Blended Family Series: Why My Children Call My Husband By His First Name

I’ve done a number of articles on Blended Families. Recently one of my Facebook followers asked me why my children do not call my husband Daddy after I had posted some pictures on Father’s Day.

On Father’s Day, Nino blessed the children with ten pounds notes each to buy themselves treats, and after a while, my daughter Fadzi got fed up with holding the money and was like “Here is your money back Nino, I don’t need it anymore.”

So someone asked me, why doesn’t Fadzi call Nino Uncle instead of referring to him by name, that’s not right. I think its a fair question. In African culture, it’s an abomination to call a Father by name, or just an adult in general. Here in the UK, African children are taught to say, Uncle or Auntie to friends of their parents as a gesture of respect.

But Nino is not Fadzi’s uncle, he is not a family friend who drops by, he is her father. He raised her since she was a baby.

But why call him Nino, not Daddy

When Nino came into my life, after he had actually prayed for God to give him a single mother, and I had prayed for a Boaz to take away my reproach, Nino told me that he doesn’t want the children to call him “Daddy” but would rather be called Nino because the children would warm up to him better as a friend. He also said if he was to have his own biological children, they would call him Nino too, because he didn’t want his own children to refer to him differently than the other children. He said they were all his children, and to him he was just Nino, and if they will ever call him Dad, they will do out of their own free will.

I never taught baby Fadzi to say Daddy. In fact her first words to him was Nina. But when she was about 2 years old, we took her to a playgroup, and she went up to one of the staff and said, “My mummy and Daddy”, pointing to us. That was the first time she ever called Nino Daddy, out of her own free will as he had wished, because it was him who had ever done all the things for her that only a Daddy can do.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by HRH Fadzai May Offeh (@fadzai_mae_offeh)

I remember this one day when Fadzi was so little, Nino had taken her to the park and her legs were covered in mud, he took a pot and went to the back garden and started washing her feet. It was such a beautiful moment, I captured it.

Now, at 5 years old, she will call him Nino at home, but when he drops her at school every morning, she kisses him and says “Bye Dad”. When she’s around strangers, she wants them to know that’s her Daddy. And Nino always finds it touching when she honours him in public and says,”Daddy.”

Then for Charo and Chaka, his two biological children, he never taught them that he was Daddy either, they call him Nino like all the other children, but when Charo is crying or upset, she calls him Daddy. Even Chaka, who is only 2 calls him Daddy when he’s being cheeky and he starts laughing, he has a crazy sense of humour.

Then Nakai , my 16-year-old daughter will say “Thank you Dad” when he buys her something.

She will write “Dad” in her birthday and Father’s day cards to him. The boys too, they will only call him Dad in cards, or when they are talking to their friends.

I’ve heard them on the phone say, “My Dad this, my Dad that.”

I think that’s the most beautiful thing ever, when a man earns the title of Father, not because he is a sperm donor, but because he is actually a father in every sense.

My ex-husband has always said that when my children grow up, they will look for him because he is their blood and that will never change. But blood has always been overrated. He chose to abandon them when they needed him the most, and another man stepped in the pick up the pieces he left broken and he mended every crack. That is what a father does. So when my boys are grown, their father will always be Nino. When Nakai is of age and is getting married, it is Nino who will give her away.

The one whom they were actually taught to say “Daddy” is not their father, but a stranger. The one whom they call by name is their Father.

Nino has been a living testimony to my children, because like our heavenly Father, he adopted them and they, in turn, gave him the honour of being their Daddy, even though to all of them, he is still just NINO.

The Genesis Of The Revelation By

Mary-Tamar was Jean