[name_f]My[/name_f] mom has told me that she would like her “grandmother name” to be Marmee, like the mother from [name_m]Little[/name_m] Women, I’m kind of uncomfortable with this since it’s so close to Mommy especially in my family’s accents and it bothers me a little that it is a “mom name” in the book and Marmee’s grandchildren don’t call her Marmee. So I have to explain that to my mom but she has made it clear that she wants this because my Grammie thought it was silly that my mom wanted Marmee to be her “mom name” and I don’t want to be the bad guy.
Any ideas on how to handle this?
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It might be uncomfortable to confront her but I would just say that even in the book Marmee does not mean grandmother so it doesn’t make sense for you to call her that. Plus, it will ultimately be the grandchild’s job to choose. No matter what you call her, if the child starts calling her something else, that’s the name that’s gonna stick.
You know what, I’m actually in a similar situation to you… [name_f]My[/name_f] mother in law wants to be called [name_f]Ama[/name_f], which is so close to [name_f]Mama[/name_f] especially for babies who, let’s be honest, struggle to pronounce all these different names to begin with anyway. I’m very aware that for a child just starting to speak, [name_f]Mama[/name_f] and [name_f]Ama[/name_f] are essentially the same thing. It is soooo tricky to know how to handle this though… I think what we’re going to do is add her name onto the end of it from the start so it’s never just [name_f]Ama[/name_f] alone. And make sure I’m Mummy, although I think babies struggle to say the “ee” sound to begin with… But oh well! Marmee is definitely worse though, and as it’s your mum and not your partner’s, I think it’s probably better for you to just tell her upfront that you don’t like it, as difficult as that is I think you’ve got a very valid point here!
This exactly. My oldest cousin on my mom’s side took to calling my grandfather, “Da.” That’s what he was to all eleven of his grandchildren until the day he died.
That said, I think it’s ok to express your concerns gently and politely to her. The rest isn’t entirely in your hands, I’m afraid, but hopefully she’ll be receptive.
Oh, we dealt with this. One of our child’s grandmothers wanted him to call her [name_f]Mama[/name_f]. Hecccck no! She whined and cried when we told her absolutely not. There are a ton of other names she could pick from or she could let the grandchild pick one more organically. Thankfully, the grandma in our situation landed on something different. [name_f]My[/name_f] son calls me [name_f]Mama[/name_f], sure enough, so I’m thankful we put our feet down on that one.
I would hope that she’d listen to reason. Your feelings are completely reasonable…if you didn’t want her to be called [name_f]Mimi[/name_f] because it starts with the same letter as Mommy, then I’d be scratching my head a bit, but your situation completely makes sense. Maybe she’d go for Grandmarmee? It is a mouthful but so much of the time little ones come up with their own word anyway. Good luck!!
Would Mamie be any better? Just an idea.