'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.

SunnyBaudelaire ... Forwarded by the father with the daughter's consent because we do monitor our children's online activity and, in the case of emails from their mother, because she has been under investigation by social services in 3 different jurisdictions.

BUT none of that is the purpose of writing. I must confess, I have never been on a forum before but I was looking for a solution with a sprinkling of empathy (NOT sympathy) from a group of people whom I thought might appreciate the situation I am facing.

I am not interested in judgments about our lifestyle. We are a conservative family and we are comfortable with the parameters we set for ourselves and our children.

What I am interested in is solutions and use of first names is not a viable option in our community. We also want the children, some of whom have lived with us and gone to school where we live, to have a sense of normality and the children in our neighbourhood would think it strange if they were to call me anything else because we live in a place where divorce is a rare occurence.

It is not an attempt to airbrush their birth mother out of their lives but a question about how a step-parent should be referred to within the parameters I've set out.

I got confused at that too MrsMc.

I think OP has children from a previous relationship who call their step-father (OP's husband) Daddy.

I'm guessing that:

The father has children who call the op mummy

The op has children who call the op's dh dadddy.

And they all live together just one happy fammily mummy and daddy and all these children who are blended and happy, except they don't because the op's dh's children appear to live with their mummy, the real mummy even though they were expecting to live with the op who they called mummy even before they met

I wonder how the op's ex feels about his children calling another man daddy?

nobody is 'judging your lifestyle' but it is downright odd to encourage your children to call another woman 'mummy' when their mother is clearly in their lives. What is even odder is for the woman to go along with it and then whine about 'empathy'.

Ah, I see! Thanks (I have form for poor lateral thinking, and even straightforward thinking!)

and good grief where do you live, Stamford Hill or something?

WannaBe . . . No, no and no again!

I was not the OW as you so delicately put it. In fact, in this case, it was the birth-mother who was playing away from home and I met their father after he divorced her, when the children were living with him. Again, totally irrelevant to this post but DH will be amused by the stereotype!

No one asked the children to call me 'Mummy' but they had been so badly neglected by their birth mother at a time when she was in a very bad place that the moment they understood I was going to marry their father, which was when I met them for the first time, they started called me 'Mummy'.

"What I am interested in is solutions and use of first names is not a viable option in our community." community? conservative lifestyle? are you mormon or scientologist or some such?

I'm really starting to wondering if this is a hoax thread? No person would seriously wonder if it's wrong for the bio mum to be upset about their child calling another person Mummy no matter how much of an influence they are in their lives, would they?

You should be called your name by your step children. They are not your children, you did not give birth to them and it just sounds as if you don't want other people to know that both you and your partner have children from past relationships. You cannot just sweep their mother under the carpet because it suits you to appear as mum to all of them.

'and good grief where do you live, Stamford Hill or something?'

That's some insinuation. Stereotyping or what?

Wow. This all sounds a bit bonkers.

DPs stepdaughter from his marriage years ago now called him and still calls him dad. But her bio dad wasn't in her life by choice until she was older, and even then apparently he's a bit shit. She knows he's not her biological dad but she also calls his parents grandma and grandad. But this would have been something she came to say naturally over time or chose to when her sibling was born, it would have always been her choice and she had the right to feel part of the family that way, and is very much part of DPs family and they love her no less than if she was biologically there's. He would have been introduced to her by his name. It does not sound like your case is similar to this.

Then there's my DS, he has a dad, who is active in his life, he calls DP by his name. He's very much still included in DPs family but calls them all by their names as well. It does not sound like your case is similar to this either.

It sounds like your husband told your children that they were getting another mummy to be honest and it all sounds a bit strange.

some kind of closed old fashioned community is what I thought, yes.

I can only assume that you are part of some kind of strong religious sect which disapproves of divorce and which fosters a sense of respect from children etc etc because most of the real world doesn't think like this, really.

And most parents wouldn't spring a marriage on their children before the children had even met the stepparent.

Poor kids with all these selfish, self centred adults in their lives.

Why don't you ask the children what they would think appropriate because unless their actual mother is dead or completely non-contact or you have adopted them it is inappropriate for them to call you 'mummy'. It is also inappropriate for your children to call their step-father 'daddy' unless again their real father is dead, non-contact or he has adopted them.

SunnyBaudelaire, what on earth is your reference to 'Stamford Hill'???

OP, in practical terms, I think for the sake of your SDCs you do need to find an alternative that won't make their mother kick off. Given the very special relationship between you and them, would you consider something like [Your name] + Mother?

what i said at 12.48

oh yes georgie I expect this thread to disappear at some point.

What about "Auntie"?

Enb76 ... he has adopted them

WannaBe ... no marriage was sprung on them and I talked to the children on the phone several times before I met them but we felt it was important that the children shouldn't meet me unless we were certain about our future but what would I know, I only have a first-class honours degree in psychotherapy and am a recognised parenting expert.

JorgiePorgie ... no hoax. Was genuinely looking for non-judgmental advice from people who might understand my situation. Not enjoying the hostility though.

It there another name she can call you? Something along the same line but less formal that you would be comfortable with?

whatsonemore the problem here though is:

The children didn't feel comfortable with the op to call her mummy, they didn't even bloody know her and were calling her mummy. They were introduced to the op as a done deal because their dad was going to be marrying her.

On what planet does someone commit to marrying someone else before the children even know of their existance?