| Family Reflections |

A Parent by Any Other Name

By | June 22, 2020

Using no name is also a popular choice for many newlyweds who have inherited an additional set of parents through their new spouse.

We know that names have power. Not only do they have enormous spiritual power, but they also have emotional power. For example, calling a person by any form of endearment (“sweetie,” “honey,” and the like) draws that person closer.

We can make names themselves into endearments by employing various adornments — changing regular names in little ways that seem to mean something like “you are adorable.” We can do this by adding letters to the end of the name (“Moshe” to “Moishele”), changing endings so that they end in “y” sounds (“Dov” to “Dovi”), shortening them (from “Avraham” to “Avrum”), and so on.

The endearment is endearing, building feelings of affection between the parties. In fact, using endearments consciously is an effective relationship-building tool within the family. “Would you like some coffee, dear?”

Note that people tend to use neither endearments nor adornments when expressing displeasure. They may use the person’s formal full name that is otherwise never employed, as in “Avraham Tzvi Yehuda Blumenthal, you put that hammer down right now!”

Names can also be used to create distance and even animosity. Name-calling by frustrated siblings is a common example of this phenomenon.

Name That Relationship

The Torah directs us to call our parents by their titles (equivalents of “Mother” and “Father”), rather than by the names that everyone else calls them. “Mommy” is a relationship conveyed by a name. A person may have more than two parents (for example, adoptive parents and stepparents) and therefore may have more than one mother and/or father. The question sometimes arises, then, what shall these other people be called?

“We adopted Shayna when she was three months old. She’s never known any other parents. Of course she calls us ‘Ima’ and ‘Abba.’ ”

“Eli was nine when I married his mother, and his father was, and is, still very much present in his life. He calls his father ‘Tatty’ and we agreed that he would call me ‘Daddy,’ like my own kids call me.”

“When I married Ariel, my ex was very worried about losing his status as my daughter’s father. He told her, ‘You only have one father and that is me. Ariel is your mother’s husband. You can call him Ariel.’ Can you imagine! Ariel is raising Sheva right alongside me and is as much a parent as her biological father is. There’s no way she’s calling him by his first name!”

“My mother died when I was 12. My father remarried and asked us to call his new wife ‘Mommy.’ I felt like I would be betraying my mother if I did that, but I didn’t want to be disrespectful. I ended up trying not to call her anything most of the time.”

No-Name

Using no name is also a popular choice for many newlyweds who have inherited an additional set of parents through their new spouse.

“Chassidim have the shver and shvigger names to call their in-laws, but we don’t have that custom. I can call my mother-in-law ‘Mom,’ but it feels really, really strange to me. So I don’t call her anything.”

Of course, no-name in-laws tend to notice the gap. “What does your son-in-law call you?” “Nothing.” This may ease the discomfort of the son-in-law, but it does nothing for the no-name parent-in-law. “I hate it. It’s very distancing.”

Then again, calling a parent-in-law a family-intimate name like “Mommy” or “Tatty” can be a real heart opener. “Yes, all my children-in-law call me ‘Mommy’ just like my own kids do, and it makes me feel so close to them!”

Trying It Out

How can a son- or daughter-in-law make the transition from having only one person called “Mommy” in his or her life to having two? Ahava explains her solution this way:

“When I call my own mother ‘Mommy,’ I know that she is my mother! When I call my mother-in-law ‘Mommy,’ in my mind I am calling her what my husband and his siblings and my other sisters-in-law call her — she is known as ‘Mommy.’ Although it sounds exactly the same, it doesn’t mean the same to me. It’s like a homonym — a word that looks and sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning — like bear, the animal, and bear, the burden. This makes it easy for me to do.”

Names can result from the nature of a relationship, but they can also shape the nature of a relationship. Use names consciously to help foster the healthiest relationships in your life!

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 465)

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