agonyaunt | (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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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.