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Originally Posted By Anton

I am VERY CLOSE to adopting (maybe by Feb.... HELP!!!!!) Anyway, I know how important it is to want to hear your child refer to you as “Mom” or “Dad”... AND MEAN IT. I’m struggling with and anticipating the same dilemma. I'm 44yo and my to-be son is 12yo. I know that I'm not alone in relating to the significance that holds to you. It can never come too soon.

I've looked at it as the following...
For most of us, we've have no idea of how it would be as a child or adult to be suddenly plunged into a person's house and told "This is your home" (for now). Then a few months or years later told.. "Now this is your home" (for now)... During the course the child may have developed real familial or nurturing bonds with the foster family. That person was in fact, in the child's heart, the mother and/or father. That threatens us. We want to be the most important person in their lives, since we want them so desperately. For most of us, they are the only child we've known. But for them they've had other quasi mothers and fathers.

The conventional wisdom is to allow the child to call you ______, you fill in the blanks for yourself, and in time they will move towards referring to us as “Mom” and “Dad”. It can never come too soon.

I was recently in a department store and saw a white gentleman with his son, who was black. I heard the boy call him "Dad" on several occasions. It was physically obvious that the boy was not a hybrid, but he was indeed the man's son. A mother and father in a function of a relationship, (my economics training jargon coming through) In time, we'll build that relationship and will be blessed by being christen with the very special title.

In time...