Mom! Mama! Mommy! MOTHER! If it's a moniker for the family matriarch, she's probably heard it. From her kids and everywhere else, too.
Some of these mommy terms, however, are less than endearing. In fact, they're downright insulting. It's time to stop saying them.
While the explanations here are ours, Michelle Zipp's list included:
- Mommy Porn--Sure, some of us loved 50 Shades of Grey, have been drooling over Jamie Dornan for a week, and have plans to see the movie with our girlfriends a la Magic Mike. But is that all we're reading? Probably not. And 50 Shades of Grey wasn't written just for moms, so there's that.
- Mom Jeans--Yes, mom jeans are a thing. They're ill-fitting and saggy-bottomed and they're often missing pockets. Do we really need to label them "mom" jeans? Moms aren't the only women wearing these monstrosities. Can't we just call them awful?
- Mommy Bloggers--Are there moms who blog? Yes. Does that technically make them "mommy" bloggers? Eh. Yes? The trouble here is the connotation. There's no denying it's meant to be negative.
- MILF--MILF might be a term best left to the mom's significant other. Or American Pie.
- Single Mom
- "Just a mom"--Moms are more than "just" anything.
To the original list, we add:
- Mompreneur--Show us one dad who starts a business and gets the label "Dad-preneur." IT DOESN'T HAPPEN. He can work from home, in his pajamas and slippers, sipping coffee with bed-head so bad it's possible he hasn't showered in days. He'll still get pats on the back for being a businessman. Side-eye to that.
- Momtographer--Yes. She's a mom. Yes. She has a camera. Let's call her a photographer. Or just a mom who likes to take pictures of her kids because that's her prerogative for doing everything it is she does for them, okay?
- Mommy Juice--It's wine, people. WINE. Yes, it comes from grapes. No, that doesn't make it juice.
- Mommy Wars--It's not that this phrase needs to die so much as it's the fact that the entire "war" needs to become as ancient as Sparta's Battle with Thermopylae. (Mmm, Gerard Butler.) Can't we all just get along?
What "mommy" phrases would you add to the list?
The Hollywood Gossip