Foster Teen Who Was Adopted By His Teacher Has People Tearing Up After Revealing How He First Started Calling Her 'Mom'
He's called her by her first name for three years and worried it would be 'awkward' to change it but he finally took the plunge.
Mike Moloney, Marcelo Chagas / Pexels, malven57 / GettyImages, sketchtify via CanvaPro A teenage boy on Reddit is melting hearts after he sought advice from other users about what he should call his new foster mother.
The boy wanted to avoid awkwardness and make his foster mom comfortable and thankfully wound up doing more than she ever expected.
The teenager was adopted by his teacher after years in foster care.
6% of children in the U.S. will find themselves in the foster care system before the age of 18. Some of them are fortunate enough to be adopted before they reach adulthood and experience being part of a permanent family.
One of them was a teenage boy who shared his story on the Reddit forum, r/Advice. The 15-year-old boy revealed that he was placed for adoption at birth by his biological parents.
“I was always in foster homes until I was twelve,” he wrote. It was at that age that his life was forever changed by his homeroom teacher, Janice.
“Janice found out about me being a foster kid and how I wished I had a family,” he shared. “Janice had also been a foster kid growing up and so long story short she then became my foster mom and adopted me.”
The boy calls Janice the “best mom” he could have asked for. “She has been so unbelievably kind and loving to me and I absolutely adore her,” he wrote.
The only problem was the boy was struggling to determine when the right time to call her ‘mom’ was.
For the last three years, he only called her “Janice.” “I want to start calling her mom but have no idea how to without making it awkward,” he admitted. He called on other Reddit users to help him with his dilemma.
The boy is not the only adopted child facing this common struggle.
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Many adoptive families have difficulty determining the right time when a child should refer to their adoptive parents as 'mom' and 'dad.'
This is because there is no “right” time. The timing will be different for each family, depending on the comfort level of both parent and child, how long they have known each other, and whenever they have established that it is okay to refer to the adoptive parents as “mom” and “dad.”
Still, Redditors offered the best advice they could to the teenager. “Ask her for something, and when you get it, say, "Thanks, Mom,’” one user advised.
“You could make it extra special, get her a Christmas gift and write "To Mom, From Your Son" on it,” another user suggested.
“Now matter how you ask her, I think she will be so happy to have you call her ‘mom.’ Even if how you ask her is very awkward, she will still be profoundly moved to know that you want to call her ‘mom,’” another user wrote.
The boy thanked Redditors for their advice and eventually wound up formulating his own plan.
“This morning I went to Janice and said “Good morning Mom,” he shared. Janice’s reaction was everything he could have hoped for.
“She just looked at me and started crying then came over and hugged me and kissed my forehead. I hugged her back and she said I could call her whatever made me comfortable and that she loves me more than anything. I just replied with ‘I love you Mom’” he wrote.
The boy says that he hopes his story will make someone’s day since it has certainly made his!
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.