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agonyaunt2021-04-02 12:01 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2021-04-02 12:01 pm
Entry tags:
Care & Feeding: My Daughter’s Boyfriend Can’t Pronounce Her Name
So instead he just calls her 'Sara'
My 21-year-old daughter is a beautiful, smart, and funny half-Black half-white young lady. She also has a very unique name that I can’t share for obvious reasons, but it’s an ethnic name from my husband’s home country. It can be a difficult name to pronounce if you’ve never seen it before, but once you’ve heard it a few times, it simply rolls off the tongue. So here’s the problem. She broke up with her longtime boyfriend and started dating a new guy last month and she really likes him, but I overheard him call my daughter “Sara.” When I confronted my daughter about it, she said that he does it because her name is too difficult for him to pronounce, so he decided to give her a nickname that starts with “S” as her real name does. Just to be clear, her real name sounds nothing like Sara, it just starts with the same letter. She doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but I’m completely outraged by this. Am I wrong? If I’m not wrong, how can I get it through to her that it’s disrespectful? Her new boyfriend is white, and I’m worried this is some sort of fetishization thing.
—Say It’s Not Sara
Dear Say It’s Not Sara,
This one hits close to home for me because I also have a difficult-to-pronounce name from my dad’s home country. The big difference is that it would be a cold day in hell before I allowed someone to call me “Doug” because it made life easier for them.
Although I have my assumptions, I’m not going to comment on whether he’s dating your daughter because of some creepy fetish; but I will certainly offer my opinion about his character. Very few things in life are more personal to humans than our names, and if her boyfriend won’t exert a ridiculously minimal amount of effort to learn your daughter’s name, it’s obvious that he doesn’t respect her.
I think it’s time to calmly sit your daughter down for an honest and serious conversation about your concerns. I would ask your daughter: If he’s unwilling to learn her name, then what makes her think he’ll love her and emotionally support her? Would she ever consider making up a name for any of her friends? What would her friends say if they found out about her boyfriend’s behavior? It is Level 10 disrespectful for him to behave this way toward her.
I would gently but firmly urge her to get on board with the idea that unless he starts calling her by her name, the relationship can’t continue. And I don’t think it’s too much for you to show your support for your daughter by letting her know that if he’s going to call her Sara, this guy is not welcome in your home. Hopefully she’ll snap out of it (show her this column if you need to), but this absolutely needs to stop.
More importantly, there must be some sort of a self-esteem issue going on here if she’s allowing this to happen in the first place. Perhaps the breakup with her longtime boyfriend made her question her worthiness, and that could be the root cause of the problem. You used a lot of accolades to describe her in your letter. Remind her of how amazing she is and that she should never settle for less than the best. Pronouncing her name correctly should be a given for anyone who decides to be in a relationship with her.
Remember how I mentioned that our identities affect our lives?
but.
Absent any other indications, I don't see enough evidence that Boyfriend is only dating not-Sara due to racial fetishism, and the reason I point it out is that saying so to not-Sara may have the opposite effect from intended. Boyfriend may simply be being lazy, sexist, and racist while dating not-Sara for herself (as much as is possible under those conditions, which isn't very much, alas). Absolutely if there's any other evidence, bring it up, but when pointing out his flaws I think there's room to be careful to not add any that don't exist. And/or, to carefully investigate if there is more evidence (after all, it took the second time someone wanted me for racially fetishistic reasons for me to recognize the pattern).
The caveat takes more time to outline than the main response, though, which in my case here is: I tend to be pretty restrictive about when a parent should let themself interfere in a young adult's relationship, but I think this may be such a case. Certainly, not-Sara could use to be told, and I desperately hope she hears, that she doesn't have to be repackaged and even renamed in order to be lovable. And I would definitely recommend she call Whole Man Disposal Services.
Except that as I wrote this I suddenly wondered what not-Sara thinks of her own name. (For the record, I love mine.)
no subject
there are SO MANY words and names I struggle with due to a combination of
memory issues + auditory processing issues + trouble making certain mouth shapes[1]
It took me YEARS to get it right when I had two friends [both white] spelled Anna,
and one was pronounced ARRR - NA
and the other was pronounced ANN - A
& that was despite trying really really hard
And I am never going to be able to wrap my mouth around "dachshund" - after years of trying I have given up and started saying dash-hound.
[1] When I say that I have trouble making certain mouth shapes, context is that I regularly accidentally swallow my own saliva into my windpipe and have a coughing fit due to mouth-clumsiness whenever I am tired or distracted.
no subject
This is one of the reasons I like posting about these here. I had thought generally about phonemes and languages but not about specific people's abilities to pronounce various things.
