Momma, don't let your babies grow up...

The country song says, "Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys..."  But sometimes as mothers we have ways of relating to our sons and daughters that says we don't want our babies to grow up at all.  We want them to remain our babies all their life!

I don't know if it is a Southern thing or if it happens everywhere, but I have noticed that women in Texas and Missouri tend to call their offspring babies regardless of how old the son or daughter might be. One woman recently said, "I'm 41 years old and Mother still calls me her Baby Girl."  

Often when my husband visited his mother in Texas, she would break into a smile, put her arms out toward him and say, "Here comes my Baby Boy!" He was almost 60 years old at the time.


Why do I mention this?  Why is it important to me?  My answer begins with an incident during my junior year of college.  In one of my education classes we were required to introduce ourselves to the class within the framework of our family of origin.  One of the young women began her presentation by identifying the various members of her family--father, mother, and siblings, finally presenting herself as the 'baby' of the family.

The instructor stopped her and said, "You might be the youngest in your family, but you are no longer the baby. Stop referring to yourself with that language.  It's not professional." That was one of those 'Ah-ha' moments for me.

The professor's remarks left a lasting impression and through the years I have wondered about the impact parental language has on a child's development.  If by insisting our young adults are still our 'babies' does it hindered their self-esteem?  Will it hinder emotional development?  Does it leave them with the expectation that they would be rescued and cared for because they are still Mother's babies?     Even now when I hear a woman refer to her adult son or daughter as her 'baby' it grates on my ear!  And I wonder what the young man or woman is feeling.

Many times I've heard men in their 40s and 50s try to correct their mothers, saying, "Mother I'm not your baby any more." But the mother responds, laughingly, "No, you will always be my baby."   Is the man feeling disrespected?  Demeaned?  Unable to fulfill his mother's expectations because he isn't a baby anymore?

The encounter in that college classroom impacted me so much that my husband and I made a conscious effort to stop referring to our children as 'babies' as they matured. We have one son and two daughters. They are our offspring, mature adults in their 30s and 40s. They have not been my babies since they got out of diapers.  ♥   Now whether this choice helped them become healthier adults, I will probably never know.  But the 'Ah-ha!'moment so many decades ago shaped my child rearing philosophy, without a doubt.