Is she a Mom and is he a Dad?

Richard Hollerman

Probably you have heard, as I have, a reference to someone being a “Mom” and another person being a “Dad.” Let’s set aside the fact that many families are split apart without a father or a mother, but temporarily we’ll just focus on the names “Father” and “Mother.”

We know that there are some ultra-conservative parents who insist on their children calling them by the appellation “Papa” and “Moma.” What do these terms mean? The American Heritage College Dictionary says that “Papa” is informal for Father. And “Mama” is an informal way of saying Mother. “Momma” is also considered a variation of “Moma,” and “Mommy” is another term for “Mother.”

On the other hand, our common word, “Dad,” means “father” according to what I’ve learned. As for synonyms, we find: Daddy, father, pa, papa, pater (chiefly British), pop, and sire. (See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dad). The first known use of it was in 1533. As for the word, “Dad,” this can be an informal way of saying Father, according to the above dictionary. The same is true for “Daddy.” I notice that “Father” is somewhat more technical: “A male person whose sperm united with an egg, resulting in the conception of a child.” Thus, both “mama” and “daddy” are ways of referring to both the male and female, the father and the mother.

We are speaking above of the English language, of course, and this would be very different in other languages. In another dictionary that we have, both “Mom” and “Momma” are informal expressions of Mother. According to the Internet, “Mom” is a female parent or a Mother. We also have this from the Internet: “Ma, mama, mamma, momma, mammy, mater (chiefly British), mommy, Mother. Apparently it was first used in 1846 as an abbreviation for Momma.

(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mom).

I could be wrong, but the term (Mom) seems to be somewhat crude, flippant, and even vulgar. It is a common expression today, of course, and this should be kept in mind. But as I examined the term on the Internet, in general this is not accurate and “Mom” does seem like a term that is common in our age. We do know that the Bible doesn’t use “Mom” but it does use “Mother” repeatedly. Especially for this reason, it may be best to use “Mother” rather than “Mom” yet, we know, that the usage of a term like this would disallow other terms such as “Mama” or “Mommy.” We wouldn’t want to see this. Ma and Pa would be somewhat outdated but it would seem that these would be good and right.

Thus, we would generally want to use such terms as father and mother, dad and mama, pa and ma, papa and momma. Yet we can’t totally disallow such terms as “mom” or the like. It is better to use fully acceptable words at all times. If you speak a language other than English, it might be better to keep these thoughts in mind.