"WHEN YOU HEARD YOUR FIRST AND MIDDLE NAME IT MEANT TROUBLE!"

WHEN YOU HEARD YOUR FIRST AND MIDDLE NAME IT MEANT TROUBLE!”

When your mother called you by your first and middle name together, you knew instantly that you were in trouble. Big trouble. Might have been the tone of her voice but more was using those two names together! My real first name is Sharon and my middle name is Lynn. When I heard my mother scream “Sharon Lynn!” I knew that trouble was looming as sure as the sun would come up!

From the age of three, I had the nickname “Sherry” but by age five and in the first grade, I had to go by Sharon. Did all the way through school and even to this day for technical reasons go by Sharon when I fill out a form or write an article—but not on my blog. To this very day, I don’t like my real first name for that very reason of being called “Sharon Lynn!” Must have heard my mother scream that hundreds of times together and I was not a bad kid—really I wasn’t. But the hangup is on my part for not liking my first name and that’s the reason why—trauma big time.

If your mother got mad at you and screamed your first and middle name at you, you know exactly what I am talking about—it makes you shudder. My two sons were never called by their first and middle name by me ever for that very reason. Maybe I should have for sometimes I forget their middle names and I chose them—that’s not good to forget that at all. Their names are Brian David and Kevin Michael—maybe they forget their middle names as well. Never asked them and definitely not going to ask. They would think I had gone over the edge.

If you have suffered the trauma of being called by your first and middle name by your mother when you were young and into your teenage years, welcome to the club. To this day, I still don’t like my first name. Do you?

Sherry Hill