My Boyfriend Calls Me Mommy
How we are breaking free of gender and power dynamics through role play
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My boyfriend Jude is the same height as me, so I never wore heels when I was with him. I didn’t think about how this was subconsciously playing into gender norms, I just habitually put on my flats each time we had a date.
Then one day, I was talking to him about how I don’t wear heels much because I’m tall, and he told me, “I’d be okay with you wearing heels when we’re together.”
I suddenly realized what I’d been doing: I was making myself appear as short as possible to avoid challenging his position of power as a taller (read: bigger, stronger, more powerful) male human.
He, however, had no problem with his position in society being challenged.
But this was just one clue in a series that the power dynamics in our relationship were going to change.
Ever since puberty, I’ve been self-conscious of my height. I was usually the tallest girl in my class, and, at 5’10 now, I’m a similar height to a good portion of men. In the past, my tallness felt like a limit on who I could date — even if I was comfortable with this, chances were, the guy wouldn’t be.
Over the past several years though, I’ve dated a couple of men who were my height or slightly shorter. I’ve always donned my flattest shoes though, whenever we went out.
Jude was the first man to challenge me to become more comfortable with my height — and power.
Another shift happened a month or so after Jude moved away. We weren’t breaking up, but when he decided to move away, we both knew our relationship would have to adjust. We were already polyamorous, so, as sad as I was about him leaving, I reminded myself that I was polyamorous for this very reason: Love has the power to transcend all sorts of changes, including physical distance.
Since sex wasn’t reserved for our relationship alone, we wouldn’t have to give up physical love completely, just with each other during the periods of time we were apart. Before he left, he reassured me that our love would get stronger. I couldn’t imagine how, as we would go from seeing each other whenever we wanted to merely exchanging text messages and making phone calls.
Two months later though, I’ve come to think he may have been right. In some ways at least, we have gotten closer.
Distance freed our love from social norms. As much as we both want to be the types of people to not let societal expectations control us, it’s impossible to escape them completely — my automatic avoidance of wearing heels around him is the perfect example of how ingrained these constructs are.
Being apart now, our relationship exists mostly through text messaging. In writing, we are not our physical bodies; we are not things to be looked at and judged by others. From these conversations, it almost seemed we had become entirely different people. I came to understand that really, we were becoming more ourselves with each other.
When he asked if he could call me “mommy,” I agreed. At first, I was shocked, but I loved his willingness to express his authentic self through this request. I didn’t respond right away as I processed the shock, and yes, some knee-jerk judgments. My boyfriend wants to call me mommy?!
And then there was the deeper, more hidden feeling… I liked it.
I’ve always done my best to NOT be my boyfriends’ mom. If a boyfriend was sitting on the couch eating potato chips and drinking beer all day for a week, I’d finally break down and complain: “Do you ever think you might get up and take a walk or something? Take care of yourself — I’m not your mother!”
If a boyfriend spent all his money for the month on a single outing, I’d complain, “Why do I have to be in charge of your finances? I’m not your friggin’ mom!”
Any time I found myself taking care of a guy in a way I felt I shouldn’t have to, I became a resentful mother. I would do the mothering, but not only did my boyfriend not express appreciation for it, but he simply didn’t want that kind of care in the first place. Understandably.
After I agreed to give it a go and let Jude call me Mommy, I was able to more deeply feel what was behind my “mothering” behavior. I understand if you’re sitting there thinking, Maybe you just pick the wrong guys to date. And sure, there have certainly been times where this has been true.
Or maybe you think I’m misplacing my energies. I shouldn’t be nagging these poor guys who just want to chill out and watch TV sometimes. And again, I won’t dispute your point.
But this relationship with Jude allowed things to be different.
We all have our child selves buried somewhere beneath the layers of years and experience. Some of us can identify that inner child. Some of us practice “self-parenting.”
According to Psychology Today, self-parenting involves, “Decid[ing] to be that good parent who is automatically on your side, without your having to defend yourself or prove why you deserve their support.”
It’s a great practice to do this for yourself — and it’s an incredibly intimate and loving practice to ask a trusted partner to help provide this type of self-care. Luke had come to trust me enough, and the trust he gave me opened up a floodgate of love in me.
I’ve experienced being “parented” by a partner, too. In fact, just before he left, I spent the day with Jude trying to shove back my own child self. I was sad and on the verge of tears all day, tears that couldn’t quite spill, the self-controlled adult part of myself too overpowering.
At one point, seeing my sadness, Jude said, “My sweet little girl,” and suddenly my guard dropped. I was able to more deeply embrace my sadness about him leaving and cry all the tears that my heart yearned to cry. It was like he’d given me permission to stop being so mature and grown-up about it, and instead to be as sad as I really was.
Jude calling me “little girl” wasn’t such a far cry than the go-to term of endearment, “baby.” It was just “off” enough though that I felt it — I could be that little girl, and I could cry.
Now that the hardest part for me is over — his departure — things have mostly switched: I’ve taken the role of parent, and he, my little boy.
This dynamic has helped me let go of the false belief that adult relationships have to be 100% equal. In reality, that is the fantasy — nothing is 100% equal. Being able to acknowledge and take responsibility for differences in needs and power dynamics is real and mature.
I also felt free to love without attachment to a specific outcome.
I had felt sad and a little resentful about Jude “leaving me” to move to Hawaii. When I became “little girl” our last day together, I was able to acknowledge and own my sadness. Now that he’s gone and I’m over that initial sadness, I can return to my power. In my “mommy” role, I am able to see his departure from a new perspective. My “little boy” needs to follow his dreams. He needs to explore the world, take photographs of the beautiful things he sees (and earn a living doing that), have adventures, and take risks to grow as a human being.
I could remove these labels and simply say, “My boyfriend moved away for his career” and most people would accept that without question.
Gender is power in our culture; to change this, we have to consciously find ways to disconnect the two. Thinking back on it, I wish I’d had the chance to go out with Luke wearing three-inch heels. I wish we’d had the chance to walk down the street holding hands, seeing the expressions on people’s faces as they judged or accepted our “abnormal” relationship of shifting gender roles.
As a couple then, we didn’t need him, as a man, to hold the position of power. As a couple now, we don’t need him to continue to be the more powerful parent role either.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story, take a look at these other pieces by Anne Shark:
