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When I found someone to be serious with after my divorce my biggest concern was how he and my children would take to one another.

When you are a single parent, dating takes on an entirely new perspective. You are no longer dating and sharing yourself, you are sharing your most private life that you want to keep safe and protected.

I truly believe that calling a step-parent mom or dad is a personal decision that can only be made by the child. Divorce hurts all who are involved but it hurts us all in different ways. Parents and children are not affected by divorce in the same way, therefore we don't always know how to guide our children through it emotionally. All we can do for them is be loving and supportive.

Each child has his or her own circumstances that help to guide them through divorce and then through the healing process.

I would like to think that there has been a good lapse of time between the divorce and the step-parent for the child to have time to make their own choices and have some healing.
I have two children. My son is the oldest and refuses to call his step-father dad. We are all perfectly okay with that. He knows who is father is and would like to maintain an emotional connection with him. He feels that calling someone else dad would diminish his real father's place in his heart. Not in his life, since his father is ninety-five percent non existent. He openly says that his step-dad is more of a dad than his father but continues to call him by his name. My son was five at the time of the divorce and has great recollection of spending time with his father. because of his age, his memories and his need to feel connected, it is not in his best interest to call his step dad "dad".

My daughter on the other hand calls him dad. She refers to her father as her father. Everyone in her life knows her step-dad as her dad. She was two when we got divorced and really has no memories of time being spent with her father. She holds no emotional connection to him. her step-parent has been in her life longer than her father was in her life. She asked her step-parent if it was okay to call him dad.

It does not take being the one to create a child to love the child as your own. Nor does it take the child refering to you in a specific name to show that they love you. My son openly admits that his step-father is more of a dad than his father ever was or will be. But he also admits that he loves them both. And his dad is his dad. He needs to be respectful of what that means to him.

I believe that we all have people in our lives who have been like parents to us. We all have a biological mother and father but there are others in our lives whose impact goes well beyond biology. A true mentor and mom and dad as you will have it. It is a personal choice to connect with someone in such a way that you wish to call them mom or dad. It is an emotional decision that should never be forced upon a child to make.

What is in the child's heart will come out. As much as they may love and respect their step-parent, they may never choose to call them mom or dad. it should be a right and a privilege to be called mom or dad, not a presumption or rule.

Learn more about this author, Kimberly Lee.
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