agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear Prudence,

My husband’s mother passed after a short battle with cancer early in our courtship. We both miss her very much. His father remarried 10 years ago. Recently, we had a son, but my husband refuses to refer to his father’s wife as “Grandma.” As he says, “He already has two Grandmothers, just one of them isn’t here.” His father is “Grandpa” to his new wife’s grandchildren, and while I would like to respect my husband’s wishes, I think it is also not a slight to his mother’s memory and will eventually hurt his dad’s wife, whom I like. Any advice?

—Grandma Dilemma

Dear Grandma Dilemma,

Delicately explain your husband’s sentimental reasons for reserving “Grandma” for his late mother, and ask his stepmother if she’d like to choose a special name she would like to be called instead. Emphasis on “special,” not subpar! In a world full of Nannas and Glam-mas and Gigis and MeeMaws and assorted other titles that nod to cultural roots, the options are endless. If she doesn’t have a strong preference, it could be fun to sit down with a list like this one and go over it together. I cannot personally endorse “Insta-Gram” (listed under “cool grandma names”) or “Gram-Cracker” (which is for some reason filed under “sassy”), but there are 73 other choices that she might love. Also, your son may very well use his toddler creativity to call her something completely random but endearing, so be prepared for that.

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This letter hinges on two enormous problems, and the columnist doesn't address either of them.

1. We don't even know if there's a problem to fix. For all we know, LW's Step-MIL does not care at all what the kid calls her. LW has not made any attempt to verify this belief that because LW thinks they might find it hurtful, SMIL will feel the same way. Heck, for all we know SMIL would prefer that all the grandkids and step-grandkids call her by her first name and just hasn't figure out how to say that to people.

2. And if SMIL does find it hurtful then the proper person for her to address that matter to is her stepson, LW's husband. Not only is this not a problem, but it is absolutely positively 100% not LW's problem to fix. LW should not be delicately explaining anything to anybody, because that is not their job. LW's job is to let other people manage their feelings and their relationships.

3. I used gender neutral pronouns here, but I would really be shocked if LW is not a woman.

Edited 2024-07-27 23:37 (UTC)

Yeah, exactly. We called our grandparents spouses on both sides by their first names, as did all of our cousins, and pretty much everyone in the entire family for that matter. This was entirely expected and comfortable for all concerned, including them. I'm a bit baffled that LW sees this as a problem.

My guess is that spouse is setting rules for what LW can call the SMIL to the kid, including while the kid is pre-verbal. "Look, Sammie, Grandma's here! Say hi to Grandma! Grandma's on the phone, do you want to talk with Grandma? Look at this lovely present Grandma sent for you!" and so on. Circumlocutions like "Granddad's wife" aren't going to slot in cleanly. And lists will outline the disparate treatment -- "You have presents here from Grandpa and Grandma Smith, and also from Grandpa and Pam Jones!"

The weirder LW feels about it, the more that's going to come through to the kid.

I'm not feeling too charitable towards the spouse, though. There's no legal maximum on the number of grands a kid can have.

my spouse's stepbrother's wife did exactly this with my MIL, and it was actually incredibly funny to watch her children decide "...mom is wack" and just start using Grandma for my MIL.

I can see a potential problem brewing, if LW's son calls the FIL "Grandpa" but calls SMIL simply by her name; LW says His father is “Grandpa” to his new wife’s grandchildren.

Unless SMIL has the same name as LW's deceased MIL, I can't see why SMIL can't be called "Grandma (SMIL's Name)" to distinguish from "Grandma (MIL's name)." That's what we did with our kids' paternal step-grandmother and paternal grandmother who died when the kids were very young. I wonder if there is friction between LW's husband and SMIL that's not mentioned in the letter.

maybe check with the SMIL to see what she wants to be called first?

my niece had two grandmothers, and two great-grandmothers. somehow, the family found a way to differentiate - one was Nana, one Grandma, one Grannie and my mother Oma (German for grandmother). they don't all need to be called the same thing.

One of the women who I called Grandma was my biological grandmother. The other was my dad's foster sister, who was about forty when her mother took in Dad and three other kids. "Grandma" doesn't have to be limited to biological relatives.

My stepmother, who married my dad after my first two children were born but before they were talking much, suggested that my kids could call her Oma, as she had grandchildren in Germany who called her that and she was used to it, and she thought I probably wouldn't want them saying Grandma [my family name]. I thought it was extremely nice of her to think of that.

The husband is being super weird.

The LW didn't mention that he wants the kid to call her something else. It seems more like he doesn't want the kid to see her as a grandparent at all. The columnist brought up the trend of everyone having a unique grandparent nickname, but grandma is just a generic word, and without any mention of alternatives in the letter, it just seems to me like the husband has issues about acknowledging that his dad's wife is going to play the role of grandmother to his kid. The kid is never going to consider the husband's mother as grandma because they never met. Their grandparents are the people they will grow up interacting with and the husband needs to get over that.

Edited 2024-07-28 05:44 (UTC)

The kid is never going to consider the husband's mother as grandma because they never met.

Oh, I wouldn't say that. The niblings certainly consider my father to be one of their grandparents because, well, he is. The fact that he's dead doesn't mean he's gone - we talked about him when they were growing up, and told stories, and said things like "Granddaddy Bob would've known this" (or would not have known) and so on.

Absolutely. My Grandma Elaine and I did not intersect on this earth--she died three months before I was born--but she's been a storied presence throughout my life.

