Should I Let My Nephew Call Me Mom? A Caregiver’s Real Experience and Practical Tips
The syrup was dripping down Liam’s elbow as he pushed his toy T-Rex through a pile of chocolate chip pancake crumbs, and I was halfway reaching for the paper towel when he looked up and said, “Mom, can I pass the milk?”
My hand froze mid-air. My husband glanced up from his weather app, our golden retriever stopped begging under the table, and for three whole seconds I couldn’t remember what to say. It had been 18 months since my sister Sarah died, 12 months since I’d become Liam’s full-time caregiver, and this was the first time he’d said the word out loud to me.
I’d seen the hesitation before. He’d catch himself halfway through sentences, switch from “Aunt Lila” to nothing, then start over. I’d wondered when it would happen, but that didn’t make the moment less jolting. I poured the milk anyway, slid the jug across the table, and said “Sure, buddy” just like it was any other question. After he headed out the door for kindergarten, I sat on the couch and called the child therapist Sarah had started seeing right before she got too sick, the one who’d worked with Liam through the last year of appointments.
I rambled through my worries for 10 minutes: Am I doing something wrong? Am I letting him erase Sarah? Should I have corrected him right away? Is this a sign he’s stuck in grief or moving on too fast? She said something that stuck with me immediately, that I’ve repeated to three other foster and kinship caregivers I know since: For a 5-year-old, “mom” isn’t a title that belongs to only one person. It’s a word that means “the person who shows up for all the small, boring, scary stuff every single day.” It’s not disloyalty. It’s how he names safety.
That makes so much sense when you live it. Liam doesn’t just see me on holidays or weekends anymore. I’m the one who pulls thorns out of his knee when he falls off his bike. I’m the one who sits outside the bathroom when he has a night terror after dreaming about Sarah. I’m the one who remembers he hates crusts on his sandwiches and that he wants a shark-themed birthday party this year. Of course the word that means “my person” fits me some days.
I didn’t rush to make a hard rule one way or the other, which is the first thing I tell other people in this spot. If you’re panicking about the same question, the first step isn’t to call a family meeting or post in a parenting group to get 50 conflicting opinions. It’s just to wait, and then ask a casual question when you’re both relaxed, not in the middle of a grocery store or a fight over bedtime. A week after that first breakfast, we were stirring sprinkles into cookie dough for his class party when he called me mom again. I wiped flour off my wrist and said, “Do you like calling me that?” He nodded, stirring so fast flour poofed out of the bowl, and said “Yeah. When you hug me after bad dreams, it feels right. Because you’re here all the time.” I said, “That’s okay with me. And we both know Sarah is your forever mom, right? We can talk about her whenever you want, no matter what you call me.” He said “Duh” and went back to stirring, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
If you don’t want to be called mom, that’s okay too – that’s the second thing I tell people. You don’t owe anyone that title, even a kid who loves you. The trick is to validate his feelings first before you set the boundary, so he doesn’t think his need for safety is wrong. Instead of snapping “I’m not your mom, I’m your aunt!” you can say “I love that you feel so safe with me, that makes me really happy. I love being your aunt, that’s my favorite name for me, okay?” That’s concrete, it doesn’t shame him, and it gets your boundary across clearly.
I’ve had to navigate other people’s comments too, which is another practical thing to plan for. When we went to his first parent-teacher conference back in the fall, he piped up when the teacher called roll and said “That’s my mom!” Instead of correcting him in front of the whole office, which would have embarrassed him and made a big deal out of nothing, I just smiled and said “I’m Lila, his aunt and primary caregiver, it’s nice to meet you.” That acknowledges what he said, it’s honest with the teacher, and no one has to feel awkward.
Last month, we went to the cemetery to bring Sarah daisies, her favorite. Liam brought a dinosaur sticker to put on her headstone, and he stood there for a minute kicking at the grass before he said “Mom Sarah, I scored a goal at soccer practice last week. Aunt Lila cheered so loud she scared the coach.” He didn’t trip over the words. He just said what he meant, and that was that.
I’m 34 now, and I’m pregnant with my first kid, due in the fall. I don’t know what Liam will want to call me once the baby gets here. I don’t know if when he’s older he’ll go back to calling me aunt all the time, or if he’ll stick with mom some days. I used to think I needed a firm answer to this question, that I had to get it 100% right for him or I’d mess up his grief. Right now, we just take it day by day. Some days he calls me Aunt Lila, some days he calls me mom. I don’t correct him either way. It’s not the family I pictured when I was younger, but it’s our family, and that’s enough for right now.
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