What’s in a Name
June 9th, 2011 by theresa
When I married my husband, I thought I knew what I was getting into. He had been married before and had kids, but I really thought it would be easy. It’s not like you have to take a parenting class to be a good parent. What I hadn’t counted on was the ex-wife. Obviously she would be a factor in our lives, but I never realized how much of a factor. I even began referring to her as my ex-wife. My husband thought it was kind of funny, but I meant it. That woman colored everything we did. We always had to take her feelings into consideration. The annoying thing was that she didn’t afford us the same courtesy. This became glaringly clear when she allowed the kids to call my husband by his first name instead of calling him Dad. Not only was this disrespectful, but it was down right mean. We were trying our best with co-parenting but this was a really big deal.
My husband and I discussed it and he decided the talk to the ex about this. She didn’t see anything wrong with the fact that the kids were calling him by his first name. Finally he simply had to demand. “I am their father and they will call me Dad!” She seemed to get on board until she remarried and there was a step parent. She made the kids call the new stepfather Dad. She told them it was because she was having another baby and it would be confusing if they didn’t call him Dad. Again my husband was really upset. This time though, we talked about why it was so upsetting. As long as the kids knew that he was their dad, did it matter if they also called the stepfather, Dad? He decided not to make it big deal. Eventually it was clear that our older son did not agree, he only called my husband Dad. But our younger daughter has always called both of her fathers Dad.
The truly annoying thing that when the ex made this “rule” it wasn’t intended to go both ways. When my husband and I had our first child, my stepdaughter called me Mom in front of her mother. That woman flew into a rage and yelled and the poor girl that I was not her mom. She tried to explain to her mom that since my son was born she figured she should call me Mom so my baby wouldn’t be confused. Boy was this amusing to watch. The ex struggled with some kind of excuse about why it was OK to call her husband Dad but not call me Mom. At this point I decided to take the higher road. When the kids came for their next visit, I told them both that they needed to call me whatever they felt comfortable with. My new baby would learn to call me Mom no matter what they called me. I felt it was respectful parenting not to make a big deal out of a title. The kids were what was important, not what they called me. They still call me Theresa and both my biological children call me mom. It works for us and they are fine.