I am also in the crowd of people with multiple "Grandmas"--there's my late Grandma Elaine, there's my Grandma, all the great-grandmas (and I was born with four of them still living) were Grandma Lastname but one of them was Gran because she was so special to me she got a special grandma-name, and several of my great-aunts and -uncles had mothers who were still living and part of my life and happy to be Grandma Lastname. My fourth grade Sunday School teacher wanted the kids to call him Grandpa Bill instead of Mr. Nagy, and this was no problem because the entire church called him that, he was an utter delight. I also called my mom's best friend's mom Nanna, and one of the truest grandmothers I ever had was called Aunt Ellen and that was as special as any name could be.

On Friday my grandmother ran into a 3yo [and parents] in the elevator in her building who asked her:
3: Are you a grandma?
G: Yes I am!
3: What's your name?
G: My name is Grandma Lastname! What's your name?
3: Logan.
G: Hi, Logan, what are you up to today?
3: We're going to the park!
G: Oh, what's your favorite thing to do at the park?
3: I like the swings!
G: ME TOO
3: Okay havva good day Grandma Lastname!
G: You too, Logan!

At no point did the parents gasp that he could not call her that because he had other grandparents--and upon hearing the story I did not say, "He has to call you Mrs. Lastname because you're not HIS grandma, you're MY grandma." Kind, caring people are a boon in life, some of them are old and feel comfortable with a special name because of it.

It really depends on how much they're talked about! I had a grandfather who died when I was seven but had lost his mind to dementia by the time I was born, and while I knew he was my grandfather, I don't know if he ever got a title indicating as such. If he did I've forgotten it. (An extenuating factor, though, is that I later found out he was probably abusive to my father when he was growing up, so....)

Of course she is literally their grandmother, but I feel like the husband's objection is that he wants them to have the connection they would have had if she was alive, and that's not going to happen, since they are never going to interact with her. It feels like he needs to process his mother's death more and accept that some things are just not going to be how he imagined.

I almost never saw some of my five grandparents because they lived very far from us, but they were still my grandparents. A person doesn’t have to be physically around to be a presence in a kid’s life; I knew they existed, and more to the point, they were an important presence to me because they sent me cash on my birthday and Xmas. (A $20 bill mattered deeply to me as a little kid who rarely got my own cash. We didn’t have regular phone calls or letters or anything like that, but $40 a year ensured that they kept significant space in my mind.)

This person has been dead for over ten years before the kid was born, though. They are going to hear about her from their dad, sure, but I'm not sure how much of an emotional connection they are going to form to her, compared to the grandparents who are actually alive.

My father passed away, 4 years ago when my oldest nephew was about 2 1/2 and my oldest niece was 5 months old. There have been 4 more niblings born since then. They've all seen pictures of my dad and know that he's Grandpa; my mom's boyfriend of two years is just Dermot or Mr. Dermot.

I think the LW needs to respect her husband's wishes. It's fine that LW likes the stepmother and gets along with her, but it sounds like the LW also didn't get the chance to have a relationship with her husband's actual mother. If/when I have a kid, my mother's boyfriend isn't going to be anyone to them.

Well, I grew up calling my step grandmother by her first name since my grandparents had been divorced for years when I was born, and it never seemed weird or awkward to me. She doesn't have biological grandchildren either, but I don't think it bothered her. I think a lot of times adults project a lot of symbolism and baggage into the language and terminology used by children, but I think it's ultimately arbitrary and doesn't have any effect on the relationship under the name. Children are adaptable.

Now, if it does upset the step-grandmother to be called that, that's another matter, and the son should consider a compromise, which it isn't insane for the LW to at least suggest, something along the lines of "Have you thought about how she feels about it? I hope we aren't hurting her feelings. If you aren't sure, maybe you could just bring it up in case she wants to get something off her chest?"

Right, my parents are divorced and both remarried, so we had 4 different sets of grandparents with different agreed upon names, and that's just how it is from the kid's perspective? Our parents just told us what they wanted to be called and we did it. It means you get more presents at Christmas...

I suspect that LW’s husband has never adjusted to his dad’s current wife, considering she’s been around for a decade already and yet I’m feeling that “she’s not really part of the family, she’s just a new interloper” energy. It’s quite possible that the husband’s dad did one of those very common stunts where he remarried quickly because he didn’t like being alone, and LW’s husband is resenting her rather than his dad because that’s psychologically easier.

If that’s the case, yeah, I’m not surprised he doesn’t want her being given an honorific. And in that case he’s unlikely to be amenable to an alternative, because it isn’t about her having “Grandma” specifically, it’s about her having anything that denotes her as an honored member of the family who gets to have a special title.

Yeah, this is the energy I was getting. It feels like it's more about him not having processed his mother's death and his father's remarriage, and projecting that onto his kid, who does not have that baggage.

It doesn't necessarily mean that he never processed his mother's death. We don't know how far apart LW and husband live from husband's father, or how frequently they see each other, or what kind of relationship husband and FIL have.

My father passed away 4 years ago, and while I still miss him, I've definitely processed his death. My mother started seeing someone two years ago, but if/when I have a kid, her boyfriend won't be Grandpa. My mother only lives about 12 miles away from me, but my relationship with her is strained at best, and I only see or speak with her when necessary (which is the case for 3 of my 4 siblings also). I've met her boyfriend a couple of times but we've never actually had a conversation - why would I have a kid call someone Grandpa (or similar) when I don't have a relationship with him?

I think LW needs to defer to her husband on this one - his family, his choice.

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