My body froze when Nolan first called me “Mommy.” He was almost six years old and his sister was two. They were supposed to be with us for two weeks while the state completed a background check on their maternal aunt.
In the meantime, they were taken into custody by Child Protective Services. Nolan’s mother was an alcoholic with a history of physical abuse. She was the primary abuser. Nolan’s father had been required to leave the home for safety reasons—but he kept coming back. He didn’t want to leave his wife.
Meeting Nolan and Nisha
We had a new social worker on the case. She was very young—fresh out of her master’s program, I think. We were one of her first cases. She had previously worked as an intern in the foster care department.
When Susannah dropped Nolan and Nisha off at our house and introduced us, everything seemed okay. The baby was shy and thin. We assumed later that she had been neglected most of her life. She never talked or cooed. She was always expressionless, and her eyes seemed dead—maybe from what she had already witnessed in her short life.
Nolan, on the other hand, was polite. Outgoing. He didn’t seem afraid to be left with strangers. After a quick rundown from Susannah about their situation, she walked down the path toward the driveway. I shut the front door. It was 97 degrees outside.
The Moment It Happened
Heading toward the kitchen with the baby in my arms, I asked Nolan if he wanted a snack. He replied, “Mommy, can I have chips?”
I was stunned. He called me Mommy.
I tried not to show it. Tried to stay nonchalant. But he kept repeating it:
“Mommy, where is my room?”
“Mommy, what is the dog’s name?”
Still stunned, I handed the baby to Michel and ran toward the front door to catch Susannah.
Michel knew what I was going to say to her.
“He’s calling me Mommy. I didn’t ask him to. Is that okay? What should I do?”
I had been introduced to him as “Miss Stephanie,” but I told him he could just call me Stephanie. I’m a Northerner—I’ve never gotten used to the Southern rules of politeness like the use of “Miss”.
Asking for Permission
Luckily, I caught up with Susannah. She had been getting the car seats from her car.
I told her what he said, trying my best to stay calm. Inside, though, I was a mess—unraveled by the weight of it all.
Hearing someone call me “Mommy” was something I had always longed for. It felt so good hearing it. I loved the sound. The meaning. It wasn’t the French Maman that I was used to hearing from my stepdaughters when they referred to their mom. It was the American English: Mommy. This was the gold I had always wanted.
But I wasn’t his mommy.
I was elated on one hand and confused and scared on the other. I told Susannah that he started calling me Mommy and that I hadn’t encouraged it.
“What should I do?”
She said it was fine. If I didn’t mind, he could call me that. She said it probably made him feel more comfortable in this situation. The kind of situation where kids are ripped from their families one moment and placed with strangers the next.
A Borrowed Name, A Lasting Impact
So, he called me “Mommy.”
And I got used to it.
For one month.
