’s surrogate (and godmother) is Gommy. I have Southern roots, could you tell?
My favorite recent family snapshot: A few weeks ago, my 4-year-old son and I were at a birthday party in a local park. He and his gal pal Arden were walking in front of me when I overhead this:
Arden: Do you have a mom?
James: No, I have two dads and a sister.
Arden: (long pause, then, bummed) Oh…
James: …I know. I don’t have a brother.
That’s an awesome dialog, Bill! Thanks for sharing!
[...] since so many of you left comments on last week’s question even when the contest was over, you may submit an answer here to that question [...]
No kids yet but we’re seriously thinking about it, so this question comes up quite a bit… I like the idea of something easy like Mummy and Mama, but I suppose these things emerge organically. We have friends whose children call them Mommy-[Initial] but that won’t work for us, as we have the same initials. I can understand the point made above that all these are variations of the same Mom/Mommy/Mama, and so I’ll understand if one of us ends up with the Mum-title and the other gets a first name, but I think I’ll still find it a bit tough. Any children we have will have a large number of grandparents too, as we both come from families with lots of remarriages.
I like that; it spreads out the unconventional aspect of families, and suggests that there are worse things in life than having too many loved ones to name!
You raise a very good point, Alice. People in general always seem concerned about what kids with lesbian moms call each of the moms, as if it will be terribly, terribly, confusing–but the fact is, most kids have (at least) two grandparents of each gender, and manage to figure out distinguishing names for each. It’s really not that confusing. (That’s not to say the naming issue isn’t an important matter of identity within our families–it’s just that it isn’t as confusing to kids as the world at large seems to think.)
Susan — one of the book’s coeditors — here. I’m loving this comment thread, and I’m also thrilled to read that other families ended up with versions of “This Mommy” and “Other mommy”: our older son ended up calling us that for a few years. I was other mommy, which kind of mortified me, but he eventually shortened it to “Uh-mum,” which sounded adorable. Now, we’re both “Mom,” or both kids use their first names when they want a specific mommy.
Please keep up this discussion!
Mommy and Mama, over here. We go over this from time to time because we’re foster parents, so it really varies. Our current foster son has been with us since he was a baby and is almost 2 now. He calls us both mama because it’s easier to say, but he knows who mommy is (me) if you ask him. Our former foster daughter called us “Mommy Kate” and Mama Josi” to distinguish, but just Mommy and Mama most of the time. Another former foster son also called us mommy/mama-first-name. Other kids who have been older and/or haven’t stayed very long just call us by first names. We’ll be trying to conceive shortly and are going to stick with Mommy and Mama. It’s working very well now, so we’ll keep the titles! There will be no known donor to contend with, so we don’t have to come up with anything for that. If we are lucky enough to adopt our foster son, I think his birthmother will be called by her first name or maybe Miss first-name.
My parents are Grammie and Grampy, my wife’s are Nana and Granddad.