There’s a graphic I’ve seen printed on signs, shirts, and other apparel that says, “Mama. Mommy. Mom. Bruh.” All parents, especially mothers, should be appalled.
Results vary, but one search of the phrase using Google’s A.I. overview feature rendered a horrifying summary. “The phrase ‘Mama, Mommy, Mom, Bruh'” the overview said, “is a viral internet meme and popular line of novelty apparel that pokes fun at the humorous evolution of how children address their mothers as they grow up.” Specifically on the term “bruh,” the overview said that label is “used once the kids hit the tweens or teenage years, when the mother officially gets lumped into peer-to-peer teen slang.”
This, mind you, is supposed to be cute. It’s not cute. It is, in fact, highly disrespectful, and permitting children to address their elders, let alone their parents, with that level of informality only serves to undermine the people they’re supposed to regard the most.
There’s nothing authoritarian or excessively strict about insisting that minors acknowledge the difference between themselves and adults when they address one. The easiest way to do that is with titles like mom, dad, aunt, uncle, Mrs., Mr., professor, and so on. It’s not a formality for formality’s sake. It’s an implicit recognition that the older person is, at least in theory, more experienced in life and thus wiser and deserving of deference, even in casual conversation.
It is beyond weird that any parent would allow her child to address her as if she’s a peer rather than the authority. And not just the authority, but the person the child depends on for food, clothes, and shelter (and surely iPhones, vacations, and every streaming service they could possibly dream of wasting money on). Kids who pay no bills and contribute nothing financially to a household shouldn’t feel as though their parents are their peers. They’re not. They have a lot to learn and should conduct themselves accordingly.
Admittedly, some parents have a misplaced sense of pride in believing that they are, in fact, their child’s friend. But being a child’s confidante, consoler, and, most importantly, educator is not the same thing as being a friend. The love of a friend is not the same as a parent’s. A friend did not create the child. The parent did.
This is especially true of mothers who have sons. A mother should have zero tolerance for her son addressing her casually and with male pronouns. And a father should ensure there’s no mistaking it. A boy who calls his mother “bruh” surely speaks to other women with even less regard.
Don’t be your child’s friend. Don’t be their bro. Be their parent.
Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of "Traitors: The Democrat Party’s Collapse into Anti-American Filth."