Mummy-fied again

I had barely finished ranting about the fact that hubby calls me ‘mamma’ that another of these home truths hit me.

We had just finished getting sonny’s hair-cut at one of these ‘kids-only’ hair cutting places. As usual, sonny had wailed and bawled and let loose the ‘ganga jamuna’. I was pacifying him when a 5 ish year old walked up to us. She looked at sonny and said “o the baby is crying”. “I have a baby at home too” she added.

After a small pause, she said “and I have a mommy”

Me: “I have a mommy too”

At this she scrunched her nose and furrowed her brows and looked at me – and then at her mom.

Girl: “I said I have a mommy too”

Me: “I know. I also have a mommy”

At this she gave me the top-down appraisal, nodded her head and said “but you ARE a mommy”

I just kept staring at her and the realization hit me – that I had been effectively pushed over to the other side of the border. No more was I this person with relations of my own. I was a mommy. And just with that statement a whole list of adjectives and descriptors had been imposed on me. Henceforth, every person, younger than me by a couple of decades, had the right to look me top to bottom and dismiss me with a “you’re a mommy!”

I wonder what my mom would have to say to that.