minoanmiss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
minoanmiss) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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.
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.