Father now wants to be called Daddy, CAFCAS involved.

[BedloeIsland]

3 yo multicultural child has a UK Father and non-UK royal maternal line. As a show of unity (following DV, other acts and absence from childs life) the tribal leaders agreed that the royal childs Father be given a royal tribal title - Papa followed by his Name ie Papa Xxxx. He was fine with this until recently, now he suddenly wants to be called Daddy as my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years has a child who lives with us and my child has started calling my boyfriend Daddy (and me by my first name as that is what the other child does). Child has about 10 people the child calls Daddy and 4 people the child calls Mummy (these are mostly people at nursery / other friends parents). These words do not carry the adult meanings to the child and are possibly translated as male career and female career.

The Father has kicked off and involved CAFCAS as he now wants to be called Daddy not Papa Xxxx. He has accused me of saying my boyfriend is her 'real Daddy' but Child would not have any concept of this idea (and I never said this).

CAFCAS said that we live in England and have to follow English customs and that he is now to be known as Daddy and I have to explain this to a barely 3 yo and enforce it... but I think

1. This is unreasonable as child can't even grasp the concept of 1 Mummy let alone this Daddy dilemma
2. The disrespect and dishonour to the tribe. It would be like him dancing naked in front of your Queen then kicking off when he would no longer be invited to key cultural events in childs life. Previously when he was happy to be called Papa Xxxx he would be on the top table etc.. now he won't even be allowed in the door.
3. The real issue is he is jealous of my boyfriend.

Can the courts force me to start calling him Daddy? and why is this not seen by CAFCAS as a positive attempt to bond the different cultures?

Surely your culture is your culture - so you can ask your child to call you whatever name is appropriate in your culture but the child's father can ask the child to call him what is appropriate in the father's culture?

Isn't that fair? You can't make the father adopt your culture can you?

papa X” sounds much more like the name of a step parent to me

It really does, especially if the child will be living in England.

I am also really glad someone else pointed out the potential safeguarding issue around calling every adult he meets Mummy and Daddy. If he said something innocuous using these titles then a potential disclosure could very easily be missed.

Im really quite surprised that CAFCASS havent told the pair of you to grow up and clear off. How on earth will they know what you are saying to your own child, in your own house? Call him Papa when you talk to your child, refer to him as Daddy in front of other people. Easy.

I’m not following this really- if you and the father are separated why do you think you have any right to dictate what the child calls his father? It’s nothing to do with you, it for them to manage in their contact time. You don’t get to dictate their relationship, that’s just the way it goes

(The reason I’m not following is I can’t get my head around the posters trying to offer solutions rather than just tell you- it’s none of your business- am I missing something?)

Surely the answer is just that the child no longer calls the new boyfriend “Daddy”. Presumably you parent your child day to day, make sure they eat the right things, send them to bed at the right time, and so on. Surely this is just an extension of that? He needs to learn that he can’t simply copy everything he hears wholesale as it doesn’t always apply to him. If he claimed to be a girl because he saw someone at nursery being called a “good girl” you would doubtless correct him, this is the same. If he calls another man “Daddy” you just say it’s not correct and model the right way to refer to the boyfriend.

I have no idea how I can be seen to be complying with CAFCAS when child has all these other Daddys and has mastered the name Papa Xxxx, only for me to turn around and try and change that to Daddy (and remove the other Daddy references from childs life)

Since the child apparently calls every Tom, Dick and Harry under the sun "daddy", adding one more "daddy" to the happy gang shouldn't be too hard to master.

" I can't imagine the Queen telling a young Prince Charles to go and see the Duke of Edinburgh, or even Prince Philip. Presumably she would have said "your father" or such like?"

They have a lot of servants so the children would probably hear their family members' called by their titles a lot.

I lived with my Grandparents between the ages of 1 & 5. When I started school I asked my Grandad why I had a Grandma and Grandad, not a Mummy & Daddy.

Your child will ask you that same question soon. You have a good opportunity to have a think about your answer.

