Mom? Dad? Foster parents, what do your foster kiddos call you?

MrsSaltine · September 2011

My husband and I were discussing this the other day, and I automatically assumed that our foster kiddos will call me mom (assuming they are old enough to talk) and Mr. Saltine dad. After talking about it though, it's making me wonder, what do your foster kids call you?

Mrs. Saltine

mamatojts · September 2011

The little ones will instinctively call you Mommy and Daddy because you will be their primary caregiver. BPs most of the time don't care for it, but it can be explained to them why the little ones do it. The older ones will most likely call you whatever you prefer they call you. "Miss First Name"/First name, not so formal like a teacher setting. The 10 year old we had called us by our first names for the first 6 months she lived with us, the last 12 months she called us mom and dad.

butterflygrooves · September 2011

The little girl we are adopting calls us Mom and Mommy. The baby doesn't call us anything yet but he recognizes us as Mama and Mom.

ctbride08 · September 2011

We left it up to the children (well, at the time only 1 spoke). We introduced ourselves as 'Miss Firstname' but by the end of the first day of placement, he had switched it to "mommy firstname". Now that they've been with us for so long (almost 2 years), its mostly mommy/mama, but when he needs to distinguish, he will go back to the mommy first name.

bhead81 · September 2011

I am still in the process of being certified for FC but know several FPs. Each child situation is a little different and I have seen them called "auntie or uncle", "mom first name" or just first name. If the child is old enough my agency recommends talking to them and see what they would like to call you.

jenn5-26-07 · September 2011

I have a hard time with fps being called Mom/Dad if there is no intention of adopting should that become an option...

Our children were with the same family for 2 yr before coming home so we could adopt them. They called that couple Mommy Firstname and Daddy Firstname... Using these names made the transistion to us being mom/dad MUCH harder. That foster family saw our difficulties with the transition and have since started having their placements call them grandma/pa (which, age wise, is more appropriate anyway.)

I would not ask a fc to call us mom/dad but if they started doing it on thier own because there were other kids in the house, that would be one thing. But if that child is going to be adopted by someone else, I would start having that child call me by something else as soon as that family has been identified.

As far as what our placements call us- by our firstnames. our first placement was 11 when we got him- because he is on the spectrum he would never initiate calling us mom and dad. Our next 2 placements was/is teenage girls. They both primarily call us firstnames. occasionally call us mom/dad when they want something.

I honestly don't know what the right answer is... I can see both sides of the coin.

MrsSaltine · September 2011

Jenn - I can definitely see this. We are planning on fostering 0-4, which in our state requires us to agree to concurrent planning, so if they are not reunited with their family we will adopt them.

I had thought about having them call me Auntie Saltine, since that's what my friends' kids call me and I have a million nieces and nephews, but I wasn't (and still am not, however I like the Mommy Saltine/Daddy Saltine thing since it works if they reunite or if we adopt them, in which case the Saltine can be dropped) sure about having them call me that since there is the chance that we might adopt them.

We do not have any other children, so they will be the only in the house.

I know it's an odd thing to worry about, but this has been one of my bigger worries recently, mainly because this is such a new thing for us. Thank you all for your responses!

Ashleyyyyy · September 2011

DH and I have custody of our niece and she calls us Mommy and Daddy. We got her when she was 18mo and we tried for several months to get her to call us Auntie and Uncle, but it never stuck. Now that we're proceeding towards adoption, we just let her call us Mom and Dad.

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