Also the more I think about this the more I wonder what not-Sara thinks of her name and where "Sara" came from. Did she and Boyfriend pick it together? Or did he immediately roll his eyes at her name and say "that's weird, but I'd still date you. Let's call you something normal." I want to talk to not-Sara about this whole thing.
calls the Whole Man Disposal Service and has them wait around the corner while we see if they are needed
no subject
Yup. I could totally see LW concerns e.g. if not-Sara is up for this because she is worrying about her name being too much or something.
But on the other hand people get nicknames that aren't their names for sooooo many reasons. My real name is a pretty common one but during high school/university I answered to so many things that weren't my name because reasons (e.g. Jennifer - which was a common thing people called me instead of my name, a few other "mixed up with my name" names, a bunch of diminuitives that other people thought made sense, messaging board/IRC nicknames, and Gertrude - which is nothing like my name but which my English teacher decided to call me on the first day of class (named after the grammar character in our textbook, not Hamlet) which stuck around because I answered to it.
Re: Remember how I mentioned that our identities affect our lives?
Re: Remember how I mentioned that our identities affect our lives?
Yeah, my first reaction to this letter was: I was brought up to believe that making an effort to pronounce someone's proper name correctly is just basic respect. Especially if you're as close as an SO!
Except... I have now known several people (and read pieces by several more online) who point out that some people don't *want* you trying to do that, they would rather have the choice to just use a name that blends in, and save their hard-to-pronounce name for people who share the culture it's from. Especially in late teens/early twenties when people tend to experiment like that, it's possible that "Sara" *likes* him using a different name, or likes the idea of code-switching between two racial/cultural/national identities by choosing which name to use.
(There's all sorts of complicated stuff about *why* she might want that and so on, but it's not necessarily just about the boyfriend being lazy/entitled/racist. And Mom may not ever get the whole story. Also, I say all this as a person with the most whitebread, Anglo names imaginable, and literally nobody who is not related to me has ever pronounced my full name right on the first try. There are people I have known, and never felt deliberately disrespected by, for ten years, who still don't. I make the choice about who to correct and in what contexts on an ongoing daily basis. Americans being shitty at names isn't purely a racial thing, they're shitty at names in general.
...mind you, the only people who ever seem to feel bad about getting it wrong are bipoc. It's not *not* racialized. But in this case I suspect Boyfriend would be fucking up her name just as bad if she was white.)
Re: Remember how I mentioned that our identities affect our lives?
Re: Remember how I mentioned that our identities affect our lives?
Re: Remember how I mentioned that our identities affect our lives?
(This may possibly be a #VeryBritishProblem...)
no subject
On the other hand, marginalized people and fetishization and *everything*
So. Sigh.
no subject
It's her name, LW. Her name, her relationship, her life. You are being way too controlling of stuff that is NOT YOURS. Maybe she likes the name Sara (maybe she likes it better than the name you're so proud of giving her, and doesn't want to hurt your feelings by saying so), maybe she and her BF have some shit to work out, maybe they'll break up over this or other issues; regardless, none of this is your call, so butt out.
Also, am I reading this correctly? It seems like LW is white, married a Black man, and is now whitesplaining to her mixed-race daughter about fetishization and racism-based disrespect? Maybe... back off on that, LW, and listen to her about her own experiences rather than rushing to tell her how she should interpret them. (I mean, it's not explicit which parent is which race, but something about the fact that it's NOT LW's home country or ethnicity that's being disrespected, but LW is just Full of Outrage which Must Be Shared...)
ETA: the key to this whole letter is this line:
"She doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but I’m completely outraged by this."
Sure, you can be outraged by stuff your daughter's boyfriend does. But if she's not, you can't reset the rules of their relationship FOR her.
no subject
"She doesnt think its a big deal, but Im completely outraged by this."
Ohhhhhhhh. I missed that, in my first reading and my thoughts of myself and my own non-Western name at 21 years old. That changes my whole response. For some reason I had pictured not-Sara going to LW for help, but this entirely upends that idea.
rescinds former opinion LW, keep an eye on your daughter but butt out. Columnist: there's no reason to assume not-Sara's self esteem is lacking.
not-Sara: trust, but verify. Boyfriend: I have provisionally sent Whole Man Disposal Services away, but you'd better be a good egg.
no subject
And if LW is worried about their daughter accepting crappy behavior from boyfriends, which IS unfortunately a thing young women are heavily socialized to do, then I think a stance of "Remember you have a right to draw your boundaries wherever you want and defend them! I support you!" is way more likely to be helpful than "You're putting your boundaries in the wrong place! Listen to me, not your boyfriend!"
no subject
This is worth highlight and agree, though FWIW I have nothing else to add that isn't already in the comments. Just: I hated the name my parents originally gave me so much that it made me physically ill. My trans spouse has said that my reactions to that name were so intensely negative that it sounded like I had name dysphoria, like I reacted to it the same way he reacted to being called 'miss.' My parents relented and we picked a new name for me (edit to clarify: we did this when I was young, so I have not been called by Former Name in a long time except on paperwork see next sentence), but for dumb legal reasons I was 21 before it could be changed, meaning my significant other did see that name as my legal name and had to watch how I responded to it for a while ...
