Is your mother "Mom" or "Ma?"

ems_mom

DIS Veteran
Joined
Apr 8, 2007
Messages
646
My sisters and I call our mother Ma, but we were the only kids around here who called our mother this name. I guess I'm wondering why. My mother calls our (now deceased) grandmother Mother. My own daughter calls me Mom.

My grandmother grew up in Kansas but moved to NYC in time for my mother to be born. My mother left NYC as a child and grew up in Baltimore, MD.

So, is "Ma" a regional/midwest thing? Or just something that happened because my mother read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books? She'll always be Ma to me but I am curious if there are any others out there.
 
My mother has always been Mom. :goodvibes I was born in California but grew up in the Midwest.
 
My sisters and I call our mother Ma, but we were the only kids around here who called our mother this name. I guess I'm wondering why. My mother calls our (now deceased) grandmother Mother. My own daughter calls me Mom.

My grandmother grew up in Kansas but moved to NYC in time for my mother to be born. My mother left NYC as a child and grew up in Baltimore, MD.

So, is "Ma" a regional/midwest thing? Or just something that happened because my mother read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books? She'll always be Ma to me but I am curious if there are any others out there.

I call my mom both "mom" and "mama". If I'm annoyed, then I call her "mother". :laughing: DFi calls his mom "mom". I don't think I've heard any friends say "Ma".. mostly just "mom" around here.
 
It was Ma, Mama, Mommy (if I wanted somthing), Mother (if I was annoyed) or Lisa (when I was mad) Lisa Ann (when I was REALLY mad). Most of the time, it was Ma. I can remember going shopping with her & saying "Oh Ma, look at this"....Gosh I miss her.
 

My mom is just that. Mom. My dd calls me Momma, don't know where it came from but it stuck.
 
I call my mom, well, "Mom" I am from the Northwest, but not the pacific northwest, iykwim.

I am called: mama, mommy, and mom. DD was born in the same place I grew up, but we moved to the Northeast border of the country when she was 3. I taught her to say "Mama", she's come up with mommy and mom on her own.
 
I call my mother "Mother," which is the same thing she called her mother. I have lived in Alabama my whole life.

My DH calls his mother "Ma." He's an Italian from Connecticut.
 
"Mom".. My adult DD calls me "mom" - her DH calls me "mom" or "ma"..

My mother and all of her siblings always called their mother, "Mother"..

My dad and all of his siblings called their mother "Ma"..

Upstate NY here..:goodvibes
 
Ma, but if I'm annoyed she's Mother.

I grew up in Michigan. Down here (Kentucky) it seems a lot of people (adults, even) call their mothers "Mommy." Sometimes they use "Mother," but very often call their fathers "Daddy."
 
I grew up in SE Massachusetts and mine has always been "MA".

I've been in NC for almost 15 years and dh says that is the only thing that I still say with a MA accent. Maaaaaaaaa!
 
I call her Mom or Mama. She calls my grandmother Mama and Mommy.
 
Mama when I was little, then mom. She calls my gramma mom.

I was born in OK and grew up in CA, HI and OK.
 
I have a "Ma" and I grew up "Up North" in Wisconsin. My DH has a "Mom" and he grew up in the Chicago Burbs.
 
Thanks for all the replies...maybe the "ma" was from her birth in NYC and then her return there at 18 where she wed and had my older sister. And I was convinced Little House on the Prairie had someting to do with it!
 
My mom is gone but if I was calling her in casual conversation, I usually said "mum". If I addressed a card to her, I would write "mom". I don't ever recall saying "ma", reminds me of Little House.
 














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