A mother says her mother-in-law refuses to have anything to do with their family because of her baby’s ‘offensive’ and ‘hurtful’ name.
The 28-year-old mom gave birth to a baby girl in September and everything is going well except for the unbelievable conflict with her MIL.
“My mother-in-law is upset with my husband and I over the middle name we have chosen for our daughter. She is offended, hurt and can’t let it go,” she wrote on Reddit.
“The chosen middle name, “Anne”, happens to be an homage to my own grandmother. When we announced to the MIL in May that we were calling our baby girl “Fiona Anne”, she got immediately upset.
“Anne was the name of someone in her past who she was deeply hurt and betrayed by, and I guess she still holds onto that grudge. She said she would be just as hurt if we went along with our plan to include Anne in our daughters name.
“At the time I was very pregnant and pissed off and sassy, and I pretty much told her she’d have to get over it, and be excited for new context to be added to the name. And that was that… until my daughter was born.”
She continued: “Now she will not talk to us. She has blocked my number. When I try to text her baby pictures, they are never “delivered”. She has been talking to people close to us about how hurt she is. She will not directly address this with us, but we have heard from my brother and sister in laws that my MIL is beside herself over this.
“She thinks I chose the name on purpose as some kind of a power move, or slight to her, which is just not true. All I wanted was to include my grandmothers name in my daughters name because that’s always been important to me.”
One person commented: “It’s a middle name, for heaven’s sake. Your MIL has the association, not you or your husband (I assume). If she’s willing to throw away a relationship with her grandchild and her son because of a name association, she’s got some seriously disordered thinking.”
Another wrote: “If the MIL throws a tantrum over this, think of all the parenting choices OP will make that some MIL won’t like.”
A third said: “I get a sneaking suspicion that MIL was expecting the baby to be named after her and at least part of her tantrum is due to that.”
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