i appreciate my MIL but….

Question

anyone has this same issue with me?? usually babies will call their parents mama and papa right? cos easier to pronounce. but for my husband’s side, they call their grandparents mama and kongkong. and now with my baby, mama is grandma and mummy is me. my baby just started babbling the word “mam mam and mama” but i don’t feel as happy as i shld be when i hear him call “mama” becos deep down i know that he is “supposed” to call my MIL mama… kind of my dream for him to call me mama and experience what every other mother would feel to just hear their baby start saying mama. anyways, jus wanted to rant as it has been weighing on my mind since i gave birth :( any advice? help pls😭

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I’m not sure how and what is the tone of your husband’s side calling ‘mama’. It could be your husband family’s dialect practice so it has been like this all along and you’re not used to it since you are not brought up this way, and it’s understandable. Also, it is less known since our generation do not really know the proper traditional way of addressing/calling elderlies and relatives nowadays too. My grandma was a Peranakan and we addressed her as Má-mà since young but it is different tone from Mā-mā (mother). While I called my grandfather as gong gong. I have people always asking me why I am calling my grandmother as Ma-Ma but it’s a different tone. It does not mean ‘mother’. From my understanding, Cantonese is also called as Maa-Maa 嫲嫲 for paternal grandmother.

Anonymous

3mo ago

oh i seee ya their side is Peranakan, but their tone for calling mama is the same for grandma and mother

Dawn · Answer

oh yes... i was wondering since when grandma became mamà... fortunately it's all corrected now... paternal grandma addressed as nainai instead of mamà or ahmà if they prefer & maternal grandma addressed as guamà... resolves the confusion/conflict

Anonymous · Answer

I had the same problem because my mil is Cantonese. What I did was initially when she tells baby to call “mama - grandma”, I’ll just tell my daughter “how you greet nainai”. So everytime when I bring my daughter over, I’ll tell her to greet nainai, my mil probably got the message overtime so now she addresses herself as nainai instead of mama. At home I whip out my mil’s picture and keep repeating “this is nainai”. I also brought it up to my husband so he addresses her as nainai instead of mama infront of LO (he calls his grandma mama too). My LO calls me mummy and my husband, daddy (never started with mama/papa/dada) but I just don’t like her addressing someone else as “mama” even thou I know the pronunciation and meaning is different. Of course in the future if she prefers to call “mama - grandma” when she’s older I’m fine with it since she can pronounce it the correct way rather than “mama - mummy”.