60% of Tellwut Respondents Think It’s Weird to Refer to Your Wife as Mother

Vice President Mike Pence is known for his opposition to reproductive rights and anti-LGBTQ views as well as the dedication he has to his faith, but his caricaturization by Beck Bennett on Saturday Night Live focused on another nuance of the second most powerful man in the free world. As Bennett’s Pence is about to exit the mock Oval Office he casually refers to his wife Karen as ‘mother’. Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump remarks: "I know I'm bad with women, but that sounds even worse." Keep in mind the real Donald Trump has joked about dating his daughter Ivanka. Saturday Night Live was referencing this 2017 Rollingstone article: "Mother, Mother, who prepared our meal this evening?" The legislators looked at one another, speaking with their eyes: He (Pence) just called his wife "Mother." Maybe it was a joke, the legislator reasoned. But a few minutes later, Pence shouted again. "Mother, Mother, whose china are we eating on?" The legislators weren’t the only ones weirded out, dit657 said, “(it’s) Creepy, just like him.” Another Tellwutter on the same page chose to share their thoughts on the concept of referring to your significant other by a parental title as a whole, “I have always found it odd when people call each other "mother & father". It is creepy.” 60% of Tellwut respondents shared similar sentiments, while the remaining 40% saw it as perfectly acceptable to refer to your significant other as ‘mother.’ Specifically Tellwut asked, “Mike Pence addresses his wife as 'mother' when not in the presence of their children. Do you find this strange?” Bboopy13 seems to have taken personal offence to the inquiry, “I've known men who have addressed their wives this way. If you don't like the guy that's one thing, but why pick on him for something so petty?” Pence’s dinnertime pet names weren’t the only thing to cause eyebrows to rise, it’s also been unearthed from a 2002 article in The Hill that the Vice President refuses to attend functions that serve alcohol unless his wife at by his side. He also goes as far as refusing to dine alone with a woman, other than his wife Karen. We asked Tellwut panel members to put themselves in his shoes, almost half of those who voted at 44% sided with Pence, while 56% did not have a problem dining without the supervision of their spouse.