Hey Authors!

[SimonDoom]

Guys, it's that in almost every instance "mommy" sounds flaky. A word which would work better has been mentioned is "momma" Momma sounds much better. And not as childlike as mommy. Sorry but imo "mommy" should not be used except as a slur as in BDSM. My hope is that authors try to avoid the use of "mommy" as much as possible. All this is my opinion.

I don't see anything wrong with using it as long as the author sets up a situation in which the use of the word makes sense, such as where mom and son are engaged in role-playing. But I would agree that if 22-year-old son just comes bursting through the door calling out "mommy!" it doesn't sound right.

 

[Charmolypi]

Oh come now. Give it a chance.

 

[SimonDoom]

Oh come now. Give it a chance.

I'll always make an exception for Margot Robbie.

 

[Hypoxia]

Vice President Pence and my Quaker farmer grandfather both address(ed) their wives as 'Mother'.

 

[49greg]

I don't know about Mommy, but as has been stated previously in this thread, Lit is fantasy not reality. When I was a youngster, say before eight or nine, my mom was 'mommy', perhaps in the incest stories calling her mommy is some sort of comfort word. Who knows. It is certainly common, perhaps even customary in mom/son stories, maybe I've even used it, just can't remember.

As for Daddy, well I lived in Texas for a couple of decades and it wasn't uncommon for an adult as well as a youngster refer to his father as 'my daddy'. Maybe it's a Texas thing or a southern thing.

 

[Athalia]

Mom or Mommy would be very unusual words in a story written in British English.

Mum? Mummy? Perhaps.

Mater? A historic upper class usage.

'Mom's apple pie'? Never.

That sounds about right. Here in the US, I hear "Mommy" from pre-teens, and "Mom' from older children. (In the southeastern US, "Mommy" is often replaced by a word that is pronounced somewhere between "Mamma" and "Mumma." I haven't heard that anywhere else.)

Older people refer their spouses as "Ma" or "Mother" but this is archaic and really self-identifies the speaker as old-fashioned.

 

[jehoram]

That sounds about right. Here in the US, I hear "Mommy" from pre-teens, and "Mom' from older children. (In the southeastern US, "Mommy" is often replaced by a word that is pronounced somewhere between "Mamma" and "Mumma." I haven't heard that anywhere else.)

When I was living in Georgia back in the Carter era, teens used to call their mothers "Ma" for the most part.