I don’t usually weigh in on the whole birth mom/first mom name game, mostly because my daughter, having been abandoned to an orphanage and adopted internationally has a better chance of winning the lottery than she does of finding the woman who gave birth to her.

Still, we do talk a great deal about LuLu’s birth/first mom. For most of her life with us, we’ve referred to this woman has LuLu’s “China mom”. Politically correct or not, it was an identifiable way to her, and to others when she said it, about whom we were speaking. Lately, LuLu’s taken to calling her “birth mom”, a reflection of her growing interest in everything reproductive (yikes!)

And just last week LuLu announced that she was giving her birth mom a name. So now she refers to this important person in her life by a made-up first name. At first I was puzzled by this, but I have figured out how her creative little mind works.

You see, I’m an “other mother” – a stepmom that is. And my stepchildren do not call me “mom” – they never have. Although my biological daughter cause Super Dad “dad”. My stepchildren call my by my first name. And Kay, my biological daughter calls her stepmother by her first name. So, LuLu, in an effort to figure this all out...and relate it back to the situation that brought her into our family, has decided that her birth mom has a lot in common with stepmoms, and should be called by a first name.

This is not my rationale but hers, and tells me a great deal about how her mind works. In fact, when I dropped the term “first mom” casually into the conversation with LuLu the other day, she quickly said just what I had expected she would.

“Mom, you’re the one in first place. I like to call her [inserted first name].”

So, what I’m trying to say is that I think the child should lead us in the titling of the people in her/his world. Kay feels like calling her stepfather “dad”. Some kids don’t.

I realize that this doesn’t answer the question of how to explain our lives to the public who ask probing questions. But I guess I’m less worried about what those people think than what my child is absorbing.

Entering the Fray: What about the Kids?

You Can Call Me...

Can We Assign Our Own Titles, Please?