What’s with all the bloody references to heritage? Fucking English since records began? Wtf

Totes. I've been vigorously shaking my head reading this thread in a fruitless attempt to dislodge any water on the brain that may be affecting my comprehension ability but nope, nothing gives so far... 💧

"I can't understand why a 3 year old is calling numerous people Mummy & Daddy. Why aren't you correcting them? Your child should be able to understand you're their Mummy and who their Daddy is."

The child is from another culture. I don't understand what's difficult to understand about it. People do things differently in other countries.

People do things differently in other countries.

But op is living in UJ.
Kids do not call nursery managers 'Daddy' or nursery staff 'Mummy' nor teachers nor friends mums and dads. Its going to be very confusing for the child if they dont actually know their actual mum and dad are seperate from other people in their lives when they discuss them at nursery and school etc. When he is asked about his mum and dad whats he going to say? That he has 5 mums and dads? That "mum 1 does this with my firend Y and dad 2 does that with my friend X" Or "daddy runs the nursery and mummy works there."?
Plus a UK dad is culturally known as daddy (or similar) no matter what their other culture thinks. Why shouldnt he want to be called daddy, nobody else is the childs dad after all. There is no point in ops posts that state he is a bad father to his child despite being a bad husband. And any culture that rewards DV by bestowing a 'title' on the man isnt a culture I would want my child a part of.

UK ffs!

Since the child apparently calls every Tom, Dick and Harry under the sun "daddy", adding one more "daddy" to the happy gang shouldn't be too hard to master. hmm

this

Just always call the father "Papa X Daddy" and tht differentiates him from all the other daddies, including your boyfriend.

Why can't you do that.

I find this very confusing

There is nothing wrong with a man wanting his own child to call him Dad, Daddy.

I find this very confusing

That's because the OP has made it ridiculously complicated by adding in the tribal naming part and not explaining to her 3 year old about he concept of Mummy and Daddy.

The short version is that the father wants the child to call him Daddy, the op disagrees and Cafcas have decided he is to be called Daddy as is culturally appropriate in the country they are living in.

The child is from another culture. I don't understand what's difficult to understand about it. People do things differently in other countries.

The child is as much a Brit as they are from another country - if not more, considering they live in the UK. It's the mother getting in a flap about a cultural norm that is just as right to include as a part of the child's culture.

“The child is from another culture. I don't understand what's difficult to understand about it. People do things differently in other countries”

It’s not difficult to understand at all. But the father is British and wants his child to refer to him as to daddy. What goes it have to do with anyone else, let alone the separated mothers culture?

I can't get past the calling everyone mummy and daddy. That really isn't normal for a three year old (I have one) barring SEN.

Even my one year old has a clear understanding of both words and who they refer to. And the cultural thing is a red herring in this context where the child in question lives in the UK, has a British father and attends a British nursery. Something doesn't add up.

We are a bilingual household. I refer to myself as maman when speaking French and mummy when speaking English. Tbh I often call DH daddy in both languages but will also say Papa in French. DS prefers to say mummy and daddy. But if DH and I split up I wouldn't go running to cafcas saying DH needs to refer to me as maman all the time!

I would write to cafcas to stress that daddy translates to papa in your language, it would harm DS's language skills in his second language to suddenly drop in the English word daddy but when speaking English with DS you would be happy to use the term daddy. Then just do whatever you like at home! Maybe do some linguistic research on code switching in bilingual language acquisition to back this up - you could certainly make the argument that for OPOL acquisition to work the minority language parent needs to show consistency of usage.

Oh and DS called everyone mummy, including daddy and random adults, until he was over 2, it was adorable!

This thread is original, I’ll give it that .

So biological dad can't be called daddy but step dad can be called daddy.

And you can't see why that's an issue for a British man? Or don't want to because somehow honour to people who mean nothing to this man is more important than a fairly simple idea that a child has a mummy and a daddy who shouls be called that.

Regardless of the history in the relationship, you seem oddly intent on encouraging the child to call your partner daddy knowing fine well that the child has an actual British father who IS daddy.

This feels like a dressed up version of 'my new partner gets called daddy and is a much better dad than their actual dad will ever be so nerrr.'