If you have step children, is that how you introduce them to others?

I was adopted as an infant but never referred to as such, at least when I was present.

I can’t imagine a positive reason for publicly making the distinction.

Exactly.

That seems like some pre-70s thing. I am well aware of it, but of all the situations I know of, no one uses that term anymore unless they are being ass-hats. Thank goodness we’ve moved beyond that.

My dad had 2 children from another marriage. When he died, they were listed in the paper. A lady in the neighborhood came up to my mom at the funeral and said “I didn’t realize you had so many children. And in that tiny house.” My mom just walked away from her.
There doesn’t seem to be any need to distinguish the difference.

My step-father refers to me as his daughter, and I refer to him as my dad. I call him by his first name when speaking to him, though.

Why do you call him by his first name? My husband’s 30-something year old daughter still calls him “Daddy.”

As my child. I come from a blended family. My mother always tries to exclude my stepfather’s kids from family gatherings. It drives me nuts. We all get along great. Why she can’t I can’t figure out.

Insecurity would be my guess @Adirondackwannabe.

I can actually think of some reasons not to introduce someone who wasn’t “original” to the family by the accepted name. My dad’s wife, for example. I have never called her my step mother. She’s only 8 years older than me, and it would feel weird. She has been nothing LIKE a mother to me. Not saying she’s mean, she doesn’t know what it’s like even to be a mother because she’s never been one.

I introduce my husband’s grown daughter as his daughter, not my step daughter, because I didn’t have a hand in raising her, at all. Our kids don’t refer to each other as “half sisters/brothers” because they didn’t even meet until they were grown.

I didn’t think of this until now, and realized I should have specified younger children who were an active part of a family.

@Dutchess_III It’s just what I’ve always called him. I never saw any need to change that, and it doesn’t bother him that I call him that. He’s been around since I was 3 and he knows I love him and consider him my father, so what I call him really make no difference. I now refer to my biological father as “the donor.”

I live in the South, so quite a few of my adult female friends call their fathers “daddy.” Now, I have nothing against “dad,” “pop,” etc., but “daddy” has always made me uncomfortable when used by an adult for some reason. I’m from Chicago, so that may be why, but it’s most likely just a weird thing I have about that word. It just strikes me as vaguely sexual, no matter what the tone. I’ve never used that word in a sexual way myself (that’d be even more uncomfortable), but I always think of it in that, “ooh, daddy, I’ve been a baaaad girl” type of way.

“Daddy” makes me uncomfortable to (from the Midwest here) coming from an adult. It just feels..icky. I don’t know why.

Also, PS. My kids and grandkids DO call my dad’s wife “Gramma Kathy,” and my mom was “Gramma Henson.”

“This is my son, X, and F’s son, Y.”

My kids had two parents and two step-parents. My step-sons had two parents and a step-mother (me). The language never bothered anyone.

All the kids referred to each other as their brothers and sister.

My kids also have a step-brother who is the son of their father’s second wife. Additionally they have a half-brother, the son of their father and a girlfriend he hooked up with between marriages.

No one ever seemed to care when we used accurate nomenclature.

If the kids are grown, it is different. But when a kid is younger, like my daughter was at that family reunion, and actually an active part of the family, it can hurt. It hurt her anyway.

My husband is a stepfather but no one has ever referred to him as that. He’s just dad.
It may have been different if their bio dad had been around, I don’t know.

Adopted children and step children are two completely different things. I think it is awful to single out adopted children.

Step children; I would leave it up to the child how they prefer to be introduced. They might not want to be called the children of their stepfather or stepmother, because it might feel to them their own mother or father is not being acknowledged. Or, they might not want to be called step children when being introduced as a child in the family no matter which parent they are with.

@livelaughlove21 I am not sure why daddy came up, but many of my Jewish friends use mommy and daddy, most are from up north. Not stepparents, stepparents I think using the first name is very normal.

My step-sons were adults by the time I met and married their father. I usually introduce them like this: “This is Mark’s son, <insert name here>”. But I do call them “my step-son(s)” when referring to them with other people (like, “My step-son is a personal trainer.”)

If they were kids, I’d have asked them how they wanted to be introduced. As @JLeslie mentioned, some children would want the “step” part acknowledged.

For adopted children, I’d never make a distinction. That’s just crazy.

Well, my daughter was a step daughter and I adopted her. She was 18 months old when I came in to her life.

@Dutchess_III Then she is no longer a step-child.

Yes she is, technically. The definition of a step child is the child of one’s spouse.

@Dutchess_III She is both a step child and an adopted child technically, but once adopted nothing should matter before that. She is your child whether she was born from you or not. If I adopted a child I would introduce her as my child period. Possibly in conversation with certain people it would come up how she came to be mine, but in introductions she would be my child same as any biological children, no other clarification is necessary. Adopted children don’t want to feel like they are second class to natural born children.

I never made any distinction either. It pissed me off when people did. Like, “Why are you so worried about it? She isn’t even your child!” WHAT?????!!!!!!

@Dutchess_III Those other people are idiots. They need to stop and put themselves in your place and the place of your child.

It was long ago, when she was little.