What do your adopted kids call you?

mine didnt call me mom until the adoption was final. she lived with several 'moms' and know i wouldnt turn her away, but its happened sooo many times better she just didnt want to call me mom until it was final.

Wow as a prospective foster mother I found this conversation very interesting. I am Irish and in Ireland a child calling a adult by their first name is quite the norm. Growing up I always called my aunts and uncles by their first names. Also my friends parents that I knew well and my parents friends. They would have hated if I had called them aunt such and such. Also some of my cousins even called their parents by their first names. Its not considered disrespectful at all if one knows the adult well enough. The other way to me seems so stiff and formal. I even know of some schools (mostly gaelschools, ie irish language speaking schools) where the children call their teacher by their first names.I visated america a lot as a kid, I hope I didnt sound horribly rude.:o

We have the family rule that adults do not get called by their first name. When fc comes to our home they can call us Mr and Mrs. (lastname) or Mom and Dad. Ususally they start calling us Mom and Dad within a coulple of months. They seem to want to be a part of the family and have a normal family out in public and at school. I think this gives the child a sense of respect toward adults and Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles. When I was a child and still to this day I always refer to my Aunts and Uncles as "Uncle Jack" or "Aunt Cara" and I am 46 yrs old! I think it is sad that we are losing this in our culture. It is really important and it seems to set a certain tone in the way a child behaves toward adults. I realize times are changing, but this is just my 2 cents so I don't mean to upset anyone.

Actually, she may on her own terms. I've had older kid adoptions. They've started calling me "Miss Millie". After the adoptions, in their own time, all 4 started calling me mom. Don't force the issue. She has loyalty to her birth mom.

I should add that for the longest time our fd called us mom and dad, and at visits she would call us Mr and Mrs. We thought it was cute and understood completely! It has to be difficult for these little ones to deal with all this.

My older son explained to this to me very well, "I call you Mom in my head, but I am scared if I call you Mom you will leave, Mom's don't stick around with me, but I have never had an (my name) leave, so that is safer". My younger son explained it as "I can't have one more Mom leave, I just can't, I can't be okay if I loose one more Mom".They had 5 foster homes before he became mine, and their bio-mom left when they were little.For them the word Dad went with Mom, and the word Mom was terrifying. They called us by our first name from the day they arrived (last June) until the day we got an adoption date (which is next week). They switched the day we got that date - for them they needed to know I really would not leave. (I must say I am LOVING hearing thw word Mom)

All the responses are good, but actually my first response was, "Sounds like a 13-year old." You know how little kids will say "I hate you" and it just crushes the parents? Well, a 13-year old, confronted by a therapist in family session, about something that is none of the therapist's business, will probably say something defensive, hateful and mean. I wouldn't take it to heart. However, the therapist doing that might solidify your daughter's position about never calling you mom.

SusannahmiaI think in America, it's a regional thing. It's customary in the south and in some families for kids to call adults "Miss First Name." But it's hardly universal. I grew up in the southwest, and in my family, adults we knew wellחaunts, uncles, family friendswere on a first-name basis. We never said "Aunt Whoever" or "Uncle So-and-So," just "Whoever" or "So-and-So." Same with my friends' parents. My kids had one foster mother who insisted they call her Miss First Name, and to me, like you, it sounds stiff and formal, but to the kids, it was normal, apparently. They came to live with us when they were 10 and 13, and started calling us Mom and Dad within a few weeks. I don't think that's because we WERE their mom and dad within a few weeksחI think they were just in the habit of using those names for the adults they lived with. They still call their last foster parents Mom and Dad, too. I would have been fine with them calling me by my first name if they had chosen to. I wouldn't have liked Miss First Nameit sounds like a teacher to me, not a family member.

My kiddos were 6 and 7 when they came to live with us. Little boy J was excited to call us Mom and Dad. Little girl J was reserved at first. One of those nosey people who don't have a clue asked in front of little girl J if we were going to make them call us Mom and Dad. I replied that they both would when they were ready. Once little girl J heard this she started calling us Mom and Dad. It just needed to be her choice.

