Mom or Mommy?

[krisnme]

Anyone else with older kids with Autism, Aspergers, other issues whose kids still call them Mommy or Daddy? I am a single parent (ex-husband decided to check out of the parenting while DS was an infant) and DS 19 still calls me Mommy. Should I push that he change it to Mom? it does not bother me, but I struggle with how he will be viewed now that he will soon attend classes at the community college with his peers and I want him to sound more like the other kids. Am I overreacting? please be honest with me, I just don't have any other parents around that understand these issues.

 

[LockShockBarrel]

I guess the questions are does he or would he say something like "Well my mommy bought me these shoes" or "I heard from my mommy...." to someone he's having a conversation with? And would he be upset by someone pointing that out or teasing him about it? If the answer to these is yes, I'd start easing him into "Mom". From someone who's totally on the outside of autism issues and only experiencing them through reading or occasional run-ins out in public, I'd say that people hearing someone as old as your son refer to their mother as mommy would make him stand out and maybe not in a good way. IMHO, if he can start saying "Mom'' instead, it'll be one less thing YOU ever have to worry about and that HE won't have to deal with and he won't run the risk of being seen as immature or wimpy or a mommy's boy or "special".

 

[bookwormde]

As long as he understand that some people my consider it a little ouside of what is typical then it is about what he is comfortable with.

 

[Piper]

It's funny, but I see that as a term of endearment. My mother was not a very loving person and I started calling her mom or mother very early on. My daddy was daddy until the day he died at the age of 70 and I still think of him that way.

 

[jmartinez1895]

It should be a mater of what you are your child are wanting, but sadly people get judged on these little things all the time. I'm not trying to be rude at all, but is your child's disability obvious by looking at him? If so then most people who over hear him will understand, but if he looks like " normal" ( for lack of better terms) then people may look.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

My DS16 w/Asperger's still calls me Mommy, but my DS13 has already switched over to calling me Mom. The younger one corrects the older one all the time because he thinks it's embarrassing that his older brother still calls me Mommy. My older son says I'm his Mommy and that's what he wants to call me. I know that the speech therapist at his school tries to get all of the older kids to switch to saying Mom, but my son is resistant. It doesn't bother me at all. However, if other kids are going to make fun of him then I would encourage him to call me Mom.

 

[Earstou]

I would work on getting your ds to call you Mom, not Mommy. This is the type of little thing we have tried to do with our ds (18) as he grew up.

Listening to my son's friends and classmates, I occasionally hears girls call their parents Mommy or Daddy, but never boys.

 

[krisnme]

Thanks for the good advice everyone! to answer some of the questions, He refers to me as "my Mom" when speaking to others. He can appear NT to those who do not look closely, or hear him speak for very long, but I think most people sense that he has some disability pretty quickly. I don't think he says Mommy as any super special endearment, I think mostly girls do that with Daddy. I think he didn't change to Mom becouse my Mom lived with us until recently so having 2 Moms in the house would have been confusing. I will start to encourage him to change to Mom but I think it will take a while. I do think it is probly for the best at his age. thanks again everyone.