How to answer toddler’s tricky query

Dear Amy: I am a young woman and a single mom. My daughter is almost 3 years old and is starting to understand what a family is. She knows a “mama,” a “dada” and a “baby” make a family.

She is extremely smart and has learned this through the TV shows she watches.

I have always dreaded the day when she asks me where her dad is. Now that she is getting older and smarter, I know that day is going to come soon.

How do I respond when she asks me about this?

Any advice from you or other readers who have been in this situation would be very helpful.

Single and Worried

Dear Worried: You don’t say what your specific situation is, but your daughter will learn in nursery school and at the playground that families aren’t only made of mommies, daddies and babies. Sometimes families consist of grandmas, aunts and uncles raising children; two moms (or dads); older siblings caring for younger kids; or single moms and single dads with babies. Age 3 is the perfect age to start pointing this out. You can ask your daughter to help by having her point out animal families and human families.

Ask her to tell stories about families, and you should tell her about her own birth. Make sure to tell her how happy you are to be in her family.

When she asks who and where her daddy is, tell her. If her birth is the result of sperm donation or if she was adopted, explain it in a simple, age-appropriate way. Answer her questions and point out all of the people, including close friends, who are part of her extended family.

In my own life, I have dealt with similar issues and chronicled them in my memoir, “The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town That Raised Them” (Hyperion, 2009).

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Dear Amy: I am astonished by your response to “H.” You suggest it is disrespectful to call a doctor by his/her first name when she/he is calling you by yours!

Why in the world is it disrespectful? The two people involved are equals -- one has knowledge and the other has the money to pay for it.

Seems equal to me. I think it is disrespectful to the patient to be called by a first name without expecting the same in return.

S

Dear S: Most readers agree with you. My instinct has always been that the person with the stethoscope and the credentials calls the shots (so to speak).

Send questions to Amy Dickinson by e-mail to askamy@tribune.com.