'Mummy'

[SalfordM7]

My step-child was sent this email today by her mother and I want to know if it is reasonable. To put it in context, we are a conservative family where calling parents by their first name is unthinkable and other adults are either known as 'Mr / Mrs' or 'Auntie / Uncle'. That is our lifestyle choice and should not be the focus of your response:

......you have still been calling your step-mother 'mummy'.

I have already dealt with your younger brother as I saw a chat he was having with his father, where he refers to her as 'mummy', which she is not, and will never be, and when you return home, I'll deal with you, because I was under the impression that you understood how wrong it is for you to call anyone else, but me, 'mummy'. So, we'll be chatting about this after school.

OP, are you a traveller, Irish perhaps.
I notice your username is exactly the area and postcode that I am familiar with.

What Op describes is like no irish traveller community i know.

Waithorse- my mum would find it unacceptable for a child to call an adult by their first name. All adults (neighbours, parents friends, brownie leaders etc) were auntie/uncle or Mr/Mrs.

That's a normal, working class -snob- woman. She doesn't enen like other adults calling her by her first name unless they have been specifically invited to do so. She did have a small stress over what my step children would call her. It was so ingrained in me as a child that this was "manners" I find it difficult to know how to address adults now!

Fortunately my kids have grown up in a much less mind your p's and q's environment and calling adults by their first name is not unusual.

But that was considered being "well brought up" when I was a child. Using first names was disrespectful. And I'm not that old :)

Mich, I know it was usual in previous generations to refer to adults as Mrs/Mr. But I thought it had pretty much died out. In this particular case, the op has said it would be unacceptable for her own husband's children, her stepchildren to call her by her first name. That was my question.

I don't think that divorce is unheard of in the traveller communities though is it? or women who work (op said she had a degree in psychology and was a known "expert").

I asked about travellers because firstly the OP talks about community and not culture.
The OP username and if that is post code is location of the one I know of in Salford.
Maybe the OP has married/become involved with community but has a different upbringing.
Finally, anything but the traditional nuclear family isn't tolerated by many travelling communities, if the OP and her dh have moved in from another community divorce or step parenting would be frowned upon, hence the sm being referred to as mummy.
I'm not suggesting this is the culture of all travelling communities, but unfortunately it is the experience I have had.

Another poster driven away by people projecting and flaming. Cruel, unhelpful, judgmental posts because it's not "normal". What is normal? I've never heard such narrow mindedness than some of the shit spouted on this thread. We are mums trying to help each other but it seams some only want to tear others down.

Yup, Jingle - there's a lot if it about all over MN.

I've been lurking and reading over Xmas-NY and wanted to put a hammer through the screen countless times.

OMG, I can't believe that some of you are so narrowminded that you can't cope with the concept that there are people, communities, cultures wherein children do not call adults by their first name only! It wasn't that long ago that it was considered pretty rude in my family, and my grandmother was only ever known to her friends as "Mrs. X" - and I am not from any "alternative" culture/background/cult/community, it was just the way things were. I had numerous "aunties" and "uncles" (friends of my parents) and was quite shocked when a school friend didn't follow the "norm" of the time and did call friends' parents by their first name only, instead of Auntie A, or Mrs B. This was only in the 70s!

I am of the same vintage, thumbwitch - but in many ways the 70s was a long time ago and things have moved on. Women in their 60s were regarded as pretty old just for starters! I have no problem with being called by my first name by younger people.

However, regardless of eras, the expectation that a step parent will be called "mummy" when the child's mother is not only alive but involve in their life is one that is always going to cause problems for the children.

Surely you would wish to put the emotional well-being of your children ahead of community expectations? I don't think you need a degree or even to be recognised as a parenting expert to see that this is virtually guaranteed to produce negative results that will impact on the children.

OP: I wish I had simply asked 'When is it acceptable for a step-child to call a step-parent 'Mummy' or 'Daddy'?'

The answer to your question is pretty much Never, under just about all circumstances.

I knew a family where the dad has been married 3 times with children from each marriage. His 2nd wife died and he remarried fairly soon after. It was agreed by him and wife 3 that the child from marriage 2 would call Wife 3 Mummy as the children were all close in age. It caused the family of (deceased) wife 2 great upset as they felt their DD was being forgotten.

When a mum is living it is just totally unacceptable.

There are all sorts of words used for step grandparents - eg nanny x, variation on Christian name eg dada for david. Perhaps something like this would work for you.

They have moved on Katie, you're right. But it's still not that beyond the bounds of possibility that some people prefer to stick to the old fashioned civilities, as they were.

I do agree though that the OP needs to find an alternative name, and that it's completely understandable that the children's mother is angry that her children call the OP mummy. Even if the children want to call her mummy, they do need to recognise it's not ideal.

I'd still like to know what the step siblings refer to each other as, because I think that could be quite telling.

Spring along;

The answer to your question is pretty much Never, under just about all circumstances.

Adoption? If the birth mother is still living?
If the mother has abandoned her kids, is NC, they are living with their dad and step mum sees them as her own?
If the mother is abusive or neglectful, and the kids want a mother and have such a mother figure in their lives, and want to call that person mummy as that is how they see her?

I see lots of families with a flaky or uninterested bio dad, and it seems fine for kids to call the man who steps up and parents them "dad". Why isn't it the same for women.

Of course everyone here is assuming that a mother can't or won't neglect, abuse or abandon her children. They are assuming she is still part of their lives as a real mother figure. Of course if that is the case the children only have one mummy, but I can think of quite a few scenarios where children may have a female in their lives that is a much better mother than their own ever was or will be, and the children want to call her mummy.

