I’m posting this on behalf of a friend, and I’ve NCed in case I’m recognisable from my other posts. My friend was my flat mate at uni, we’ve been really close for over a decade. She doesn’t have a MN account but wanted to canvas opinions on a tricky issue. She has reviewed the post below so she knows what it says.
My friend has custody of her nephew. He’s now 4, and she has had care of him since he was a little over two. His dad was my friend’s brother. His mum and dad both very sadly died before he was two; his mum from cancer, and his dad from suicide. This was obviously utterly devastating for all involved.
My friend was named as the preferred guardian of her nephew in the will of both parents, and had a close relationship with him while both parents were still alive. She looked after him from the start after his dad’s death, with a lot of help from her mum and the boy’s maternal grandparents. Everyone has really rallied and been amazing.
Her nephew has taken to calling her mum. Prior to this she was auntie X, but of his own volition he has started to say mum instead. My friend has been correcting him gently, but this is now upsetting him and causing him distress.
My friend’s concern is that he had a mum - a lovely mum who adored him and was adored by him and by my friend. She doesn’t want to diminish the importance of his mum, or erase her role. My friend talks about her nephews parents and shows him pictures etc, but he doesn’t really remember them clearly. And she is, to all intents and purposes, his mother now.
It also upsets the boy’s maternal grandparents when he calls my friend mum. They haven’t said anything to my friend, but it once made his maternal grandmother cry, and she can see they find it hard.
She wants to know what approach she should be taking now. Should she let him call her mum, since it seems to be what comes naturally to him and correcting him is upsetting? Can this coexist with trying to keep alive the memory of his parents? She’s worried it’s disrespectful to the memory of his mother, and to the maternal grandparents.
She also wants to know if anyone knows of any books that might help address this situation.