Stepmothers often get put in a bad light. Perhaps that’s due to stereotypes of stepmothers in movies, but it seems that stepchildren are truly lucky when they have a stepmother they actually like.
In today’s story, a stepdaughter loves her stepmother so much that she wants to call her “mum.” Now this request is causing a lot of family drama.
Let’s see how the story unfolds…
So I feel like there’s a lot of context to be given here.
I (30F) married my husband Kieran (32M) five years ago.
We dated for three years prior to getting married & he had a daughter Rosie (currently 12F) from a pervious relationship. I’ve known her since she was 5.
Rosie is closer to her dad than her mom.
Kieran has always had the majority of custody over her as her mother has dealt with numerous addictions through her life and as such, she comes to see her daughter maybe once every six months.
She’s honestly a nice woman but she’s just faced a lot of issues in her life – and much of the decision to let Kieran have custody was her own.
Three years ago, Kie and I had our first child (currently 3M).
It was a little while after this that Rosie came to talk to me and asked me if it would make me uncomfortable if she called me mum.
Here’s OP’s perspective on being called “mum” by Rosie…
I know that I’m not the woman that birthed her and that biologically, I’m not her mum, but I was okay with it if that was what she wanted to call me – because the love that I feel for her is very much motherly.
I’d never talked to her about it before this point and she always called me by my name, I wanted to give her the space to talk to me about it if she ever wanted to or if she didn’t.
My main concern was always what she was comfortable with.
I talked to Kie about it later and he said the same thing, that he didn’t really care as long as both Rosie and I were okay with it.
Rosie’s birth mom is furious at OP!
Last night was one of the nights that Rosie’s mum had pre-organised to see her as it’s her birthday soon, and so Rosie went off with her mum for dinner and it was all good.
When they got back later, Riley asked if she could talk to me and so I said yes (figuring it was probably about Rosie) and she basically got very angry that I had told Rosie it would be okay for her to call me mum, went off on one saying that I’m not her mum, that I’ve got my own kid and I can back off trying to play happy family with Rosie.
I told her that I understood I hadn’t birthed her but that it was Rosie’s choice.
OP is wondering if she was wrong to let Rosie call her “mum.”
Riley kind of stormed out after, and I understand why she’s upset; but considering that Rosie came to me on her own terms and asked I don’t see how I’m the problem.
That being said I can understand how much it would hurt her mum, but I just don’t see how it could be a bad thing for three adults to love her so much instead of two.
Rosie was upset about the situation but didn’t want to talk to me about why.
AITA? Should I have dealt with the whole situation differently?
That’s a tricky situation. It seems like Rosie’s mom is really upset at Rosie wanting to call OP “mum.” That’s the real issue. She’s probably jealous that OP is so close to Rosie.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…
I completely agree with this assessment of the situation…
They actually are a happy family.
Riley is being selfish.
It should be about what Rosie wants.
Here’s the perspective of a mom…
Riley seems to regret not being a better mother.
If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.
