So DSC came to live with us full time a couple of months ago after years of chaos living with their mother who has mental health issues. They experienced a lot of trauma and confusion prior to social services finally deciding to put them into our care however they have settled in extremely well and it almost feels like they've been living with us full time forever as other than the expected chaos of suddenly having 3 more children around the house, it has felt so easy and natural having them there all the time.
The children still see their mum fortnightly however they don't mention her very often when they are with us although are happy to go visit her. She doesn't do very much with them. Social work had a number of concerns regarding their wellbeing in her care and one of these was that they were very isolated and she would lock herself and them indoors for weeks on end and they would not attend school or see anyone outside their household during this time.
This week I took the youngest to soft play. He's 5. While he was playing with other kids twice I heard/saw him point to me and say, "that's my mum". No one appeared to have asked who i was or anything so he said this quite randomly both times.
DSS knows I'm not his mum and I know that despite everything that they've experienced he really loves his actual mum so don't think it's wishful thinking but I'm not sure what this is about or what's the best way to approach it. The most likely thing i can think of is that he has never been able to say, "that's my mum" before as she has rarely taken him to anything for him to be able to do that, or maybe he just didn't know how else to refer to me.
I'm not sure what's the best thing to do now. If DP or I should speak to him in a careful way about it, or if we should just leave it for now. I don't want him to feel rejected by me bringing it up as if i don't want him to call me that (not that I do want him to call me that, but I'm just thinking in the eyes of child it may seem that way) and I don't know if by mentioning it then we'd just be making a bigger deal out of it than is necessary but on the other hand I know it would have a severe impact on his mum's mental health, and could affect her behaviour for the worse, if she ever heard him refer to me as mum so I'd be scared not to address it and for this to be something she ever hears or finds out about if he was to say it at other times. A big part of her isolation of her and the children was caused by extreme paranoia which she suffers from, she will very easily believe that people are lying to her or out to get her and I've no doubt that if she heard this it would send her mind into overdrive and I'd be worried about what would result from that.
We've never really spoken about me being a stepmum to him, and maybe he's too young to know much about the concept of a stepmum so what if rather than a proper 'talk' about him calling me mum, we just slipped into conversation about me being his stepmum and maybe an explanation of what this is? Or do we need a proper discussion specifically about him calling me mum? Or given everything they've gone through and that he's still trying to get to grips with it all are we best just not to say anything for now?