What Did You Call Me?

In my family,

Among my dad, mom, brother and me …

I was rarely called by my first name.

In conversation,

My parents usually called me …

Son.

“Hi son, it’s Mom ….”

“Son, Dad here, please give me a call …”

Usages like that.

I never really thought about it,

It always felt fine, an endearing term to me, and never really bothered me in the least …

Except I can honestly report that over the past 30+ years,

Many times I thought to myself …

“If you only knew !” 🙂

I think mom used it more because of simplicity …

So when she was calling for my brother or I,

She didn’t do the multiple name thing …

“Joe, Bro, Dad, I mean Joe” as she would often rattle through in when trying to get one of our’s attention.

Mom almost always called me son.

Dad, like my brother often did, would refer to me by my initials.

It was how I’ve been identified in the larger, extended family for most of my life …

That’s what happens when not only are you the third in line with the family name, but when others in the family, cousins, uncles, etc., either share the same first name or middle name …

If you said “Joe” at a family reunion … the wind generated by all the heads turning in response could destroy a small forest. .

My brother did/does on occasion, call me by my initials, but he uses my name more than anyone in my family.

So I’ve been curious how things would transpire in the manner that they would refer to me as …

My brother still hasn’t gotten the pleasure of meeting me … so I have no idea what he’ll call me … but my guess is it will either be Amy or A … with the A usage said sorta like Hey.

My dad, well, I’m not sure either … when I was doing my name change, he said he’d have liked it if I had chosen a name with the same initials as I had before, so he could just keep calling me the same thing. I told him at the time, and I don’t care to this day, though my old initials bear no semblance to my new ones, he could continue calling me the old ones as long as he liked. I was and am fine with that.

My mom, well, she’s the one I wasn’t really sure about. I have much more interaction with Mom than I do with anyone else in my family … and though I’m sure there will be some more difficult times and all … we’re sort of grooving into a very comfortable, natural, confrontational, fun Mother-Daughter relationship. 🙂

As Dad has already exclaimed more than once …

“Will you two stop it. You know what the problem is … you’re just alike !”

To which we usually reply in unison …

“No we’re not !!” 🙂

Anyways … I’ve never mentioned to her the issue of she can’t keep calling me “son”,

But a few weeks ago …

I began to notice,

Instead of …

“Son, this is Mom, will you give me a call when you get in …”

It was often …

“Dear, will you give me a call?”

At first, I thought it might just be a fluke …

But at this point,

She’s even using it in conversations with me …

And I don’t even recall the last time now she used “son” in reference to me.

Mucho kewlness ! 🙂