Are You My Mother?

Because I'm a young, single mom, I've always been wary of misinterpretation as far as who E's mother is. Not from E himself, but from other people.

It doesn't help that his last name is different than mine. You'd think in this day and age, with all the freaking divorces, professional women keeping their last names, etc., people would be used to parents having different last names from their kids. But no. Every time I pull out my ID or sign for E, I get weird looks. Sigh.

And I look like I'm about 18. And my mom looks like she's less than 40. So I tend to hear that my "little brother" is adorable. Or people will exclaim that my mom doesn't look old enough to have a teenager AND a 4 year old. It gets old fast.

Worst is when my son calls my dad "Daddy", which he does a lot. It catches Poppa's attention a lot faster than "Poppa" does. I mean, come on, he's been answering to "Daddy" for over 20 years, and "Poppa" has only been around for the last couple. However, that habit gets awkward, because while Dad doesn't look old, per se, he looks quite a bit older than I do. So when E goes around calling me "Mama" and Poppa "Daddy", my poor father gets the "you're a creepy old man" looks. It's kind of funny, admittedly.

Anyway, my parents, E and I were eating dinner out some time ago, when a work acquaintance of my dad's walks by. They strike up a conversation, and she eventually starts cooing over E...I mean, she couldn't help it, he's adorable. So Dad's like, "he looks like me, doesn't he?" in that proud Poppa way that all parents/grandparents/relatives of cute kids have. The poor lady goes "No, he looks like his mom!" while gesturing toward my mother. The rest of us just kind of smiled, willing to let it pass.

But not E. He indignantly stated: "That's not my mom! That's my nanay! This is my mom!!"

And that's my boy.