My DH's boy calls his stepdad "dad". He's lived with him since he was 5. He still has an involved and very much present biological dad. But do you know what, as much as DH hates it, and will very often joke that he's his real dad, the child is happy with it so he lets it go. There would certainly be no "dealing with".

I think the message from Mum to the 11 year old was really unpleasant: 'I will deal with you when you get home....'.

Maybe a dopey Qu but: if the decision to call you, as stepmum, 'mummy' is genuinely the child's I think that should be respected, actually.

Can she not call you Mummy but not in front of real mum, as it were, to be sensitive to her feelings???

It is hard to tell if the decision is entirely hers, from the thread, but I do think her 11 year old feelings are important.

Micah - your post is just being argumentative for the sake of it. I had carefully written "under JUST ABOUT all circumstances" - in other words there will always be exceptions. The example I quoted was one where although the family was making the decision in good faith under difficult circumstances it still caused upset.

Mum AND dad and variants thereon are such emotive words - why create problems when there doesn't need to be an issue by using alternative language.

I just wanted to add a personal thought here (I've lurked on MN but felt the need to register just now to write this)
I don't know if the OP is Orthodox Jewish. I suspected from her name that she might be - and clearly others did too - but I notice she's not said that she is and I am not asking her to say if she is or isn't - because why should she if she doesn't want to?
But since that community has been mentioned in relation to divorce etc I thought I'd share this. I was raised in the Orthodox Jewish community and was married, had a son and divorced by the time I was 24. I'm no longer in that community tho my son visits his dad often so I know what it's like for children of divorced parents in that world.
It is not an easy community to be a divorced woman - and it's not an easy community to be a child of divorce. Of course divorce does happen. But it is rare. Children of divorced parents stand out as being different. And difference is not always respected. It might well be (I know it happens!) that the OP's husband felt that allowing his children to call her 'mummy' might help them to feel less different and prevent them from being ostracised. And I can sort of understand that. I say this as someone who would feel mortified if my son had called my ex-husband's wife 'mummy'. I understand the pain of that for mothers. But from the child's perspective, at least within this community, I can see why it might have been encouraged. (I hope that doesn't sound weird or judgy or too much personal information.)

I can understand why the child's birth mum is so hurt by this, and I do think that it was a bad idea to let the child start calling the OP mummy so quickly - before they had even moved in together, iirc), but I do think that MindReader makes a good point when she says that the child's wishes should be respected. And since the decision to allow it (whether too early or not) has already been taken, that ship has sailed, and now the OP, her dp and everyone else concerned has to deal with the situation as it is.

I do think the best idea would be a bit of research to find some alternative nicknames or versions of mummy, and ask the child to choose one - as a 'special name for you to use'. If I recall correctly, the child is old enough for an explanation as to why her birth mum is hurt by her calling someone else 'mummy', and to understand why a different, but equally special (to her) name is being suggested.

On a more general note, I do think that 'mummy' and 'daddy' are far more than just a biological term - conceiving and giving birth are just the start of all the things we do as parents, and someone who is there, a constant presence in the child's life, feeding them, comforting them, playing with them, disciplining them, teaching them, loving them - that is a parent/mummy/daddy, isn't it?

I realise IABVU for admitting this - but I sometimes watch Jeremy Kyle, and whenever I see him tearing a man to shreds for allowing a child who is not his, biologically, to call him daddy - when the biological father is not, nor ever has been involved in the child's life, even to the extent of providing financial support, and the other man is a constant presence, providing for the child (financially, emotionally, socially etc). In circumstances like that, I think the man who is there for the child and the child's mum is being far more of a 'daddy' than the biological father is - if that makes sense?

oceanrose thank you for your thought provoking post, it helps so much to gain understanding of culturally differing social norms.

ocean, thank you for posting such interesting and thought provoking words.

Your not their mother and it's extremely inappropriate for you to insist (and yes you do since they're not allowed to use your name) on calling you this.

Your relationship with them will last only as long as your marriage, your their fathers wife, not 'mummy'. I'd be furious if any woman tried to get my kid to call her that and equally angry with a child old enough to understand how offensive that is.

She didn't 'insist', though Vivienne - all she did was insist that the child shouldn't call her by her given name - and if she is not happy with children calling her by her given name, that is entirely her right.

The child decided she would call her mummy before she'd even moved in. I do think she should have said, at the time, that it wasn't appropriate, and could have found an alternative that wasn't her given name or something that would hurt the child's birth mother, and that the child would be happy with - but she didn't - so she has to deal with the situation as it is.

I think she needs to say to the child, "It is upsetting your mummy that you call me mummy, and you don't want to hurt her, so let's try to think of a name you can call me that is special to us, but isn't mummy, so that we are all happy - OK?"

They could look at words from other languages that mean mummy, or they could find a nickname that is special for them - as I said in an earlier post, I did a bit of googling and found someone who, iirc, said her stepchild calls her Mim or Mimette - the OP and the child could find something that works for them.

At 11 I think it is entirely your sd's decision

It would be awful if anyone tried to force her either way

I do agree that the way the name came about was far from ideal but that can't be changed now

My experience:

DSCs came to live with DP and I, after DP's ex got together with new much younger man.

18 months later, when I was expecting DD, younger DSD asked if she could call me mum , as she thought it would be less confusing for DD, when she started talking etc etc.

I gently told her that although I was flattered that she'd thought of that, it wouldn't be fair on her mum and might cause upset. This despite the fact that contact with her mum was minimal (think weeks and months between visits, calls, etc) .

You are wrong to have them call you mummy.

My Ds1 calls DH Daddy. He started when DS2 was born (Ds1 was 5 then, DH had been around since he was 2).

But his bio father has always gone by his first name at his request so maybe that's different?