and her mom sounds like trouble! Can't remember the past year?? WTF. Congratulations on your baby . . . it is nice to hear from you and I hope it all works out the way you want.

"Fortune favors the brave" - Virgil

I am happy for all that is good for you and pray for more happy pancake times.

And release the rest to the powers that be. That's the best advice I have as someone who has gone through the custody thing. Has your DH requested a psych eval for BM? I would. We did and BM caved when the final GAL report indicated psych problems with BM. She was more afraid of psych therapy than losing custody. Doesn't that just raise a red flag.

Good luck!

Peace, love, and red wine

Your SD is very young. Too young to grasp some pretty important concepts that she'll need to understand to navigate her life as she gets older. She doesn't know where babies come from, so she can't understand that you can only have one biological mother. She's too young to understand the difference between a mother and a stepmother, the dynamics of a blended family or how it feels to live in a traditional family. Her attention span is still short enough at this age that her reality is whatever is happening RIGHT NOW. She's too young to understand that a biological mother can be a horrible influence and a bad parent, while her stepmother is a great role model, but that doesn't change the fact that the woman who gave birth to her is her mother.

No offense meant here, but her mother, despite all her faults, is still participating in this child's life on some level. Even though you may be raising your SD, her mother is still in her life. I don't think your SD should ever have been calling you "Ma," becase that is a form of "mother," just like "mom" or "mama" or "mommy." I think it has to be confusing for a child, especially a child this age who doesn't have the ability to understand all these crazy concepts. And like it or not, want it or not, her mother is still her mother and she's probably going to remain in the picture. Who knows? It's unlikely, but it's possible that she may get her act together someday and turn out to be a not-so-half-bad mother to your SD.

I know this is one of "those" issues that tends to polarize people who feel differently about it. My husband is a great man... he's a wonderful father, very hands-on and very involved. But when his ex-wife left, she took the kids, got remarried and started asking her kids to call her new husband "Daddy." It was a knife in the chest to my husband to hear his children calling their SF by a name that should have only belonged to DH. Not only that, but it caused a lot of confusion and conflict over loyalty for his kids, who got punished at BM's for not calling their SF "Daddy" and also were reminded by us repeatedly that they were NOT to call their SF "Daddy." They ended up living a lie, because they kept calling their SF "Daddy," and they also started hiding this and other things from DH and me. It's been horrible. It's been more hurtful than I can describe to watch my husband's face when he hears his children call another man "Daddy." And he's a million times the parent that your SD's mother is. He was never a bad parent. He never deserved this and it hurts him terribly.

I know you don't care if it hurts BM. I know you want what's best for your SD. I just think that it's better for everyone if children call their stepparents by their first name or a special nickname, rather than some form of "mom" or "dad." I also think it's not good for parents to undermine each other, because then children hear two very different messages, one from each parent, and that creates a conflict that most children, and especially a child this age, do not have the ability to resolve. Her mother told her one thing, then you told her something else. How is she supposed to know who to believe? What will happen to her if her mother asks her if she still calls you "Ma" and she says yes? Will she be punished? Or are you going to advise SD to keep this a secret from her mother? Who is she being taught to obey and be loyal to, her mother or her stepmother? Even if your DH does win sole legal custody, his sole decision-making power doesn't tranfer to you. I kind of think you are overstepping.

I don't mean to pick a fight, I just think it's possible that you could unknowingly be setting your SD up for a conflict with her mother that she's not prepared to handle. I think you need to resolve this with BM directly. She needs to decide once and for all if she's going to support SD calling you "Ma" or fight it. If she doesn't want her daughter calling you Ma and you can't convince her to agree to it, then your only choice is to either have SD call you by your name or else start lying to and hiding things from her mother. Think far ahead into the future on this one. If you teach her now that it's okay to lie to her mother and hide things from her mother, then eventually her little mind is going to think it's okay to lie to and hide things from her father. I know she's only three, but believe me, those teenaged years show up a lot quicker than we expect. You don't want to teach her to lie to and hide things from her parents.

♥ Georgia ♥

"Good men don't just happen. They have to be created by us women." (from ROSEANNE)

My skids call me by my first name, my kids call my dh by his first name but the skids were forced to call their new step father "daddy" by the BM. Now it hurt my dh very very much - still does - but he loves his girls and did not want to force his girls into a very bad position with their bm. (The bm is nuts and would make the girls lives miserable if they didnt call their sf "dad" and her head would have exploded in a million peices if the girls called me "mom" but thats another story.)

For me from the (naive beginning) it was whatever the girls were comfortable with and whatever my kids were comfortable with.

