Big Guy has been asking to call us mommy for a while now, and we've firmly but lovingly said "it's too soon, it would hurt your mommy's feelings." But he started doing it anyway. He's been playing around with different words, but definitely making it very clear he doesn't want to call us our first names. So we finally had a conversation with him tonight about what he'd like to call us - We feel we should each have a different name and it shouldn't be "mommy" since he already has a mommy, whose feelings we want to respect and encourage him to respect. We gave some suggestions (like Ima & Mama, or Ima & Mama-B, which he rejected). His ideas?
Idea #1: "Mom One and Mom Two" ... Um, no way, buddy. I am not a robot. And it makes it sound like one of us is better than the other. Plus, it reminds me of Bob One and Bob Two (aren't they characters from some Dr. Seuss book?)
Idea #2: "Mother X and Mother Y" (with X and Y being our last initials). Heck no. There is no way you are calling me mother, sweetie pie. That makes me feel way too old and way too British.
Gotta keep working on this, because I want him to call us things he's comfortable with but I really don't think I can handle being Mom Two or Mother Y.
Hi there! We're a lesbian couple adopting 3 siblings - they were 16 months, 5 and 7 upon arrival. They had many, many removals before coming. I think we should share ideas for parenting through the chaos??? Let me know.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a child I called my grandmother "mama" and My mother "mommy" I insisted upon it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he can do that?
Well if he doesn't like mama, I'm at a loss. Mumzi maybe! :-)
ReplyDeleteActually I just remembered I looked up 'mother' in other languages a long time ago. So here, give him this list, after you've removed the ones you don't like.
French - Mere
German - Mutter
Bengali - Maa
Hindi - Maa-ji
Urdu - Ammee
English - Mom, Mummy, Mother
Italian - Madre
Portuguese - Mãe
Albanian - Mëmë; Nënë; Burim; Kryemurgeshë
Belarusian - Matka
Cebuano - Inahan; Nanay
Serbian - Majka
Czech - Abatyse
Dutch - Moeder; Moer
Estonian - Ema
Frisian - Emo, Emä, Kantaäiti, Äiti
Greek - Màna
Hawaiian - Anya, Fu
Ilongo - Iloy; Nanay; Nay
Indonesian - Induk, Ibu, Biang, Nyokap
Thanks for coming by my blog. Don't really know what questions we have at the moment. Just starting out. I'm sure I'll do a post of all our questions along the way. I've had a few other foster mom's offer their advice as well. Someone in the area that has walked this before would be a great contact though if they're in our area. My email comes through on the comment.
Regarding the race issue. What we were told was that some counties prefer same race placements but it's not that they wouldn't place with us.
These are great, Debbie. Thanks. He actually seems to have settled on some terms, we'll see if he actually uses them.
ReplyDeleteErika: Do you have a blog? An e-mail address I'd love to connect!
ReplyDelete