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Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers
INLAWs refuse to call my DS by his birth name!
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Anonymous
OP, I don't know what you should do or how you should feel about it. I just wanted to say that my father died unexpectedly one month after my daughter was born 15 years ago and I still miss him. I'm still sad she never got to know him. I can understand why this would be important to you. |
Anonymous
| The point is not whether this is a cute nickname but that the Grandparents are ignoring the OP's request. OP, I think this is a job for your husband. He needs to tell them to stop. They are his parents. |
Anonymous
The child isn't the one who picked this nickname--he's 2! If he decides at age 10 he wants to go by "Drew" or whatever then that's a different story. In this case it is a pair of people who dislike the name and have ignore the OP's requests. They are completely insensitive in this regard. The OP never said her son wouldn't be allowed to pick nicknames for himself in the future. |
Anonymous
| It's funny - I wonder how many of the posters who think this is no big deal have lost a parent whom they were close to. Were it not for that factor, I'd say live and let live. But honoring a beloved parent is important to some of us, and it's equally important to me that others understand or at least try to respect your grief or sense of loss. If I had a child named after my mother, who died just before my first child turned 2, I would take it very, very personally if my inlaws refused to use the name. (We were considering the name for #2, and I was concerned that my psycho-narcissist MIL might get her nose out of joint... but since #2 is a boy the point is moot, except for the dramas she will pitch if she hears we're considering naming him after her husband... sigh...) OP, do you think your inlaws are truly clueless, or is this a power play on their parts? |
Anonymous
| But it seems like the OP is conflating the two issues of the loss of her father and her son. they are two people ! Calling the son a cute nickname is not slapping the deceased father or his memory in the face, its new life, a new person with a differnet relationship. He will always have his formal name that his parents apparently prefer, but let others celebrate him and love him in their own way. I think perhaps OP needs help ( totally understandably) in dealing with her grief, if this issue is so centralto her relationship with her baby and her inlaws and if she somehow thinks that calling a baby by an endearment denigrates her father in any way. |
Anonymous
| Well, I read the OP's first description as upset that the IL's ***never*** used the child's actual name. Using a nickname or pet name every once in a while is one thing - deliberately avoiding the name itself is something different. And it would offend the hell out of me, given the circumstances... |
Anonymous
| OP, have you IL's ever had to introduce Andrew to anyone? I'm curious from the PP's comment if they literally won't EVER use his given name. On that I am in agreement...I think the nickname is fine, but I'd like to know they actually will use his given name if it came to introducing him or making some appointment for him. A lot of people use nicknames, but as I think about it, they don't EXCLUSIVELY use nicknames. |
Anonymous
| My in-laws don't acknowledge my child's hyphenated last name --- all cards/gifts are sent to her with their last name only. I feel your pain. |