STOP CALLING ME "MOM"

[Contents: gender essentialism, mentions of forced birth and miscarriage]

So I'm 18 weeks pregnant today.

A big part of my learning style is reading. I will devour any book, manual, essay, what-have-you on a subject that interests me. (Makes watching Jeopardy! with me either fun or super fucking annoying.) So because I find pregnancy interesting, and while I have been pregnant before, have never gotten this far before, I have been reading oh-so-many pregnancy books, websites, etc.

They are so. fucking. gender. essentialist.

They are all like "THE EXPECTANT MOTHER" or "HERE'S WHAT'S GOING ON THIS WEEK, MOM" and "MOTHERHOOD" this and "MAMA" that and HOLY SHIT STOP CALLING ME MOM.

First and foremost, "Mother", "Mom", "Mama", "Motherhood", etc. are highly gendered terms. WOMEN are "moms". MEN are "dads". So every time you use one of these (or any related) terms to refer to a pregnant person, you're assuming that person is a woman.

You can't assume that.

There's a reason that unless I'm quoting, I refer to pregnant PEOPLE. That's because the ability to get and stay pregnant is not actually dependent on gender. People of all genders can get pregnant, provided they have a uterus. Used to be you needed ovaries too, but with the state of technology today, you don't even need those. You need a uterus capable of sustaining a pregnancy.  That's it. Doesn't matter what your gender is.

Secondly, while I myself am cis, and call myself "the pregnant lady" on the regular, YOU'RE NOT MY KID, STOP CALLING ME MOM. "Mom" is not and never will be my ACTUAL NAME. Perfect strangers calling me by something that's not my name? I find that profoundly disrespectful. I wouldn't stand for it even from members of my family. Ask me how "being a mom" is going? Sure. "How's it going, Mom?" Fuck you. That's not my name.

Furthermore, it's so reductionist to just refer to pregnant people as "mom" or any of those variants. Even once I have The Kid, and start filling that "parent" role, even if I go by "Mom" to The Kid, that will be but one part of my life and identity. Yes, it's going to be hugely important to me, and almost certainly take up a lot of my time and energy. But I'll also still be Wench, I'll also be my mom's daughter (and have relationships with the rest of my family, etc. and so on), I'll also still be married to The Man, I'll still be a knitter and a sewer and all of the other things I am. Continually referring to me and all the pregnant people reading this stuff as "Mom" just reduces us to that one thing.

Thirdly, the assumption of automatic "motherhood" upon getting pregnant and giving birth is troublesome. Not just because of the gendered nature of the term, although that's a big part of it. But not everyone who gives birth becomes - or wants to become - a "mother". That might be because they're not retaining custody of the person they birth, because they don't identify as a mother, don't want the kid and were forced to give birth... I mean the potential reasons are endless.

It also totally ignores other ways to become a "mom", like adoption. Or, for example, all of the folks in my life that (with their permission), I also refer to as "Mom", in addition to my mother. It's such a narrow definition of what "motherhood" (and by extension, parenting) is. When parenting is so much bigger than that.

I don't have a problem with however folks want to identify. Like I said, I'll likely go by "Mom" to The Kid. (Note: TO THE KID, NOT TO ANYONE ELSE, GOOD LORD.) You're "Mama"? "Hey Lady"? "[first name]"? "Parent?" "Dad?" Whatever? Awesome. But when everything is written with the assumption that "Mom" and variants is how every pregnant person identifies, that's hugely problematic. It erases everyone who doesn't, and doesn't even give a hint to folks that there are other possibilities. It's one-dimensional and reductionist. I don't give a shit about your excuse that "well ALMOST ALL pregnant people are women", I don't give a shit about "WELL WE JUST WANT TO BE CLEAR", you can do better. Stop shoving me in to a box and a narrowly defined and prescribed role.