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I hate the nickname my son’s classmates have adopted. How can I get them to stop?
I love my 7-year-old son’s name, “Andrew,” but I hate the nickname “Andy.” When we named him “Andrew” we agreed to only use the long version and never the nickname. Until this year everyone has called him “Andrew.”
We moved over the summer, and somehow he has become “Andy” in his new school! I’m not sure how it happened, but after participating in a recent classroom event, it’s clear everyone is calling him Andy (kids, teachers, other parents). It has even spilled over into Little League.
My son doesn’t care whether people call him Andrew or Andy. I spoke to him about correcting people when they call him the wrong name, and we’ve practiced what he should say, but he is not an assertive kid, and I doubt he is correcting people often.
I made an appointment with the teacher to discuss the situation. She apologized and said that she would call him Andrew and speak with the “specials” teachers to make sure that they call him Andrew as well. She said she would make one class announcement, but that otherwise she will not correct students for calling him Andy.
As you can imagine, this has been totally ineffective. All the kids are still calling him Andy. I made another appointment with the teacher, but she was not helpful. She said that Andrew never objects to being called Andy and sometimes even introduces himself as Andy (I don’t know whether or not this is true). To me, this is irrelevant. He is 7 years old, I am his mother, and I get to decide what people call him. She is not willing to correct the other students in the moment when they call him Andy. I would like to take this matter to the principal. My husband feels like I’m overreacting. He thinks we shouldn’t make it harder for him to adjust to a new group of kids. If we don’t get this under control now, he will be “Andy” for the rest of his life! Help!
—Not Andy’s Mom
Dear Not Andy’s Mom,
Honestly, there isn’t much a teacher can do (and certainly nothing a principal can do) if peers are calling him “Andy” and your son isn’t correcting them. For every time that a teacher might hear someone call your son “Andy,” there are a hundred or more moments in a day when the teacher will not hear it, or will hear it but fail to register the problem because of more pressing issues on her mind.
I understand that to you it may seem ridiculous that your son’s teacher refuses to correct students when they refer to him as Andy, but I think she is in a tough spot. If your son isn’t correcting his classmates, but she is, that sends very mixed messages to her students. Also, if your son is introducing himself as Andy, now the message is even more muddied.
I can’t even envision how, exactly, that would go: “I know that Andrew doesn’t mind being called Andy, and I know that he introduces himself as Andy, but his mother wants him to be called Andrew, so please do what she wants.”
Your real problem is that your son either likes the name Andy, or doesn’t find it as offensive as you do. The truth is that your son’s friends, classmates, teammates, and many other people in this world will continue to call him Andy until he decides that he wants to be called Andrew.
Rest assured, that if this day comes, he’ll be able to slowly move friends and classmates into the Andrew camp. This happens all the time to the Eddies, Sammys, and Willys of the world who eventually decide they’re Edward, Samantha, and Will. But until then, no amount of teacher intervention is going to correct this problem.
—Mr. Dicks
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/10/hate-child-nickname-parenting-advice.html
We moved over the summer, and somehow he has become “Andy” in his new school! I’m not sure how it happened, but after participating in a recent classroom event, it’s clear everyone is calling him Andy (kids, teachers, other parents). It has even spilled over into Little League.
My son doesn’t care whether people call him Andrew or Andy. I spoke to him about correcting people when they call him the wrong name, and we’ve practiced what he should say, but he is not an assertive kid, and I doubt he is correcting people often.
I made an appointment with the teacher to discuss the situation. She apologized and said that she would call him Andrew and speak with the “specials” teachers to make sure that they call him Andrew as well. She said she would make one class announcement, but that otherwise she will not correct students for calling him Andy.
As you can imagine, this has been totally ineffective. All the kids are still calling him Andy. I made another appointment with the teacher, but she was not helpful. She said that Andrew never objects to being called Andy and sometimes even introduces himself as Andy (I don’t know whether or not this is true). To me, this is irrelevant. He is 7 years old, I am his mother, and I get to decide what people call him. She is not willing to correct the other students in the moment when they call him Andy. I would like to take this matter to the principal. My husband feels like I’m overreacting. He thinks we shouldn’t make it harder for him to adjust to a new group of kids. If we don’t get this under control now, he will be “Andy” for the rest of his life! Help!
—Not Andy’s Mom
Dear Not Andy’s Mom,
Honestly, there isn’t much a teacher can do (and certainly nothing a principal can do) if peers are calling him “Andy” and your son isn’t correcting them. For every time that a teacher might hear someone call your son “Andy,” there are a hundred or more moments in a day when the teacher will not hear it, or will hear it but fail to register the problem because of more pressing issues on her mind.
I understand that to you it may seem ridiculous that your son’s teacher refuses to correct students when they refer to him as Andy, but I think she is in a tough spot. If your son isn’t correcting his classmates, but she is, that sends very mixed messages to her students. Also, if your son is introducing himself as Andy, now the message is even more muddied.
I can’t even envision how, exactly, that would go: “I know that Andrew doesn’t mind being called Andy, and I know that he introduces himself as Andy, but his mother wants him to be called Andrew, so please do what she wants.”
Your real problem is that your son either likes the name Andy, or doesn’t find it as offensive as you do. The truth is that your son’s friends, classmates, teammates, and many other people in this world will continue to call him Andy until he decides that he wants to be called Andrew.
Rest assured, that if this day comes, he’ll be able to slowly move friends and classmates into the Andrew camp. This happens all the time to the Eddies, Sammys, and Willys of the world who eventually decide they’re Edward, Samantha, and Will. But until then, no amount of teacher intervention is going to correct this problem.
—Mr. Dicks
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/10/hate-child-nickname-parenting-advice.html
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That poor, poor kid. Not assertive? Not surprising, with Control Freak Mom trying to make sure that absolutely everything about his identity, self-presentation, and experience of the world has HER STAMP all over it. I sincerely hope that everyone has just blanked out her bullshit and that other kids aren't teasing him over his mom throwing a fit about his name.
She said that Andrew never objects to being called Andy and sometimes even introduces himself as Andy (I don’t know whether or not this is true). To me, this is irrelevant. He is 7 years old, I am his mother, and I get to decide what people call him.
You got your one (1) chance to decide on a name for him when he was born, LW, and that decision was always going to be subject to his review. He's not your fucking toy. He's a person.
ETA: It is a seriously failure of foresight to name a kid Andrew and expect them NOT to become an Andy later on. I mean, some become Drew instead, or some other nickname, but this is an entirely predictable chain of events and LW should have known that NICKNAMES HAPPEN and not picked a name she hated the short version of.
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Yes, this.
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I named one of my children expecting to use their fullname but not *hating* the obvious shortening. Within a few days we'd slipped into an alternative French diminutive used by my m-i-l, and that has mostly stuck.
And also, at five years old, said child was extremely clear about which version of their name they wanted to use, what is this nonsense about someone else getting to decide a thing?
Also also, different names at home and school are totally a thing. *I* didn't have that, but all three of my siblings did.
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My own parents never used "Edmund" because they hate "Ed" and (rightly) felt they'd never be able to eliminate it as a nickname.