Mom is furious when her husband takes MIL's side over strange parenting issue. UPDATED 2X
When this mom is frustrated with her husband and MIL over a parenting conflict, she asks the internet:
"My MIL wants my toddler to call her Mama. My husband's response is questionable. What should I do?"
My husband and I have a 17 month old son, who is our first child and the first grandchild on both sides of the family. My mother in law spent a lot of time thinking of her grandmother name and eventually decided on “Mama”
This makes me uncomfortable as I am my son’s mama, it feels like it’s being taken from me and I don’t want to share the title of mama with a grandparent.
I’ve expressed to my husband several times since his mom chose this name that I’m uncomfortable with it, and his response has been unequivocally that I am being unreasonable and I have to get over it.
To further complicate the issue, our son has a pretty significant speech delay (he’s not speaking at all), and his speech therapist mentioned this week that he needs consistency and calling his grandmother mama will be detrimental to his language development.
It also further increases the importance of the word mama to me— when he finally says it to me, it will be such an incredible moment that signifies all the long & hard work I’ve put into helping him grow and develop his speech.
Even after bringing the speech concern up to my husband, he still thinks I’m unreasonable, and I’m on my own if I want to cause an issue with his mother. At this point, this is the most upsetting part, that I’ve expressed my feelings repeatedly and he completely dismisses them and doesn’t have my back.
I want to speak to my MIL about it when I see her in person next, but I’m terrified of potentially blowing up our relationship and being left all on my own as the crazy daughter in law without my husband to back me up.
Am I being crazy here? (For reference, his family is not Hispanic or from the Southern US (or anywhere similar) where a grandparent Mama is more common/accepted.
He called one of his grandparents Mama— it must have not bothered my MIL, which is great for her, but obviously we are different people and I have my own feelings on the matter. I also am already in therapy for my people-pleasing tendencies and we have couples therapy sessions as well)
Edit: Thanks for the replies and giving me the courage to have this convo with my MIL. Confrontation is so hard for me but I’m going to do my best.
My relationship with my MIL is otherwise great and I love her a lot. She’s not the overbearing type at all so this is totally out of left field. Yes, she wants it pronounced like regular mama (not mawmaw or memaw).
I have overheard her babbling mamamama to my son and explicitly saying “I want him to say my name first.”
She’s bought mama apparel and mama jewelry and other such things that I have thought are clearly meant for new mothers. It’s overall wildly inappropriate imo and I’m so confused where this is coming from, but I will set the boundary that this isn’t okay.
The larger issue is that this is just another instance in a marriage where I don’t feel my feelings are respected. It’s exactly what I’m in therapy for, learning to build my confidence and self-esteem and how to stand up for myself.
(My therapist agrees with me that this is a reasonable boundary btw, but I entirely shut down the idea of confronting MIL at the time because I was too scared. I’ve made a lot of progress since then though and feel more ready now.)
Getting confirmation here that I’m not crazy gives me the last push of confidence I needed, but I’m really sad that my husband doesn’t see it this way at all. I want a life partner who is my cheerleader and supporter, who is proud of me for making these changes & setting boundaries for the first time in my life, and it hurts that I don’t have that.
Typing this all out has helped clarify why I feel the way I do, and I’ll be talking some more with my husband before the convo with my MIL. I may show him the comments here if I have to. Thank you for confirming I’m not crazy!
Before we give you OP's updates, take a look at some comments:
Automatic_Gazelle_74: First you're not being crazy. The professional speech therapist advise against it. Have you told your mother-in-law what is recommended? Granny is not mama you are.
She is being unreasonable. You mention you are in therapy for people pleasing tendencies. Time to put some of what you have learned to work. Time to tell the marriage counselor your husband has no backbone with his mother.
tnannie: MILs don’t get to CHOOSE mama as their name against the mothers wishes. And weak husbands should not be allowing it. If he doesn’t get his act together and rein her in, she will continue to overstep and he will continue to let her.
You’re not overreacting. This is the hill I would die on. Stand up for yourself firmly. “This is unacceptable. I will not allow it. You fix it or I will. But if I have to do it, you won’t like how I do it.”
The problem with people pleasing is everyone gets to be happy except you. No one cares if you light yourself on fire to keep them warm. If your therapist doesn’t back you up, find a new one.
gadey writes:
MILs don’t get to CHOOSE mama as their name against the mothers wishes. And weak husbands should not be allowing it. If he doesn’t get his act together and rein her in, she will continue to overstep and he will continue to let her.
You’re not overreacting. This is the hill I would die on. Stand up for yourself firmly. “This is unacceptable. I will not allow it. You fix it or I will. But if I have to do it, you won’t like how I do it.”
