Why we are doing what we are doing

I decided that since I had a little (small) heated conversation with my brother this morning about us changing Ricky's last name and him calling us mom and dad, I decided that I'd post on my blog why we are doing what we are doing.

So, first off, the name change thingy. This is still up in the air. We are going to let Ricky decide what he wants to do, since it is his name. Right now he said he likes Ricky Barton Johnson. But we'll ask him again when the adoption is offical just to be sure. I was thinking of changing his first name to Richard (still call him Ricky), so that when he is older and if he ever gets a professional type job, he can have a professional sounding name. That idea is still up in the air.

Now, onto calling us Mom and Dad. I know a few family members might not think it is right of us to have him call us Mom and Dad, and that's fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but the beautiful thing about life is that it's our own choice for our own family and pretty soon Ricky will be legally our family, our child. We feel it's important that while Ricky will never forget his real parents, he knows that he has us now. Because in reality his real mom and dad are never coming back. They won't get to be there for him, raise him, teach him values and moral, support him. They can't do that anymore. We have to now. We are the only parental figures he has now. He may be my cousin, but now I am raising him and he is becoming my child. I never knew him before all this, there was no relationship between us before all of this, so it's not weird. It's just the same if I took in a child off the streets and brought him into my home. Everyone would be 100% supportive if I treated this child like my own, had him call me mom and Mark dad, and have him take on our last name. But since he is my cousin I know that some people aren't getting the importance of Ricky feeling like a full fledge member of our family. Not just some kid we are taking care of. We are now all he has in this world as parents. It's important to us that we show him we love him like we love our own kids.

I hope this has brought some light to those who don't really agree with how we are handling this. There's no handbook on what's the right thing to do, right thing to say. I know that other's that have Ricky's brothers don't feel the same way as we do and that is fine. Everyone has the right to handle things the way they feel is right. But as for us, we feel we are doing what is the right thing for Ricky and that's all that really matters.

Thanks for reading!