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My new husband, Felipe, traveled a lot for work, leaving me to parent my daughter and new stepdaughter. I felt good about my one-on-one time with each of our girls. The trouble emerged when the three of us were in a room together. I struggled with starting a conversation about Felipe that engaged both of them.

Take this simple statement: “Your dad called, he said he misses us.”

Who was I talking to? It sounded as if I had addressed my stepdaughter. What message did that send to my other daughter? Maybe not consciously, but I know that to her, Felipe isn’t “your dad.” She could have thought, Mom’s not talking to me, and she could have stopped listening or contributing. Or maybe in her 7-year-old brain she thought, he doesn’t miss me. He only misses his daughter and my mom.

“Your dad” could leave her feeling left out, or as if she had no claim to this man or this conversation. It went against the feeling that I wanted to foster in our new family.

The other way I could have said it was to just call him by name.

“Felipe called, he said he misses us.” That had the same divisive result. It removed an affectionate title and forced my new daughter to include a mental reference of her dad being called Felipe in her home. Sure, he was called Felipe at work and in other formal circumstances, but not at home. At home he filled a different role.

Social scientists have long understood the role of possessive pronouns in relationships as it pertains to productive communication. “We and our” words set a more collective tone and underscore the bond between two or more people. To say “our family” or “our job” meant that we were in this together and it was going to be O.K.

All I knew was that when I tried to have a conversation with all three of us in the room, it made me uncomfortable. I stumbled over my words. Simple communication had to be strategic. I would look at one daughter and say, “Your Dad,” then turn to the other and clarify, “Felipe,” and then continue, “he called and said he misses us.” Then I would look at each of them again and clarify one more time, “He misses all of us.”

The diplomacy required was exhausting. I didn’t know how to pull out the “mine and yours” from conversation so that I could create a “we and ours” atmosphere of family. The girls spoke easily in terms of “my mom” and “my dad.” The possessive rolled out of their mouths without a thought. Of course it did. Why wouldn’t it? They’ve spoken that way their entire lives at school, during sports and with friends. But this was in our home.

I understood that my girls were very used to not sharing their parent with another child. There must have been some comfort in the ownership. My mom. My dad. These were natural feelings of possession, and it was one of the reasons why our household rules included the protection of one-on-one time. We had hoped that by including the stipulation “between any two members of the household” that a bond would grow and cross the nature lines to include those who also nurtured.

Eventually, I dropped the pronoun. I removed the label, and Dad became Felipe’s name. It didn’t matter if I was speaking individually in a one-on-one conversation with a child or if the three of us were together. The pronoun disappeared. It’s not something I pointed out or discussed. I simply stopped using it.

“Dad called, he said he misses us.”

At first it felt awkward and I had to be conscious of my words at all times. Then naturally, over time, my guard fell away. There was no longer “your dad” and “Felipe.” There was just “Dad.”

No one had to call him Dad or me Mom unless they wanted to. I didn’t pressure either girl to use the words as names instead of as possessions. It’s just what I did, and as I did it, and as time passed, our family emerged and the atmosphere relaxed. We got used to it. So much so that when the plumber came to the house and asked me pass some piece of information on to Felipe, I said, “Thanks, I’ll let Dad know when he calls.”

It may have sounded odd, and I felt a little embarrassed for not catching myself, but in our house his name is Dad.