The problem with people pleasing is everyone gets to be happy except you. No one cares if you light yourself on fire to keep them warm. If your therapist doesn’t back you up, find a new one.
gahawi writes:
Absolutely not. NO, NOPE, HELL NO, NEVER. NOPE!!!!!!!! YOU ARE HIS MAMA!!!! NOT THE GRANDMA!!!
my MIL did the whole “i need to figure out what the kids will call me” bullshit too. She settled on mommom. Well, my mom is mommom, Mil knew this, she also knew that my moms mom was mommom and her mom was mommom, so on.
The name is extremely sentimental and means so much to me, as my mommom was my absolute best friend, god rest her soul, and now my mom gets to be mommom to my kids.
My MIL had never even heard mommom before me saying it was my moms “name” instead of grandma. She chose it, thinking I would go along with it. When she finally told me she had come up with her “name” and was SO excited to tell me, she said “mommom” and i initially laughed...
thinking she was joking. she asked me why i was laughing and i said because must be joking if you think my children are going to call you by that name. she had the audacity to ask why, and i said because my mom is mommom...
and if you refer to yourself as such in my kids presence, i will simply remove myself and my children and they won’t be around you until you refer to yourself as what you are, GRANDMA.
needless to say, she’s “grammy” now, and she never barked up that tree again. I will add, my husband had my back every step of the way! and also told his mother if she even uttered that name in reference to herself, she wouldn’t be allowed around our children.
Your husband is a selfish. Ask him how r would feel if another man called himself “dada” to your son!!!
side note - my MIL was an abusive, raging alcoholic and my husband grew up in an extremely abusive household due to her excessive drinking. she is thankfully sober now and we have a much better relationship!
And now, OP's 1st updates (1 year later):
I posted last year about my MIL choosing “Mama” as her grandmother name, how wildly inappropriate I find it, and how my husband thinks I’m overreacting and doesn’t have my back.
He eventually told her that she needed to choose a new name as I am mama in my son’s speech therapy sessions… and their solution is that her name is now “Mama Jo” (mama [first name])
I have overheard her say “I want him to say my name first,” “I don’t want to give up mama because he’s going to say that before any other name,” etc. multiple times.
I feel like I’m living in crazy town and am going insane. This new name is literally not any different whatsoever, especially considering the justification of why she wants to be “Mama” so badly.
When my toddler finally does say mama (he’s 2 but speech delayed and can’t make the m sound yet) it’s going to be for me— his mother— and me exclusively!
I’ve given up on trying to convince my husband to get on my side. I’m going to speak to my MIL directly next time I see her in person, but it’s going to be a big blowup and I’m really upset my husband still cannot see why my feelings are hurt by this— I think more than anything else this has become a massive marriage issue between us.
He has a habit of often invalidating my feelings and telling me I’m overreacting (and to be fair I am a very sensitive person) but this situation has proven to me that even if I’m being the most reasonable person in the world, he still will consider it “overreacting.”
I’ll finally stand up to my MIL myself, but I just wish my husband had my back. Editor's Note: It is likely OOP added the edit a few days after the update.
EDIT: An actual update and an end to this saga, “Mama Jo” is now Nana. My husband messaged her saying the speech therapist says she needs to pick a new name,
I followed up with a video chat saying that it’s not really about the speech therapy, it’s about me & how I feel about it— and she was totally understanding. So, problem finally solved, it just took me two years to grow a spine.
As far as the comments calling for divorce, blaming me for being in an awful marriage, etc— yes I’m aware of my massive self esteem issues. Thank you for lighting a fire under my butt to at least resolve this finally.
I’m in lots of therapy to undo my people pleasing personality, I’m a major work in progress. We’re in marriage therapy to navigate the issues that have come up after 15 years of me sweeping my feelings under the rug. This is hard, but I am trying my best.
Relevant Comments
RO489: That’s crazy. Makes me think you both might be able to unpack how his mom’s narcissism impacts how he reacts to you. Does his mom diminish his feelings?
OP: Now that you mention it, I’m immediately reminded of the period of time when we lived with my in laws, and the way my MIL spoke to his sister during arguments was nearly verbatim the same way he diminishes my feelings.
It was a huge lightbulb moment for me at the time when I realized he was just copying what was modeled to him, and I’ve totally forgotten about it until now.
I can’t think of a single time he’s ever had an issue personally with his mom in the 15 years we’ve been together but he also never talks about his feelings and keeps everything inside so that’s another problem in and of itself.
RO489: So he’s the golden child and that’s probably a different dynamic to work through.
OP: You may be onto something here, his brother has also (relatively recently, as an adult) had arguments with his mother so bad that he was NC with my in laws for a bit.