Mother-In-Law Stubbornly Refuses To Call Her Grandkids By The Name Their Mother Gave Them

A mom took to the JustNoMIL subreddit to post about her mother-in-law.

It seems she has an issue with the names that the mom (and dad) gave their children.

The mom starts by saying that her mother-in-law is very religious and she is not, so that has already created a divide between the two.

But things got worse when the mom became pregnant for the first time five years ago.

Anyone who's had kids can attest to the fact that people giving unsolicited input on your child-to-be's name is infuriating.

This mother-in-law did that anyway by suggesting they name the girl Amazing Grace. Yes, like the church hymn.

The mom was disgusted:

"I would rather gargle broken glass and gasoline. I politely declined or changed the subject a few times."

But the mother-in-law wouldn't take no for an answer. She said:

"Y'all can name her whatever you want, but I'm gonna call he Mazie. Short for Amazing Grace."

The mom wondered, "who the F does that?"

The mother-in-law didn't stop with just the first child. They had a similar issue with their second daughter.

"Her dad chose her middle name. MIL only calls her by that or a country-fied version of it."

The story takes a much more tragic turn from there. The mom says that her husband passed away last July and now she is living at the in-laws' with her daughters.

"My partner and I have always hated the nickname, but when he was alive we only saw them a couple times a month, so it wasn't as annoying."

Redditors had some thoughts.

Commenters offer their own solutions to this situation:

‘You can call them by their names or they can call you “grandmother we never see”. Your choice.’ Or alternatively, every time she does it, get up, pack the kids up and leave without saying anything.

Another said she should make up some awful sounding name for the mother-in-law and only refer to her by it:

It's time to come up with a very colorful off the wall nickname for MIL. Let's say Hagatha, for example (you don't have to choose one so blatantly mean, but just for the sake of this post) and call her Hagatha every single time you see and address her. When she balks at this, say "What? You don't like me just making up my own name for you?"

Other folks on Reddit kept with the Bible theme and suggested giving the MIL a new name:

Since she finds that kind of thing is acceptable, you could return the favor and call her "Lilith" instead of her name. Every time, every sentence you speak. Until she's dead.

(Lilith is a biblical name...she was Adam's first wife, and she dumped him after getting freaky-deaky with a horny Archangel. From Wikipedia: "Lilith is often envisioned as a dangerous demon of the night, who is sexually wanton, and who steals babies in the darkness.")

Others shared their own stories on Reddit, with this talking about a grandmother being upset her kids didn't have Catholic names:

"My mom told me that her very old-school, Italian-born Catholic grandmother (my great-grandmother) was FURIOUS that my grandfather did not give my mom and her sister Catholic names... she simply referred to them as “the big one” and “the little one.” I could still see a twinge of pain and sadness when she relayed this anecdote, forty years later. PLEASE continue to stand up for your children."

Could have also called them Chip and Dale if they were boys, but that's just to lighten things a bit.

Another way to handle this comes in the form of having your kids do the dirty work. Teach them to call grandma by her first name and not some affectionate nickname:

Teach your kids to call her by her first name. She gets to pick what she calls your kids? Cool, you get to pick what your kids call her then. "Janice," or "old hag," or "that weird old lady that's in pictures with our dad but we don't see her or know her." Whichever works for ya.

Bottom line here is a mother-in-law can be terrible. They can have little respect for the bounds of your marriage, think they are entitled to whatever they please in your home, and can sometimes just generally be a thorn in your side -- no matter if your the husband or wife in the scenario.

But, it doesn't have to be so bad.

Sometimes, you need to just breathe and decide what is worth bringing up and what isn't.

The reason it is so tough to deal with is because they're family. They're loved. They are as important to your spouse as you and sometimes competition can rise.

It's not always bad, but it is something to be on the lookout for.