My DD (5) has called us by our first name. I had initially told her we need a title post adoption, but has seince backed off. On her own, she's decided adopted moms are called "momma" We're have a foster/adoptive kid ice cream social at dcyf tonight. I tld her her friend K might be there "Why" "Because its for kids who were adopted or in foster care" "Is A coming?" "Why, was she adopted?" "Yes because she calls her mom, momma" Now, I assume A is adopted as her mom has a couple foster kids, but I'm not sure But in J's mind, that who I'll be after finalization :D

We started visiting our adopted kids for preplacment at the kids Grandparents Home and they were still in Foster Care. Spontaneously the kids called us "big mommy and bug daddy" and recognized us as parental fiquires. They were 12 mon and 4. They had developmental lags and emotionally younger than chronological ages. The grandparents were totally okay with that and that the kids "took" to us. Their birthmother was suffering from MH issues and had a dev delay herself acting very much like a teen. This was fine for a month or so and then during one of the supervised visits, birthmom insisted that she wanted the children to call us by our first names. The children would not comply on the request and the birthmother began calling us momma firstname and daddy first name. They continued to call us big mommy & daddy but my adoptive son became AWARE that my husband's name was Jimmy and became fascinated with Jimmy Neutron and refferred to himself as Jimmy Neutron or JImmy and his first name. Another story in itself. But I felt it was a direct result of them making the kids aware of our first names. Regardless, when the TPRs were filed the baby was now three and she was not calling me anything but Mommy and was referring to her birthmother as the play lady at the big building. She did not come enough for visits for very much bonding. I think I would have done myself a disservice by allowing myself, with the role of mother, to be called anything else but Mom or Mommy, Mamma. I do not let my children call other adults by their first names either it is disrespectful. I have also had an adoption expereince in my own life as a teen I called my birthmother, my mother or mother and my adoptive mom, ma or mom. These things can be worked out and I feel an adoptive parent owes them selves nothing less. You agree to love the child as your own when you adopt and that means "mom".

True, but loving child means meeting them where they "are." DD is phobic of change. She's not lived in one home (family) for a year. She lost everything time and time again. She grew a wall about the "word." While we could force her to call us what we want, it would only make us like everyone else. I respect her enough to let her decide when to change the name. We are now 5 weeks post finalization. She'll say I'm her mom and B is her dad. She's called each of us by our new "title" once or twice - usually at bed time. it'll come

Would you choose not to adopt a child who didn't want to call you mom? If that's a deal-breaker, that is conditional and perhaps wouldn't be the best match in the first place. :(

I think part of the problem is that indeed, the kids who have gone through so many foster "moms and dads" no longer associate the title with what it is supposed to mean. We never referred to ourselves as our foster daughter's parents. She was Hispanic, so we used the Spanish terms for Aunt and Uncle. Now, after she's been RU with mom, we continue to be her Tia and Tio, and her mom calls us that. Some foster parents argue that while they are parenting, they should be called parents. I disagree precisely bc the nature of their job is temporary. If/when they end up adopting, the kids can then shift to calling them mom and dad. Initially, we had hoped for an open domestic adoption, so we anticipted the presence of multiple moms as our children would grow up. Because DH and I are native speakers of other languages, we thought we'd use the terms for mom/mommy and dad/daddy from our native languages for ourselves, and the birth parents can retain the English terms. If you have positive experiences with folks who call themselves "mom" and "dad", then I think you can accept utilizing the term for non-birth parents. There are host parents for au-pairs, parents-in-law. The potential for multiple moms and dads is there. Look how many titles there are for grandparents - granny, grams, nana, gaga, grandma... and kids don't get confused by having multiple grandparents. But I'm not at all surprised that someone who's been bounced around from "mom & dad" to "mom & dad" would think the term carries the sort of meaning we may expect. The poster who gave the examples of what her sons gave as their reason I think hits the nail on the head. And as an aside, when I was getting ready to migrate to the US, my father - in an attempt to assimilate - requested that I call him by his first name! I tried but it felt so disrespectful that I couldn't. He got over it. But I thought it was interesting that the roles were reversed. (On the other hand, my DH refers to his father (technically step-father, but the only man who raised him) by his first name, and there doesn't seem to be any bad blood between them.) I would seek to reach a compromise on some sort of title, though, even if it's not mom, but not a first name.

I did. When I receive a placement, I give them the CHOICE of what to call me: mom, mom millie, aunt millie or miss millie. My first placement of a 10 yo girl called me mom right off. All the others called me mom or miss millie. After adoption, they called me mom on their own. I apologize if I wasn't clear.