What should a child call a stepparent? Well, that's a very personal decision. Some use the adult's first name or a nickname, and other families call the stepparent mom or dad. It really is whatever works best for each family. There is no right or wrong. Or is there?
A woman posted in Reddit's AITA forum because her stepdaughter used to call her by her first name, which she liked, but recently started calling her Mom. She was uncomfortable with this and told the child to stop. Now hurt feelings abound, and she feels like a jerk. Should she have just let it go?
The family has been a unit for two years.
The original poster, 42, and her husband, 44, have known each other for six years and have been married for two. The husband brings a 7-year-old daughter into the relationship. The little girl rarely sees her biological mother, and OP has all but raised her.
"I feel awful that his daughter hasn't had a good mother figure in her life so I have been trying my best to take her out to do girly things and bond with her since her mother isn't around to do so,' OP explained. "She always would call me by my first name but for the first time when we were sitting at the table for dinner she called me mom and it just didn't feel right it made me feel uncomfortable."
OP cut off the little girl and hurt her feelings.
OP told the little girl, point blank, that she was not her mom. "I'm sorry but I'm not your mother you can't call me that sweety," she recalled she said.
This made the little girl cry. Her feelings were crushed. OP and her husband got into a huge fight. He felt like what she did was "awful." His daughter felt close enough to call her mom, and she ruined that.
OP believes it is disrespectful for her to take on the title of mom when the child's biological mother is still alive.
"It all feels very awkward as I'm used to her calling me by my name. Life was moving so smoothly until she had to call me mom. So AITA for not wanting to be called mom?" She asked.
Redditors think OP's response was pretty hurtful.
This is a little girl who felt enough love in her heart to call this woman mom, and OP telling her to stop understandably hurt.
"YTA for crushing a little girl in a vulnerable moment," one reader commented. "She probably had to work up the courage to go through with it, fearing your rejection. And you made her worst fears come true."
"Yes yta. not because you don't feel right being called mom, but the way you handled it in the moment was terrible," someone else wrote. "you've been in this girls live since she was 1 year old, knew her mother isn't a stable parenting figure and married her dad 4 years down the line, as an adult you should have known that the current situation was at least a very real possibility and prepared better for that."
"YTA OP, I'm surprised you've been around a kid this many years tbh, I hope you are as maternal as she feels poor thing," another person commented.
OP, you did realize that this child came with the marriage, right?
It seemed strange to some Redditors that OP was acting the way she was.
"If she does not want to be called mom then why on earth did she marry a man with a young child," someone pointed out.
"Then why did she marry someone with a young child and an absent bio mother? Did any of the adults in this scenario think this through?" another person agreed. "Why didn't any of them talk to the child instead of letting her guess what might be OK? Why don't they have a family counselor?"
"Op even says she was trying to be a mother figure," someone else commented. "Why would you go to the effort to bond with a kid like that if you don't want to be her mom. That's just unnecessarily cruel. This poor kid will absolutely remember this forever."
OP made a complicated situation even harder.
Sadly, this little girl hasn't had it easy. Her biological mom hasn't been around for her, and she is still very young. Her mind can't possibly understand all of this, and Redditors feel like OP just made it all worse. She clearly needs and wants a mom and thought OP was the one. Instead, Redditors think OP acted like an a–hole.
"And her calling you that is obviously how she sees you. What an incredible honour. Why would you crush her?" someone asked.
Honestly, we agree.
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