this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
76 points (96.3% liked)

No Stupid Questions

41945 readers
602 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I’m a young mom with a pre-teen son and he’s called me “mommy” up until he was about 10 and a half. Since then he’s been calling me “Ma” which I find pretty cute. Especially when he extends it to “Maaa” when yelling from another room. Maybe it’s a southern thing lol. Just curious about what y’all call your moms?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] synapse1278@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

Maman 🇫🇷

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 6 points 23 hours ago
[–] piranhaconda@mander.xyz 2 points 23 hours ago

Well she involuntarily quit responding to Mom now that she's a grandma (not my doing, my siblings have kids). So now I call her the same thing the kids do, Mimi

[–] frenchfryenjoyer@lemmings.world 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

mum or mom (either)

[–] Leonixster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

Momther/mumther when I'm feeling particularly silly

[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 52 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I call mine as little as possible. My life is so much better without her.

[–] adhocfungus@midwest.social 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, I've got mine in my phone as "Don't answer", but she changes numbers a lot and borrows phones so I still fall for it sometimes if I'm expecting an important call and have to answer unknown numbers.

[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 2 points 7 hours ago

My mother just got mad at me because my sister did not tell me my mother was going on vacation.

[–] sprite0@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

yeahhh i usually just use her birth name if I must refer to her at all. Some folks weren't meant to have kids and don they best to prove it.

[–] SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

I use “my mother” for the same effect, but she died when I was in my early 20s.

I sometimes wonder if we could have made things work, or if I could have figured out stuff for both of us (we know I had adhd from my dad, but I’m pretty sure the autism came from her, and that was a post-death discovery)

But then I remember how hard she was to live with and that I probably wouldn’t have grown the way I did.. so maybe I wouldn’t even know I’m autistic at ~40..? Idk, I wouldn’t be who I am today if she was still around though, that’s a certainty.

She never wanted kids. When I was 16 she told me all about how my sister was the product of marital rape and I was the planned companion for the rape baby she didn’t want.. cool… my life in context.

Well my sister fucking hates me and always has (because she was the golden child, first born to a woman in her 30s, hallelujah!), so that worked super well. We haven’t spoken in almost 20 years now, my sister and I. Born 11 months apart. Wish she’d just had an only child, tbh.

I got one good thing from her though: perspective. She clearly didn’t want kids and I know how that turned out when she had them, and I also don’t want kids, so whenever anyone pushed back on my choice to get my tubes tied in my mid 20s, I was like nope. “What if I regret not having them? Fine I regret lots of things I’ve chosen to do or not do, but what if I’m like my mom and regret having them? There’s no solution to that… And I know how it turns out..”

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Norwegian: Mamma. It's the same general meaning as "mom". "Mommy" strikes me as a bit more childish, and I don't think we have an equivalent here.

[–] FerretyFever0@fedia.io 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Mommy is rather childish. I didn't call my mom that seriously after about 8.

[–] folekaule@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm Norwegian and say «mor» (mother). My mom asked me to use that instead of «mamma» ("mom") when she thought it sounded childish.

You can also say «modern», but to my ear it's a little more harsh sounding. Maybe it's a dialect thing.

In English, I don't think many adults would normally say "mommy", but many adult Norwegians say «mamma».

So to me, at least, a closer match is mom=mamma and mother=mor and mommy has no Norwegian equivalent.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Impromptu2599@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago

Mostly just Mom

[–] Lasherz12@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yep. Unless I’m being dramatic, then it’s mother

[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's always been mum and dad. My kids call me dad/daddy/dumb ass/fucker.

[–] SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That took a sudden turn right there

The 10 year old has emotional regulation issues. Good kid but very volatile.

[–] jaxxed@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

Maaam.... MAAAAAM!

Mom
Ma
Mameleh
Mutter

[–] maxwells_daemon@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Mãe.

I'm Brazilian.

[–] alquicksilver@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Mid-30s woman here, from western US. I call my mom any of the following, depending on mood/context:

  • Mom
  • Mommy
  • Mama
  • Ma (definitely can become Maaaaa at times)
  • Uma
  • Mother (usually in a jokingly stern tone)
  • Her name (when she's being particularly deaf)
[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Anyám

Anyukám

Iccsanyám

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

nézzenek oda! magyarok az interneten! :)

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

A szomszédos fost teli volt ilyenekkel. Volt kit tagelni Utazóban.

Itten e:

https://lemmy.ca/post/47006561

Used to be 妈妈, but eventually I just called her by her full name cause I'm tired of her toxicity and just went full "American rebellious teenager" mode with it. Its supposedly very rude because filial piety bullshit, but fuck that. I don't recognize this bitch as a "mother".

[–] garbagebagel@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Mom, mamá or viejita (old lady) when I'm feeling brave. Sometimes when I'm feeling extra brave (and playful), I use her childhood nickname that she hates because it's funny.

