Terms like “mom” and “dad” can mean different things to different people, and that’s especially true in cases of adoption or guardianship.

This story from Reddit deals in the former, but from the perspective of a birth mother who gave her child up.

This is never an easy situation, so buckle up.

AITA For telling my biological son to stop calling me “Mom”?

So long story short: when I (40F) was a teenager I had a baby and gave him up for adoption.

She made a difficult choice but did so with a way for her son to contact her later if he desired.

I did this through and agency and one of the stipulations of the contract required the adoptive parents to provide my contact information to him after he was an adult so that if he ever wanted to contact me, he could.

Sure enough, 18 years later I get a letter in the mail and he wants to meet.

He took her up on the opportunity to connect as soon as he became a legal adult.

I said yes and his Mom flew with him to meet me in my state.

Her referring to his adopted mom as Mom will come into play later in the story.

We had a great visit and it was amazing getting to know the great young man he grew up to be.

We have kept in contact over the last couple years, I let him meet my kids and let him form a brotherly bond with them.

Then he started calling me Mom…

And here is when the conflict arrived.

It feels weird to me for him to call me that and it feels disrespectful to his Mom who I think is amazing to be so forthcoming and supporting of him having a relationship with me and my family.

I really didn’t want to hurt him, but I explained my feelings to him about a week ago and I haven’t heard from him since.

While it is common for us to go for long periods of time without talking, I have a feeling that this particular bout of silence is due to him being upset and I am feeling guilty about it.

Did she do something wrong by being honest about her feelings?

The commenters on Reddit are mixed.

Top comment says she didn’t do anything wrong, but she should probably check in with the kid and explain some things.

The way things were left might be confusing to the young man, says this comment.

The other side of the coin: though she didn’t do anything wrong, she could have handled this conversation – and the bonding leading up to it – much better.

There’s clearly a lot of pain to work through, says this commenter.

Another person chimes in with the perspective that it’s important to factor in the feelings of the person who gave up the child, too.

This commenter feels for the birth mother, but worries she might be setting the kid up for failure later.

A difficult situation for all involved, and probably one that would benefit from multi-family counseling.

It hurts your heart!

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.