Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Not to Belabor the Point, But...

We've been talking about how we might be addressed by a future grandchild.

Back when I was a kid, grandmas were Grandma. Period. Maybe with an identifying initial at the end, but it was still Grandma.

These days it seems that kids can call their grandmothers anything -- Grandma, Nana, Gram, Grammy. My second-cousin's grandson, at a very early age, decided that she was "Sweetie" -- so Sweetie she became, and stayed. When his younger sister started to talk, she couldn't vocalize the S sound, so Sweetie became Tweety.

Our Semi-Son-in-Law's little niece and nephew refer to us as Grandma _____ and Other Grandma _____. (For late arrivals to this blog -- in real life FT and I share a first name.)

Fellow Traveler is rather taken with the title G-Mama.

I'm not picky. Honestly, I never thought I'd be puzzling about this issue ever, not in my entire life. Although G-2 has a ring to it.

6 comments:

Tom in Ontario said...

My mother and mother-in-law are 'Oma' to our kids. Our oldest, who will be 16 this June, came up with a way to distinguish the two when she was very little. My mom became 'Blue Oma' and my mother-in-law became 'Green Oma.' When asked how she came up with those designations she said my mom wears a lot of blue and my mother-in-law has a green door and shutters on her house.

The grandfathers are Opa and Ota. Opa, being the German designation for a grandfather. Ota comes from my mom's family where she and her siblings called their father Tata instead of Papa, so for us he became Ota instead of Opa. We kept that name for my dad to distinguish him from my father-in-law.

LoieJ said...

We have one set of grand parents addressed as Grandma and grandpa in English. The other set in another language. That would be us. And I can't ever get the spelling right. For my kids, there was the one grandma addressed as grandma and the other one ended up with one of those child-generated names that only a child could come up with. and now we all use that name for my mom.

Mary Sue said...

My 12 cousins and I all call my grandmother 'Papa'.

It wasn't until a few years ago I realised how odd that must sound to other folks for whom 'papa' is a male signifyer.

(Her husband? Oh, he's Grandpapapa. My other grandmother is Boomie, and her husband [obm] was Papa Joe, or Poppie)

Unknown said...

I love those names, and the idea that you have a sort of "my brother Daryl and my other brother, Daryl" thing going...

zorra said...

Well, there's always Mammoo (mine), Meemaw, Big Mama, Old Mama (my ggmom...imagine letting yourself be called that),etc....My friend Julie's grandson, who calls her Grandmama,calls his other grandmother "My Judy".

LutheranChik said...

Or maybe G-Mama and E-Mama...