[–] KazuchijouNo@lemy.lol 8 points 2 days ago

móðir, madre, mah, a-máaaaa

(Not icelandic, but it sounds cool)

[–] Uri@infosec.pub 6 points 2 days ago
[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I call my mom "mum".

Don't shame people for calling their mothers "mommy" : it sounds so middle-school edgy.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

My kids call me Mom, step kids call me by my first name.

Oh and sometimes mama, in Spanish.

[–] skrlet13@feddit.cl 5 points 2 days ago

Mamá (spanish, equivalent to mom)

[–] xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

You must be my mom

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Usually, just mama. There's a few nickname alternates that have piled up over the years, but mama sticks for whatever reason. She usually prefers it as well, so that works.

Strangely, my dad has two. Daddy and papa. I use them interchangeably, my sister sticks with daddy.

My kid calls their mom mommy or mom usually. Mommy when they're tired for sure though lol.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To her face, "Mum", but when referring to her indirectly it's usually, "my mother".

I remember asking if it was OK to stop calling her "Mummy" but I'm not sure how old I was at the time. Definitely under 10 though. Probably heard other kids of the same age calling their mothers "Mum" when they were being collected from school and figured I'd better act accordingly and do the same.

(The only people who use "Mom" here are folks in the West Midlands, I think. And American ex-pats, I guess, but that doesn't really count.)

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My mother goes by mum or grannie, but my wife goes my mom, pronounced “mum”.

That’s because “mom” is a shortening of “mother” which is what she is, but “mum” is a shortening of “ma’am” which is a shortening of “madame” which means “my lady” and is what you call someone of a higher social class than you. And she wanted to get as far away from class hierarchy in the house as possible.

They’re both generally “my mother” when spoken of in the third person by me or my kids.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 2 points 1 day ago

"Mum" is a shortening of "mummy" (or similar) which almost certainly came before "mother" (or its ancestor words) as a word for one's primary female caregiver if not also birth giver, on account of it being baby-talk that ancient parents naturally took to be a name bestowed by the child.

In languages descended from Proto-Indo-European, the -t(h)er suffix is a familial grammatical particle that has long since ceased being productive, and remains frozen in all daughter languages. Speaking of which, the -ter of "daughter" is the same particle.

That "mum", at least phonetically, is also an abbreviation of "ma'am" is a coincidence caused by dropping so many sounds from the original "ma dame" that it reverts to, well, mumbling, which isn't far off baby talk, all things considered.

FWIW, there are places in the world where "Mam" is a name given to mothers by their children, which is also rooted in baby-talk and also has no connection to the other pronunciation of "ma'am".

[–] DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Because of My Cousin Vinny, I know 'Ma' to be very New Jersey but I suppose it could be southern too.

[–] adhocfungus@midwest.social 2 points 8 hours ago

That's how I always imagine it when I read it too. Joel from Marvelous Ms Maisel says it almost exactly the same which just reinforced it.

[–] Elaine@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I call her Mama and only refer to her as my mom when talking to people outside the family. Kids call me mom, momma, mama - it just depends. They never call me by my name and I never call my mom by hers - that would be super weird and would seem disrespectful.

[–] FerretyFever0@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago

Mom, mother as a (not really) joke.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago

"Mutter" (= mother) which started as a joke thing because it sounds as formal in German as it does in English but it kinda stuck and now anything else would feel weird

[–] gerryflap 1 points 1 day ago

"mem", which is west-frisian for mum. Other than that I don't really speak west-frisian, but words like mom/dad/grandma/grandpa all stayed in Frisian. Family also sometimes speaks Frisian to me, but unfortunately I forgot how to speak it at a young age and can only understand it.

[–] 93maddie94@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

I call my mom “mom”, but now that I have a kid I use her grandma name more frequently. Honestly it’s a little easier to call her that, I have some unresolved stuff and while we’re friendly the mom term is a little much. My daughter calls me “mommy”, but usually doesn’t enunciate so it’s “mah-ee” most of the time.

[–] GoddessGundy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I call my mom Ma, too. My kids call me Ma or Mama. It's funny but we took in some stray cat brothers in one day and kept them. A couple months later I heard Maaa-aaaa Maaaama! But the kids were at school... The kittens had learned they could get my attention immediately by mimicking my kids and that first couple times I couldn't tell the difference. To this day their meow sounds like 'maaaa"

[–] DaMonsterKnees@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

A miserable cunt. Sorry, but I think balance is good and as much as most folk have decent moms, and I'm grateful for it, my mom is top 5 worst humans I've ever met. I hope your's is better.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 3 points 2 days ago

I used to call her mama but now I mostly just use her name. My family is weird like that.

load more comments
view more: next ›