DEAR HARRIETTE: I started dating a man with a now-6-year-old daughter about two years ago. I was introduced to the daughter eight months in, and everything was going well. Recently, he has been trying to encourage her to call me "Mom." The daughter's birth mother died due to complications with the pregnancy, so I know this is not an intentionally spiteful move, but it still makes me uncomfortable. We're not married, and even if we were, I would not want my children calling anyone else Mom, even if I was deceased.
I worry that bringing this up to my boyfriend may cause unnecessary arguments or make him doubt my commitment to this relationship. Am I making a bigger deal out of this than I need to? How can I talk to him without making this an ordeal? -- Not Mommy Dearest, Oakland, California
DEAR NOT MOMMY DEAREST: You are not wrong to want to move carefully into family mode with this child. You should not be "Mom" until you are "wife" first, in my way of thinking. Honestly, the moniker Mom is even more delicate than wife or husband, because two consenting adults enter into those terms consciously.
Suggest to your boyfriend that you are happy to be important in his daughter's life but that you do not want to be considered Mom until you two are clear on your path, and only if she wants to call you that. Otherwise, you can come up with a neutral love name.
(Lifestylist and author Harriette Cole is president and creative director of Harriette Cole Media. You can send questions to askharriette@harriettecole.com or c/o Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)