Mindy Kaling Shares Surprising Nickname for 3-Year-Old Son Spencer

Mindy Kaling is having a wrinkle on the nickname front.

The Mindy Project star—who is mom to daughter Katherine, 6, and son Spencer, 3—revealed that while she has a nickname for her toddler, it's not quite sticking as well as she hoped.

"Spike is something we're trying to get going," she told TODAY.com. "People tend to call him Spence or Spencey, but I prefer Spike."

"The problem is…. He's not a Spike," she continued. "He's one of the sweetest little boys and Spike has the connotations of kind of like a punky energy."

However, the 44-year-old knows that when it comes to her daughter, the nickname was spot on.

"Kit has always been so easy," she said of the nickname for Katherine. "But Spencer is harder."

And The Office alum also shared insight into her kids' sweet sibling bond.

"When they're [asked] ‘Who is your best friend?' they say each other, and that is incredibly moving," she said. Adding, "She sat down next to him and he put his head in her lap and she kissed him."

While Mindy has largely kept her children out of the spotlight, she recently reflected on what it was like to become a mom after the passing of her mother in 2012.

"This year for my birthday, I was just looking at these guys. We went back to Boston, where obviously you know, they'll never get to meet my mother, but that's where I grew up with her," she said on Today With Hoda & Jenna in 2023. "When I was there I just felt like, 'Oh man.' The loss of a parent is so intense, and she was my person, but I was like, 'At least I have these two. And I can tell the story of her.' And I just felt so blessed."

For more of Mindy's thoughts on motherhood, keep reading.

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Mindy writes that it was after she coordinated her daughter's Mundan—a Hindu ceremony in which you shave your baby's head "to rid you of the negativity from your past life"—that she was hit with realization that she was going to truly be a single mother. "Why was I crying so much? Because I think that it finally dawned on me that I have a child who will never know her grandmother, the person who was the closest to me in the world," she explains. "And I was about to start this journey with my daughter by myself without the help of my mother. I was going to raise her alone, and I was terrified."

However, the actress says she was comforted by the traditions her mother raised her with, writing, "The reason I'm Kind of Hindu and will raise my daughter to be Kind of Hindu is to have this connection deep inside my own heart to other people who look like us and have shared key experiences, thousands of miles away... As long as Kit and I are Kind of Hindu, we will never be alone."

When she first got pregnant, Mindy says that she felt she could raise Kit on her own, as her mother and father did with her. She writes that she thought, "If Mom could do it all without a whisper of complaint, then why couldn't I?"

However, it dawned on the actress that she didn't have her mother around to advise her on the ins and outs of breastfeeding or other seemingly easy tasks, which would later prove to be difficult. So, she hired a baby nurse on the advice of a friend, and it proved to be one of the best decisions she's ever made. "I didn't have my mom. But I did have Rose. Rose loved giving advice, and I loved listening to it," Mindy recalls, before listing the fears that Rose helped her overcome. "All these fears were the worst I've ever had in my life, and Rose helped me keep them at bay. She was my mom when I needed a mom, and that wasn't even her job."

Mindy so treasured having Rose in her life that when the baby nurse asked if she'd ever require her assistance again, she says, "I told her I don't know if I'll have another baby, but if it meant she would come and live with me, I may just go ahead and do it."

The Mindy Project star is nothing but honest when discussing her relationship status, or lack thereof. 

Mindy says that she doesn't notice her singledom until people point it out to her. For example, she explains that other moms tend to complain about their husband, "feigning desire to be single in an attempt to make the single mom feel better about being husband-less."

Nonetheless, Mindy writes that dating is "complicated" for her. "Sometimes it's the most liberating and lucky feeling in the world," she reflects. "Sometimes I am just so grateful to be an independent woman doing what I want, when I want, that I could cry with gratitude."

She also admits that there are times when she wants a husband, which include, but are not limited to: When I'm Alone at a Party, When I Need to Reach Things, When Kids' Books Mention Daddies, When I Want Dessert at a Restaurant, When My Kid Does Something Amazing and When I Think About Diamond Rings. 

On the bright side of things, there are many reasons The Office star is pleased to be single. 

For one, she says she never has to debate with someone about parenting decisions. "I save a truly staggering amount of time not having to run my parenting decisions by another person. Good or bad, I can just, like, quickly make a decision and move on with my day," Mindy writes.

Other silver linings include: she can choose who she sleeps with and when, with no strings attached, no in-laws, she can always drive, she has ownership of both nightstands, and she has free reign over the remote control, meaning she never has to watch something she doesn't like. 

In the months before welcoming Katherine, Mindy says that she was "killing the pregnancy game", joking that she hadn't "overachieved this much since high school."

She writes that she followed her doctor's recommendations diligently and had even lost weight because of the healthy diet she made for herself. Mindy writes, "I had always thought I'd sooner die than eat kale, and yet there I was, munching on it like some kind of Instagram salad influencer." That same dedication applied to her fluids, with Mindy describing herself as "the most hydrated pregnant woman in the history of pregnancy."

She continues, "Second trimester was uneventful, and third trimester was the same, except an unusual five-day period where I did not go to the bathroom...  Luckily, that eventually worked itself out."