Woman Kicks Out Mother-in-Law After She Picks New Name for Grandson That ‘Suits Him Better'

Yahoo

a day ago

A woman says her mother-in-law has taken to calling her child a different name because she thinks it "suits him better"
After repeatedly asking her not to, the woman finally told her mother-in-law to leave her home
Now, she wants to know if she was overreacting — but Reddit users don't seem to think soA woman says she's kicked her mother-in-law out of her house after she insisted on using the wrong name for her newborn child.
In a since-deleted post shared to Reddit, the 31-year-old woman writes that she and her husband recently had their first child — a boy they named Elijah.
"We put a lot of thought into his name, we loved the meaning, and it just felt right," she writes.
She notes that her mother-in-law "had no strong opinions about it at first. She didn't gush over it, but she also didn't object."
Or so the couple thought.
"The first time she met Elijah at the hospital, she looked at him and said, 'Oh little David you're so perfect,'" she recalls. "I thought I misheard her, so I ignored it. But then she said it again. I asked her, 'Who's David?' and she just smiled and said, 'Oh it just suits him better.' "
The woman was "too exhausted from labor to argue," but over the next few weeks, her mother-in-law continued to call the boy David, even in text messages.
"[She] kept calling him David, texting us things like 'How's my little David doing today?' or 'Give David a kiss for me!' I told her, firmly, that his name is Elijah. She laughed and said, 'Oh, I know! But I think he just feels like a David.' "
The woman writes that neither she nor her husband knows anyone named David. "It's not a family name. There's no sentimental reason behind it. It's just a completely random name she decided to call my child, despite us telling her not to."
At first, the couple tried to let it go, "hoping she'd stop if we ignored it."
"But it only got worse," she writes. "When we FaceTimed her, she'd coo at him saying 'Grandma loves you, David!' She even started knitting a baby blanket with the name David embroidered on it."
The "final straw" came when her mother-in-law joined them for a family dinner and kept referring to him as David in front of everyone else.
"My sister-in-law asked, 'Wait… why do you keep calling him David?' and MIL just laughed and said, 'Because that's his name to me.' "
"That's when I lost it. I said, 'No, his name is Elijah, and if you can't respect that, you don't need to be here,'" the woman writes. "She rolled her eyes and tried to wave me off, but I wasn't having it. I told her to leave. She looked shocked, but she left without much of a fight."
Now, the woman's husband is upset with her.
"He agrees that his mom was being weird and disrespectful, but he thinks kicking her out was 'too extreme' and that I should've just let it go," she explains. "MIL is now playing the victim, telling everyone that I'm 'keeping her grandson from her over a harmless nickname.' "
Some family members think the woman overreacted, while others agree that the mother-in-law's behavior "was bizarre."
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Commenters are less split, with many arguing that the mother-in-law was in the wrong for knowingly using the wrong name.
"Your feelings are valid. I also find it odd that your husband thinks you overreacted, but you literally just told her to use the correct name or to leave," one commenter wrote. "It sounds like she made her choice and now she's upset with you."
Another said the husband was the one in the wrong, suggesting the poster should give him a taste of his own medicine. "I think you should start calling him by another name to see how he likes it," they wrote.
Read the original article on People