Mum at wit’s end as granny keeps deliberately calling baby by a different name
Perhaps you’ve had someone call your child by a different name and good-naturedly overlooked it because accidents happen? Well, what if the someone was your own mother and the different name-calling was not an accident?!
That’s the position one mum found herself in and it’s not an enviable one!
She calls her Candy!
Taking to Mumsnet to vent, this frustrated woman explained her situation.
“My youngest is called Cassia. It’s not hard. My 4 year old calls her Cass or Cassie,” she wrote. So far so good. Except her own mum has rejected her daughter’s name completely. (As if that’s even a THING!)
“My flipping mother says she can’t do “exotic foreign names” and calls her Candy which I HATE!” the woman explains. “I’ve spoken to her about it a billion times (probably an exaggeration but not by much) She laughs it off.”
The mum worries that the granny’s alternative name might actually follow her daughter through life.
“I’m scared it will stick,” she admits, noting that her husband is fed up too and “says he will start calling [the granny] Jelly if she carries on. She tells him not to be so disrespectful.”
At her wit’s end with this alternative name situation, she asked other Mumsnet users for advice.
Quite a few people flagged this “exotic foreign names” palaver as racism (not that Cassia is really that exotic, but still …)
Most agreed that the granny’s behaviour was super controlling and utterly insensitive, and that this situation needed to be knocked on the head quick smart.
Fight fire with fire?
Some branded Candy a “stripper’s name” and suggested that a dose of granny’s own medicine might turn things around.
“Cassia is a beautiful name,” one supportive person wrote. “I think your husband is spot on with his approach. You should both call her Jelly (or whatever – mumsywumsy?!) until she gets your DDs name right. Complaints about disrespect should be reflected back ‘we’ll disrespect you until you stop disrespecting our DD/our choice of name.'”
Others suggested a little third-party intervention, in the form of the woman’s four-year-old.
“The four-year-old is managing just fine. Could she be roped in to ‘help granny learn baby’s name’? Four-year-old gets to feel important. Granny gets shamed, as she should be.”
“It’s incredibly rude and also clearly a power play – she’s trying to hurt you, and to show you ‘who is boss’. I wouldn’t start calling her names because you’d be playing her game,” another forum user wrote. She suggested correcting the granny every single time – or withdrawing time with the child if she continues to call her ‘Candy’.
“Tell your mum to call her by her name or ‘darling’ if she really can’t manage CA-SEE. Or see a speech therapist,” someone else suggested.
Someone else figured a little public shaming might convince the granny to mend her ways.
“Just start calling her ‘Bum’ instead of ‘Mum’ and say it’s hard for you to get it right all the time – loudly….in public,” another mum quipped.