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A SM by any other name?

goldenlife's picture

What do your skids call you?

When we were dating, my skids called me Ms. (first name). My SS still does but his older sister SD14 recently started calling me by just my first name. I don't want to cause any more drama than we already have had, but when I was coming up, you just didn't call adults by their first name. this feels disrespectful to me.

Any thoughts?

Comments

Mocha2001's picture

I think what our Skids call us is a term of enderment. If she's just calling you by your first name, I think it is meaning that she is comfortable with you. IMHO the "Ms. Sally" part is very impersonal for a step child to be calling you, even if you were the girlfriend.

My SS calls me "Trina." He explains to others that "she's not my mom, but she's like a mommy, she's my bonus mommy." We went through a phase where he'd call me mommy at least once per weekend and I just ignored it (even though it warmed me inside) and didn't make a big deal of it.

We had a discussion before about other names for "step" and how we do or do not call our step-parents by step-dad. My "step-dad" didin't come into the picture until I was 22, but I still call him "dad" as a term of enderment. So, it's up to you, but I'd let them call you wahtever they want, so long as it isnt' mean.

~ Katrina

Anne 8102's picture

My skids call me Anne. I'm good with that. I don't think it's disrespectful for them to call me by my name. We always referred to adults as Mr. and Mrs. Smith or whatever when I was coming up, too, unless it was a close adult who said we could use their given name. Family members always got called by their first name, though, and my skids and I are family, so I never gave it much thought. Now, their mom would refer to me as Ms. Anne when she would speak to them about me, i.e. "Be good for Ms. Anne and have a great weekend!" They did call me that, too, the first few times, but I told them they didn't have to, that we are family and they could drop the Ms. and just call me Anne or anything else that they felt comfortable with. I had a friend a long time ago who's name was hard for her youngest SD to pronounce, so they decided that her SD would call her Sam, taking the S and M from "stepmom" and creating their own nickname. I call my stepdad by his first name and refer to him as "my dad." My stepsibs refer to my mom by her first name. Other families are more formal and that's fine, it works for them, but we've always been okay with the first name thing.

~ Anne ~

"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other." -Walter Elliot

goldenlife's picture

I appreciate the reality check, ladies! I will not be offended and will try to not be so suspicious. She's a good girl and I will look at it as a term of endearment. Thanks again!

Livin' my life like it's golden!

OldTimer's picture

I think anything else would be weird to me.... It would totally catch me off guard and I don't think I would be comfortable with it. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm used to being called by my first name, I dun no.

One thing, I know that for the kids, I used to call my StepDad by his first name, anything else was weird to me too... I mean, that was his name, and I just wasn't comfortable calling him anything else... plus he was an a$$hole. If I could have called him that, I would have! LOL. But seriously, I don't put any pressure on the kids. My name is fine with me. IF they wanted to call me something else, that would be fine, a little weird at first, but I'd get used to it I suppose. Same goes with my parents. They don't expect the kids to call them grandma and grandpa, but I know they would like it.

Wink StepMom

Man has the intelligence to change his life,
Sometimes, he just fails to use it...

goldenlife's picture

Now that's love! lol!

Thanks everyone for putting things in perspective. You get so used to reading things into the stepfamily situation, that it's easy to overreact!

Livin' my life like it's golden!

bluebunny's picture

My ss calls me "Auntie B____". I hate the 'Auntie' part. DF always has ss call everyone either Uncle/Auntie ______ which I find very annoying. Just because someone is an adult, it doesn't mean that they require a title before their name. I think using only the first name is fine...

dbsojo's picture

SS calls me by my first name. This is fine, because Mic and I were friends long before we started dating. Thinking back, all his other friends got Uncle attatched to their names...

But anyway, he calls me donna, but now he is introduced to everyone as Miss, Ms., Mrs., or Mr. This is how I was raised to refer to adults (except for those who lived with me). So that's what he calls them (Miss Karen, Mr. Scully, etc).

I wouldn't know what to do if he called me mom!