A Mom by any other name would be as sweet.  Every mother I know juggles many roles and responsibilities, accompanied by various titles and names. Working mothers have formal job titles which all but define us 9 to 5, and of course, there are our relational titles: mother, sister, daughter, partner, friend.  Other, less formal but equally as important titles include chef, stylist, chauffeur, tutor, housekeeper, and one-who-remembers-to-feed-the-hamster, to name a few.  How do we make it work?  Add one more, very important, all encompassing title: Master Multi-tasker.  Or is it Ms. Multi-tasker? What we do and how we label it says a lot about how we define ourselves to the world at large. 

My grandmother and mother were always addressed as “Mrs.” As a young girl I  remember wondering why someone would address a letter to my grandmother as “Mrs. Aaron Sandberg” – her name wasn’t Aaron! When I entered junior high, and became more aware of my role as a young woman in the world, a new title entered my vocabulary: Ms.  Suddenly, some of my friends’ mothers wanted to be called “Ms.” Brody or “Ms.” Chisholm, rather than “Mrs.” (This was long before children dared call their friends’ parents by their first names.)  My dear friend Susie’s mother didn’t go by her husband’s name.  She was a famous opera singer and used her own surname professionally – it made quite an impression on me. It was around that time that I noticed that my own mother used “S” as her middle initial whenever she signed her name.  The S stood not for her middle name, but for her maiden name.  I’m sure my mother would have kept her surname if it had been more acceptable in her day, but the “S” was her way of retaining her identity separate from her identity as a married woman. 

I have always insisted on being referred to by ‘Ms.’ Before I got married, my thinking was, ‘my marital status is nobody’s business.’ After I got married, it became, ‘I don’t want to be defined by my marital status.’ I also decided to hyphenate my last name when I got married. I couldn’t fathom giving up my birth name and I liked the idea of combining my and my husband’s last names, just as we combined our lives in marriage.  My children go by the hyphenated last names too. In a moment of sweet sensitivity (or insanity), my husband once agreed to hyphenate his name as well, but alas, that never happened. 

While the title “Ms.” goes back to the early 20^th century, Ms. Magazine’s popularity in the 1970s and 1980s gave it widespread usage. Ms. Magazine made a symbolic and significant statement that being identified by one’s marital status was patriarchal and sexist.  Ms. was the title for a woman who did not “belong to a man.”  Moreover, for a growing number of women who kept their own last names after marriage, neither Miss nor Mrs. was a correct title in front of that name.  The term Ms. gained public prominence when Geraldine Ferraro, a woman who had always used her own surname professionally, rather than her husband’s, became a vice presidential candidate in 1984. 

The use of Ms. takes the guesswork out of whether or not to address someone as Mrs. or Miss. Ms. is always correct, whether the woman you are addressing is married or unmarried, has changed her name or not.  Generally, in business, "Ms." is the default title for women until or unless a woman makes another preference known, and it’s also becoming common in the social sphere. With the growing number of single parent families and blended families, it’s become not only personally or politically correct, but logistically accurate, to take note of people’s names.  I was shocked when a letter from my daughter’s camp came addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Chen.”  I am a woman who makes her preference known – and I did.

Working mothers have many roles and titles - CEO by day and Mommy by night.  How do we balance our roles and the symbolic titles that represent us to the world with our core identities?  How important is a title or label anyway?  Only as important as the meaning we attach to it.  For example, the use of Ms. is important to me in terms of the personal values it represents – independence and feminism.  Titles are largely symbolic in that way.  The goal, it seems, is to align who we are with what we do.  Identity is the meaning that we ascribe to our roles, devoid of titles or labels.  Titles and roles change; Miss may become Mrs. or Ms.  And while we can’t do or be everything all the time, there’s one title that we wear with pride wherever we go: Mother.