Mommish

Language is our prime communicator. Without it, we would still be grunting at each other and drawing on cave walls. There is one language, however, that will not be found in any college course catalog. This language is called “Mommish.”

Mommish is not to be confused with “motherese,” the cooing nonsense used on infants and small animals. Mommish is an older relation of motherese . Mommish is used on children, usually beginning when the child is two years old and continuing until the child is old and gray.
When a child is two, they are subjected to Mommish favorites such as, “Please don’t write on your baby brother,” and “Don’t make that face. Do you want it to freeze like that?” Mommish changes as the child ages. A six-year old might hear, “Now if Jimmy jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you be a follower and jump in after him, or would you be smart and just hold his jacket while he dove?”

A nine-year old male child will begin the universal eye-rolling response to Mommish, a reaction that will stay with him until long after he is married. This Mommish contains things like, “I somehow doubt that your teacher said you were exempt from math homework because you are cute.” An eleven-year old, upon hearing, “I would prefer it if you and your friends stop videoing each other snowboarding off of our roof into the hedges” will begin to emit breathing noises similar to the ones you made giving birth to him. A cocky thirteen year old reacts to Mommish such as, “Please get the cereal bowl, empty Fritos bag, six soda cans, and the milk-stained glass out of your room, unless of course you PREFER roommates with four legs and antennae” by stalking down the hall muttering unintelligible sounds. (This is Teenish, another widely used language.)

The Mommish changes a bit when the child turns seventeen and obtains the coveted drivers’ license. The sight of a gangly teenager, who can barely walk through the living room without knocking the Lenox vases off the coffee tables, behind the wheel of a car causes the Mommish to become garbled, loud, high-pitched and sometimes illogical. It is often accompanied by gestures such as foot-stomping, arm grabbing, vein-popping, and profuse sweating. Mommish consists of ditties like, “Avoid main roads. Don’t play the radio. Don’t pass anyone. No passengers. No hitchhikers. Don’t speed. No drinking. No smoking. No eating in the car. Under no circumstances do you talk on the cell phone,” and also, “Call me on the cell phone if you need me.”

Mommish is known, in some parts of the world, as nagging. Come to think of it, that’s what they call it in my house. But I believe in the power of Mommish. How else would my two grown sons and my husband know how to get through their days? They need Mommish! It’s instructional! It’s helpful! Why, you ask? “Because I said so!”