Said name is fine on other people, completely! But it is possible to just have such a visceral hatred for the name you were given, to feel completely "this is not me and is wrong" every time you hear it, and it doesn't seem likely? But maybe it is possible that the daughter feels this way about her name. And maybe she likes Sara.
Columnist should have at least considered the possibility that not-Sara likes being called that.
no subject
I started going by “Andi” at age 13, because I *loathe* people mispronouncing my name, and there’s really only one common way to say “Andi” (although people sometimes misspell it with a “y”.)
Since I had a really dysfunctional relationship with my abusive/controlling parents, choosing my own name was a major step in separating myself as an individual person.
This isn’t an issue of racist microaggressions, which are obviously a lot more serious, but it’s definitely possible (especially given the boundary issues I’m seeing from the LW) that “not-Sara” may be using “Sara” by preference, and doesn’t want to get into it with her parents.
no subject
After personally dealing with a foreign (in the US) name my entire life, as a white person, I was shocked to learn that some people view this issue as racial. I struggle to understand how the situation would be different were I of African or other non-European descent. Americans' linguistic limitations would be the same. But I'm certainly interested to hear others' perspective on this.
Back to the letter. If LW's daughter indicated she wanted her boyfriend to learn to pronounce her name, then he would owe it to her to try. But it appears she hasn't said that. LW says her daughter is fine with the nickname, so I fail to see why it's a problem that her boyfriend uses it. My wife uses a gently Americanized version of my first name, cannot pronounce my middle name at all, and 14 years into our marriage, it hasn't been a problem yet.
no subject
Racial microaggressions depend on context and audience, and it's an unfortunate reality that what's harmless in one context is part of a larger system in another. (Also there's a massive difference between a barista and a boyfriend, in terms of the amount of respect put into names.)
For some recent American context for why context matters here, and why mispronouncing a white person's name is different, and also for some social science research into the negative race-linked impacts of mispronouncing names:
David Perdue willfully mispronounces Kamala Harris' name at Trump rally - CNNPolitics
Are Blacks Names ‘Weird,’ or Are You Just Racist? (Don't be put off by the headline, please. The article is thoughtful and answers the exact question you're asking--it's not actually accusing people who don't know the answer to the question of racism.)
Yes, Pronouncing Kamala Harris' Name Correctly Is A Big Deal. Here's Why. | HuffPost
Understanding Name-Based Microaggressions | Psychology Today
Why getting a name right matters - BBC Worklife
Or, the funny take! Substitute Teacher - Key & Peele - YouTube
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no subject
A couple things jumped out at me. First, for all the talk about Kamala Harris' name, it actually is not at all difficult to pronounce. It's unfamiliar to a lot of people, so they'd have to hear it a couple times to get it right, but that's it. At least as I've heard it, the sounds are all part of normal English speech. (The people making a big deal out of it were just being racist dipshits, no question.) But not all names can learned so easily. Some can be genuinely difficult for English speakers to hear/say correctly. Even simple Dutch words contain diphthongs and other sounds my American friends cannot reproduce.
Second, these articles still use "Anglicize" and "whiten" as synonyms, and as a non-Anglican white person, that strikes me as awfully US/UK-centric. That's the core of my argument. I agree that name mispronunciation can feel minimizing—I have felt it myself—and I readily accept that this minimization intersects with other forms of racial and cultural minimization POCs experience. But I don't think name mispronunciation is inherently racial because non-Anglican white immigrants experience it too. (I will add the columnist didn't say this, exactly, but the jump to racial fetishism surprised me and made me recall seeing this discussion elsewhere.)
no subject
The question of whether or not an action is racist is not a question which can be settled so academically nor so globally, I think, especially when racism is defined by effects rather than intentions (whether or not people of color are disadvantaged and/or harmed, rather than what someone "meant").
I could say a lot more but I am very, very tired.
no subject
This is the key. Mom has every right to consider this a flag and keep an eye out for other flags, but it's up to daughter to decide if this is a problem.
On the one hand, many people misname me by lengthening my first name, and many people misspell my first name, even when replying to an email where my name is right in front of them. I hate those things. If an SO did either of them, they wouldn't stay an SO for long.
On the other hand, my not!spouse and I chose a mutual last name together, and we pronounce it slightly differently. I'd be very salty if either set of parents decided there was something disrespectful going on because of this.
no subject