When Others Assume You're Mom

As I'm sure most stepmoms can attest to, if you're with the child or children, most assume that you're "mom" and this started early on with myself and Makaela.

We were at lunch together, it was on a weekend, so we must have been running errands and stopped for lunch. This was probably about 6-8 months into my relationship with Jason. At lunch the server said casually, “Is Mom okay with that?”, looking at me after Makaela ordered. By this time this had happened quite a few times where someone assumed that I was Makaela’s mom and neither of us said anything to correct the person, because what do you say, and is it really their business? Since it was just her and I, I thought it was a perfect time to have this conversation as I had been throwing around ideas on how to approach the subject, as I felt like I needed to.

So, I started the conversation out something like this: “I’m sorry that I have not been correcting people when they call me your mom, but honestly I just don’t feel the need to as I don’t think it’s anyone’s business that I’m not your biological mom. But, if you would prefer that I correct people when they make the assumption I would be happy to. Just let me know what you're most comfortable with?” She said that she was okay with me not correcting people when they call me mom and agreed that it wasn’t any of their business. I let her know that if there came a time when she wanted me to make that correction to just let me know.

This was about 4.5 years ago and people still make the assumption so much so that at her parent teacher conference this last year (7th grade) the school counselor commented on how much she looked like me. I had to let her know that I wasn’t Makaela’s biological mother but that I took it as a compliment because Makaela is a beautiful little girl. Makaela wasn’t present during this conversation and honestly, now I would feel bad saying I wasn't her mom because I feel like I am her mom. I know that I'm not her biological mom, but I love her like my own and am so proud when someone assumes that I'm her mom.