I knew that one day my ex may remarry and would have to face the fact of my kids calling someone else "mom" but I love my kids and was willing to suck up any hurt I may feel. I knew if there were some other woman that they called mom - she would have had to earn that title by caring and loving my kids.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Albert Einstein

I think a lot depends on your perspective and like I said, it's a polarizing issue. I know there's nothing more hurtful than a loving father being cut out of his children's lives and knowing that those children are being taught to call another man "Daddy." It was very confusing for these children, not something that was their choice and it hurt them, as well as my husband. He's never had a problem sharing his children with their SF, but he most certainly does have a problem being replaced by him. Had it been a situation where their father was NOT a part of their lives, their new SF had adopted them and they loved their SF as if he were their father, then that would be one thing, but that's not the case in my family like it may have been in some of yours. I also refer to my SF as "my Dad" because my own father abandoned his children when he left my mother. In a case like that, I think it's fine, but IF the biological parent has a valid problem with it, then I think the biological parent's wishes should be respected, because they have as much right to decide things for their children as their ex.

"50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.”

In this day and age, there's a 50% chance that first marriages will end in divorce. There's one set of "Mom" and "Dad." If the parents remarry and the children are expected to call their SP's "Mom" and "Dad," then the children now have two "Moms" and two "Dads". And when that second marriage fails? Do you tell the children to stop calling their former stepparents "Mom" and "Dad"? What if there is a third marriage? Do these kids now get three "Moms" and three "Dads"?

I think this is for each family to decide what works best for them, but my vote is for telling children the truth to avoid confusion, to avoid potentially alienating the children's affections from the NCP, to respect the roles of involved biological parents and to eliminate the potential for flip-flopping if/when those second, third, fourth, etc. marriages fail.

♥ Georgia ♥

"Good men don't just happen. They have to be created by us women." (from ROSEANNE)

but I would NEVER want my son to call another woman mommy.

I am the woman who struggled to get pregnant, who was uncomfortable & got up to pee 10 times in the night. I gained the 60lbs ( wish it was someone else, & I struggle to loose it) I am the one who had the emergency c section. I am the one who tried in vain to breast feed, pumping constantly, taking supplements & crying as despite this my milk supply dwindled. I am the one who got up twice each night to feed, change & get him back to sleep. I am the one who 8 months later is sleep deprived still ( he does sleep through the night but is an early riser.

I dreamed of him, wanted him, suffered & sacrificed for him. He is mine & no other woman will EVER love my son as I do. I made him.

My step sons call me by my first name and always will. ( they goof up once in a while & I take that as a complement, because they have said I am like a second mom ) I would NEVER want it any other way. They have a mom, and although she didn't go through quite what I did ( I am almost 40, she was in her early 20's) she has earned that name not me. She has nursed them through illness, encouraged them & will love them in a way that I never will. I love my step sons very much, but my bond is different.

I am lucky though because my BM is basically a good person ( stupid in many ways, drives me nuts at times) BUT she is a good mom. just different than me. She is not crazy, a druggie or unfit.

Shellbell, I think that it is wrong for BM to have allowed you the honor of being called ma & then to try & take it back because she is mad. She is unresponsible ( I remember what you have told us about the beat down by grandma & the breathalizer to drive ) My heart goes out for you, because you are the mom in this little girls life, you are the role model.

The fact that A. IF the Bio parent is in the kids life and B. Is the title forced upon you or not?

My BS is 15 in a few week. He hates his SM, I do not support this, I tell him he must respect her as she is his fathers wife, he does respect her, he still doesn't like her. He stopped seeing his dad by his choice when he was 12, I didn't support this either but it was his choice. His dad didn't fight for it and has call 3 times in 3 years..not really an effort there huh?

BS15 wanted to call my DH dad...DH was happy with that as he loves him and he has little to no contact with his bio dad. DH liked Bio dad also so no malice intended, DH and BS just wanted it that way. I found it very unnatural and didn't really support it but never said much, it wore off in a day or 2 and my son still calls my DH by his first name, had it stuck, I would have dealt with it, it's DH and BS's choice together, not mine.

If my BS did love his SM, I would have loved that, as it made life very difficult that he didn't want to be there. He was always nice to her, but I knew he never wanted to be there, so it was hard for me.

Anyway, just so you could see this from my point of view, it does depend on the situation and the people involved and how they feel. I am very secure with my kids and my love for them and I feel i am a great mum and show my kids how special they are to me everyday. I wouldn't like my BS's to call any other woman mum or mummy because thats me and thats confusing but Ma wouldn't bother me, as long as I knew my kids wanted it and SM wanted it too.
I would have to know the woman did it because she loved my kids not because she wanted some perverse revenge on me.

Catch xx
*Mean People Suck*