Woman tells ex-husband, 'Tell MY daughter to stop calling your wife mommy.' AITA?
When this woman wants to put a stop to her daughter's loving relationship with her stepmom, she asks Reddit:
"AITA for not wanting to let my 5 yo daughter get closer to her stepmom?"
My 5 year old daughter spends every weekend with her dad. We weren’t together for long after she was born. 2 years ago he got married and has a son with the woman. It came to my attention that for the last while my daughter has been calling her step mom mom or mommy.
I think it’s because their son has started to speak and it’s probably something she hears. I asked my ex to put an end to this because it’s really hurtful to me and she already has two parents.
My ex thinks it’s unfair to my daughter and that I’m not putting her first. The step mom loves it and doesn’t want to correct her.
Let's see what readers thought.
romancebookworm writes:
Soft YTA. From the perspective of the former child of parents who divorced and remarried early in my life (7), the child knows who’s who. I understand why you feel the way you do. But this is more about your insecurity than it is actually about your daughter calling her stepmom “mom.”
My mom remarried when I was 7 and my brother was 8. We called my stepdad “dad.” My dad felt the same as you, but his mother told him the same thing others are telling you.
He got over it when he realized it was beneficial to us to have 2 dads. We had an extra set of grandparents, cousins, etc. We were lucky to have 2 dads growing up.
Let your daughter have this. Maybe compromise and have her use “momma” for her stepmom? If not, if she still uses mom or mommy, that’ll be ok too. She knows who is who. As we got into our teen years, we started calling my dad “pop” and my stepdad was still “dad.”
adaprehensive disagrees:
NTA. I had a similar thing happen with my kids. That was a hard no for me and I was raised by my step mom. I have a Mom she’s not much of one but I still don’t call the only Mother figure I’ve had for 35 years Mom.
Now my childs step mom literally will act as if she’s their mother and I somehow just laid them somewhere for her then left. Her and my ex husband act like I am a surrogate and I mean in the most delusional manner even though I am 100% in my child’s life. She will refer to herself as his actual Mom/ parent and has no boundaries.
kikithreat writes:
I'm a divorced child whose parents not only married early but my dad also had kids with his new wife (I was 5 when my sisters where born and 6 when he married her).
When my sisters started to talk they called their mother by her name because my brothers and I did it. I lived with my dad at that time so they asked me to call my dad's wife mom for the sake of the bond between her and her kids. I did it, for years.
I don't know if my mom knew actually but I know that I was lucky to have my dad's wife in my life. I had two moms growing up and it was great. At some point I stopped calling her mom on my own accord (which, after a slip up in early teens, also came from her as "your sisters are older now, they know the difference").
My mom was a different story, not only because I'm her last child since she got her tubes tied but also because she needed a while to find the right man who I occasionally call dad (I'm 30 by the way) since he put up with my middle and late teen years and still loves me and my brothers.
Let your daughter decide what her relationship with step-mom should look like. Especially because it seems that it was her initiating it? You're her parent and as long as you don't play stupid games it won't change.
Don't push her to stop with the mom calling, don't comment on it and start to defend her choice when others are criticizing her.
When you have a new husband and she's gonna call him dad you will be over the moon and think, most likely, nothing of it.
The dad spot didn't magically moved or opened up but your daughter decided that she was place for more than one dad in her life and the same is happening now. She has an extra mom and not replaced you. Try to remember that OP. Soft YTA.
shadowcon writes:
Soft YTA. Your ex's wife is a parental figure in their household and it makes perfect sense that, if your daughter is close with your ex AND his wife and her half-brother is calling his mother that, she would feel comfortable enough with referring to her as mom too.
At the end of the day, your daughter doesn't have only two people taking up the parental roles; she has three. This is a moment of you being insecure and you need to remember that you're not any less 'mom' to your daughter just because her father's wife is also 'mom' to her.
You've gotta work through whatever it is inside of you that's making you feel that way instead of asking your ex to enforce a trivial proverbial barrier between his current wife and your daughter. Your feelings are hurt, but nobody's doing anything wrong, so the issue is yours to overcome.
frostyfins writes:
NTA for feeling the way you do. Feelings aren’t rational or logical, and they are important. But you can choose to act in various ways and you can process and deal with your emotions to resolve conflicts that hurt you and aren’t hurting others. Edit: YTA if you don’t mend your ways, though!
If it helps, my parents had an early divorce, and my stepdad came onto the scene when I was about three, and my first brother by him arrived when I was four. I was too young to remember when I started calling my stepdad “dad”, but I do.
I just have two dads, that’s all. The only people who find that confusing are acquaintances-becoming-friends who might have trouble reconciling stories when they don’t know there may be two different people involved. Oh, and “Jimmy” from Kindergarten thirty years ago, he really struggled with me having two dads. I hope he’s ok now.
Honestly, it’s nearly impossible to raise a kid perfectly and it’s more stressful and less affordable now than at any other time in recent memory. Distribute that load across three people if you can!
A kid raised by a network of loving family is gonna be way better off than a kid raised by people trying to stake ownership claims to their kid’s affections. Our hearts can make enough love to make sure everyone gets enough!