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Grammy’s Name Crisis
June 6th, 2008
We picked the name “Grammy” for me because it seemed most compatible with “Grandpa” before The Son’s delivery date. I certainly did not want to be Grandma while my husband was insistent that he wanted to be Grandpa. I’ve been Grammy ever since.
Now TheSon has began talking he has a pretty good handle on Gigi, Pappaw, and even a kinda’ Grandpa. I have distinctly become MiMi. We’ve been acknowledging that he is speaking to/about me but calling me Grammy to him still. But, recently I’ve caught myself a few times calling myself MiMi to him.
Curiously when we were thinking of what my name would be, I thought about MiMi first. However, I chose Grammy because I thought we’d be able to shorten it to Gram and a teenager or adult would be more comfortable calling me that than MiMi.
What do Hey You’s readers think? Am I Grammy or MiMi?
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, The Son | Comments (19)19 Responses to “Grammy’s Name Crisis”
I think Mimi is cute! If that is what The Son has chosen to call you and you are comfortable with it, then I see no problem with it. Also, I don’t think it would become uncomfortable for any teenager or young adult to call you Mimi, because that could be your real name for all anyone else knows. I’ve known plenty of teenagers who referred to their grandmas as Nana, Meemaw, and just plain Grandma. As a name, Mimi suggests spunk, which you definitely have!!
I do prefer Gram/my, but it’s not really up to us, is it?
I don’t think there is anything wrong with MiMi as long as you don’t mind being called that. I am an adult and I still call my grandmothers MeMa and don’t feel that weird saying it. Up until her death this year, my great aunt was known to her grand children as mimi and one was a teenager and one an adult and I don’t think they had any issues with it.
If you still want to be called Grammy though, you can still go with that. For MG’s first three years he called my grandother cookie “insert last name here” but now he calls here Mema “insert last name here” so if you want to be a Grammy then it will catch on later.
I prefer Grammy, but if TheSon is more apt to call you MiMi, then I think that is fine. My dad’s mom was always MeMa and my mom’s mom is still Granny. We’re all adults and she’s still Granny. I’m not a big fan of MiMi…mainly because I have a great aunt named Mimi (like it is her real name), so I really could never call anyone that without seeing her.
Whatever…I think whichever name you all pick will be just fine. Plus, since everyone calls their grandparents kinda funny names anyway, neither will be too weird once TheSon is older.
You are whatever the first-born grandchild names you (hopefully implying that there will be more, right?). That’s what happened to my mother, “Nanny”. The first-born would not say her name, so she tried every single grandmother name she could think of and watched for a response. For some reason, grandson hit on Nanny and excitedly said it over and over and over and over and over that day.
I personally like it too…so go with it. I really didn’t know what he was going to call me and really disliked all of the standard U.S. English grandmother names available..including Gigi. Until, that is, I heard Gigi coming out of that precious baby’s mouth. (Okay, he’s less baby and more boy these days.)
Mimi it is……..that’s my vote.
<p>I say Grammy. Grammy and Grandpa. Yup, that sounds much better. Plus, he is TRYING to say Grammy, and if we just let him pronounce stuff however he is now then he is going to have a hard life. Not to mention….think of all the crafts you have that say Grammy on them already.</p>
Yeah. Good point Hey You. You wouldn’t want TheSon to call a shoe a poo or a kiss a piss or a duck…well, you get the picture.
Pronunciation is very important. Otherwise, you end up with a kid who thinks “alias” is pronounced uh-lie-us.
I still like Mimi…for what it’s worth. Grammy’s okay too…and since I have a name already, it’s not really my dilemma or decision.
Well Hey You does have a point. We never talked baby talk with our children and worked hard to help them learn to enunciate words properly. Anyone who knows them knows their grasp of the language is excellent.
Yet, my heart literally melts when TheSon says, “MiMi, c’mon, …..” (go outside, swing, go to the garage, read Choo-choo book, take a bath, get cookie, watch car (Love-Bug cd), swim, etc.)
I suppose we’ll keep working on getting to Grammy for now and see if he gets a handle of saying it soon. Also, it might be confusing to him to change my name now.
I’m going to have to step in with some professional advice. The /gr/ combination is VERY difficult to grasp, especially for a child less than 2 years of age. Please don’t try to force him to say it correctly at this time. If he has chosen to call you Mimi, and it doesn’t bother you (which it sounds like it doesn’t), then you should allow him to call you Mimi and not correct him or tell him that he is saying it wrong. This will only lead to further problems, especially as he enters the (inject appropriate adjective) twos stage. Trust me.
Dr. Ang, thanks for the professional commentary. I was hoping you would opine. I’m not aware of anyone that is coaching him. We still use Grammy when we talk to him about me, but I acknowledge him when he calls me MiMi. We’ll just see what happens as his speech continues to develop.
I was at a shower yesterday with a little one that is about the same age and he is not very verbal at all yet. He is a pacifier baby though and had it in most of the two hours we were there. He squealed a few times, but I never even heard him utter a “No” or “Uh-oh”.
I suppose that, plus other developmental factors, must make a difference in the timeliness of speech development. TheSon is getting quite a vocabulary including names of people and things and several verbs.
That’s all well and good, but I wonder what Dr. Ang thinks “gecko” means.
I just thought that both grandma’s hit the nail on the head when they said it meant “Let’s go”. I suppose it could also mean “get coat”, but that doesn’t make sense in the summertime.
I do need to interject family health history here: speech difficulties are part of the genetic heritage from my side of the family. My 2nd cousin, my brother, our youngest son, and a nephew all had varying degrees of speech disabilities. In fact, our youngest had the worst case and was diagnosed, “severe articulation handicapped”. So, I have learned from my own experience how very right Ang is about not coaching, correcting, or criticizing children who struggle with speech. Of course, this is NOT happening with TheSon.
But, I am quite delighted that a child with such a handicap in the upper branches of part of his family tree is not only wonderfully vocal, but also quite well-spoken for his age.
As for the name game…I wonder if TheSon wonders why everyone keeps saying Grammy when he knows perfectly well that she answers to Mimi?
Perhaps so, but I plan to continue to answer him every time he calls.
Consequently, we also had a few speech problems in our family. Two of Hey You’s uncles (one on either side) required speech therapy, as did JHJ. JHJ’s was mostly getting the proper pronunciation of “R”. In at least two of those instances it was probably caused by frequent ear infections as a child.
The Son is not speech delayed. He is not even two. From all I have read he is off the charts for vocabulary. The Husband talks about JH’s delay all the time, I just don’t want one projected on The Son when he is clearly fine.
Agreed! Perhaps even exceptional!
As a follow up to this….I am now distinctly “Gammy”.