SALT LAKE CITY — On June 5, 2004, after a long and tiresome labor, I became a mother for the first time. I remember looking at my son and thinking, “so this is what it feels like to be a mom.”

That first thought and feeling is a commonality that all mothers feel when they hold their little baby in their arms for the first time. It is a feeling that no mother will ever forget.

Although the aforementioned date was when I became a mother, it would be a few more years before I really became a mother … or more specifically, a “mother.”

I can't pinpoint the date and time exactly, or even name a specific event that made me come to this realization; it was more of a series of events that began popping up at about the time my son turned 5.

It seemed that out of nowhere and almost overnight, my vocabulary and even the tone of my voice began to change. I went from speaking in a high-pitched, soft voice, saying things like “uh-oh,” “oh, no” and “peek-a-boo,” to speaking in a new but somewhat familiar tone, and language that can all be summed up into one word: “momisms.”

“Uh-oh” was now replaced with “What did you do this time?” “Oh no,” was changed to “This place is a pigsty!” and instead of playing the endearing game of “peek-a-boo,” I was now saying things like, “Quit hiding under the table and eat your vegetables;” or “Come here where I can see you;” and “Look at me when I'm talking to you!”

There were more things in my evolving language that were popping up daily and even multiple times a day.

“Stop your horse-playing” came out of my mouth a time or two. Horse-playing? What does that mean anyway? Then there was, “Quit monkeying around,” and I even told my kids once that they were being “slothful.”

Was I raising animals? Sometimes I really wondered if I had somehow given birth to mammals that were not the human kind.

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The story of a boy, his skateboard, a gutter, and a few kind words.

Where did I learn this language? I learned it from my mother, for course … and she learned it from her mother … and on and on and on. These “momisms” have been going on for generations.

I just happen to be the daughter of the mother who (literally) wrote the book on momisms, titled "Listen to Your Mother."

As you can see, I had no choice in the matter: my language was destined to evolve.

This is not such a bad thing, however, and these momisms are not only reserved for frustrations. Just like it is so fittingly written in her book, my own mother concluded with the following lines:

*"But that’s not all that our mothers say.*Yes, they say all this ‘cause they love us.

... Mom knows when to say,

“I’m so proud of you.”

She gives hugs and kisses that smother.

With tears in her eyes, she says with a smile,

“It’s a blessing just being your mother.”

I will forever remember the day I became a mother and am even more proud to be a “mother.”

*

Arianne Brown is a graduate from Southern Utah University, mother to five young kids and an avid runner. *

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