A word choice question

[awanderingbard]

This is a bit of an odd question, but I've grown up surrounded by couples who have never been divorced, or lost a partner and remarried, so I don't really know how people refer to their step-parents in relationship to the parent they are married to.

I have two characters with step-parents: Alec, whose dad is remarried and whose mum is not, and Sarah, whose parents are both remarried. So, if those characters were to refer to visiting their parents, would they be likely to say 'my parents' or 'my mum and step-dad/my dad and step-mum'. Would it depend on how they viewed their parents? Alec sees his step-mum more as a mother than he would see his own mum as his mother, whereas Sarah's parents divorced late in life, so she was raised by them both. I suppose it would be a personal choice, but I'm trying to be realistic. It seems clumsy to have to specify, but perhaps that's one of the complications of being a child of divorced parents.

Comments

[frozen_delight]

Just wanted to add my two cents and say that I also think it's the most common for the children to refer to their mother's/father's new partner by his/her first name.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is also a good point. Thank you! I love how I can get answers in minutes when I post random questions at midnight. Thank you, loyal readers.