Thursday, February 26, 2009

Daddy, Papa, Father...

Speaking of Daddy... David is still considering options for what he would like his children to call him. Here in the US, Mommy and Daddy and then Mom and Dad are the default. They're okay, but we've enjoyed considering other possibilities. In the UK, moms are called Mummy and then Mum - that's just weird! Mother and Father seem distant to me, so those are out. I've long liked the term Mama and would really like for my children to call me Mama as long as possible. But Papa would be a bit more difficult to instill because so few children call their fathers Papa these days (in fact, it seems more and more grandfathers are being called Papa). David often calls his dad "Old Man" - that's probably not something we want to pass on!

Although we have quite a bit of time before Teresa will be language-capable, it would be good to make this decision soon because we'll need to practice referring to one another by our name of choice (e.g., "you're such a good Daddy" and "Mama's ready to feed you now").

I'd be very interested to read about your thoughts and experiences with this topic.

On a side note, Teresa's grandparents will also have an interesting mix of relational names. On David's side she has a Nana and a Pampaw. On my side she has a Memere (pronounced "MEM-ay") and a Grandpa. What's most important is that we all love her very much!

4 comments:

Devin Rose said...

We are going with Mama and Papa. I called my grandfather "Papa" so it is a bit strange, but I have been warming up to it and think it is going to be very endearing.

Congratulations again!

Adam said...

I think because Teresa is a girl, Daddy would be good ("Daddy's little girl...")

Now for boys, I am particularly fond of Dad

Katherine T. Lauer said...

Our family's grandparent names are: Grandpa, Grampa and Gramma, Nanna, and Grandmom and Pop-Pops. Fun variety! For me, I prefer "Mama" for the timebeing, but you can see that my son is changing all that. I'll see if I can steer him away from "Mom," but I think it's a lost cause.

Anonymous said...

I recently went through a similar problem in deciding what I would be called as grandfather. My dad was Grandpop and since Shirley and I would use the name when referring to him with our children I didn't want the confusion. My son Ben loved the TV show "Angry Beavers" when he was younger, so I jokingly suggested a name based on the TV wrestler in the series and called myself El Grandpaduro! (the character's name was El Grappaduro, Spanish for "The Stapler".) With much encouragement from the various parents, it seems to have stuck.