To feel my sil has insulted my child

[BlueParrott]

Grrrrrr. I'm so angry. Last night we went to my future pil to celebrate our engagement. My son came along too. My fiancée was playing with my son and my son was trying to say dada. My future sil was there and she said my son shouldn't call her brother dad as he's obviously not his dad and he'll be confused when he grows up. For reference my son is mixed race and my fiancée is white so yes it is obvious he's not his dad but why say it?

My fiancée told her to shut up and his parents looked shocked. Anyway the night went on and all was fine. Aibu to feel she's insulted my child?

[RunWalkCrawlbutMove]

Why does it matter if he calls him Dad? He will know that he isn't the father but that doesn't mean he isn't dad.
He has another person to love and care for him. His own father doesn't give a shit. How is this anything but a great thing?

[QueenMortificado]

It seems your SIL is a judgmental bitch. She should join MN and all the pearl clutching moralistic cows on this thread!

"Moralistic cows" is a hideous expression, how rude

[RunWalkCrawlbutMove]

Finola - my dc2 used to run to the door whenever the postman knocked and say"are you my daddy?"
Every single time.
Dc1 put him up to it.
So embarrassing.

[BlueParrott]

My thoughts exactly run walk crawl

[KellyBoo800]

OP for what it's worth, my DBro has recently become 'daddy' to his girlfriends toddlers since he found out his girlfriend is pregnant. They are old enough to have learnt his name, but she now very much coaches them to call him daddy and corrects them when they call him by his name. Their relationship is much newer than yours. I am a bit uncomfortable with it but you know what? None of my fucking business so I would NEVER say anything to my brother or his girlfriend about it. It is their decision to make.

I don't think your SIL was insulting your child but she was being really rude, unnecessarily so.

[SheldonCRules]

I don't think she was rude either, why are you teaching him to call another man daddy when he isn't.

If this was my brother I'd have concerns about the situation. A woman only just having a baby with another man is far far too soon to be engaged.

[RunWalkCrawlbutMove]

Oh and I had a useless dad (not a bad man just a bad dad - he was an unsociable academic) and a stepfather (also academic but the most incredibly sociable person ever😊) who sadly died 12 years after my mum married. My stepfather was as much a dad to me as my father ever was. If not more of one.
It is about love and support. Not genetics.

[Giddyaunt18]

I don't think she was insulting your child.I would say it wasn't really the time or place to give her opinion. maybe if she had concerns she should talk to your DP about them. She might just be feeling overprotective of her brother bringing up someone else's child. I would get your DP to talk to her and tell her to mind her own.

[pictish]

Totally. My aunt's husband came on the scene when my cousin who is 50 now, was a baby...before she was one. There is no pretense that he is her bio father and there never was...but he is every inch her dad. Very much so. No one in the family has ever questioned them or it.

[Blu]

Sheldon, quite apart from not having RTFT, having thoughts about those things is one thing. That doesn't make it not rude to mouth off your opinion, without discussion, at a family gathering.

[BlueParrott]

Sheldon I've already said I'm not teaching him to call my fiancé dad it's just a word my son used last night out of the blue. I've never heard him use dada before that's why I was shocked and thought maybe he'd picked it up from play group but a lady on here said he was too young for that

[pictish]

Sheldon is posting lots of aggravating stuff atm. Just so you know.

[LuluJakey1]

My two year old Ds called 3 people in Sainsbury's 'Daddy' on Friday night and called DH 'Dave' - which is not his name or anything at all like his name

[Ellle]

Like OP said, children can pick up words like "dad" and "daddy" from watching other children using them with their fathers at playgroup or nursery.

This is how it happened with DS1, he learned it from other children at nursery. At home we speak a different language, so he was used to using a different word to refer to DH. But he then started to call him dad or daddy sometimes and we did not teach him to do that.

Also, as other people have mentioned, toddlers go through a phase where they think "daddy" and "mum" mean men and women in general. I remember when my nephew was a toddler we were at the bus stop waiting for the bus and near us there was a random couple kissing. He went running to the guy while he was kissing his girlfriend and shouted daddy! SIL apologised and explained he had the habit of calling all men "daddy".

[BoneyBackJefferson]

My first thoughts were

Is he the father?
How long have you been together?
And if he isn't the father, does the father have anything to do with or is likely to have anything to do with the child in future?

As the the answers are "engaged", *long enough to be engaged" and "no"
I would say let the child call him what he likes.

But someone did mention about, the families having to play along (paraphrased) with your partner being the babies dad. Although I can't see how it would come up in conversation, it is a valid sticking point if people don't want to lie.

[Friendinneed2016]

Surely you must talk to your son about your partner. For example give the ball to x. Or x is home! What do you use your partners name?

[golfbuggy]

There are plenty of babies who "look" to have a different ethnicity to one or both of their natural parents.

So your SIL is BU to say that is it "obvious" that your fiance is not your baby's dad.

[CherryChasingDotMuncher]

I really don't think 18 months is too young to copy others saying "dada"

[Anniegetyourgun]

I don't understand the judgmental comments here. OP has already explained this is an 18 month old child and that she has been with her current partner for at least a year. In my book a year is by no means too short a time to get engaged, especially if you already knew the person before becoming a couple. She implies the baby's biological father is not and has never been on the scene - there are a few reasons why that might be, most of which don't reflect badly on the woman at all (in the Western hemisphere, in the 21st century, at least). She's had up to nine months gestation followed by 18 months of the baby's life to be single, concentrate on new baby, start to date again, meet someone, get to know them and become engaged to them. It's not an unseemly rush IMO.

I totally agree with those who have commented that the child should have his origins explained age appropriately as early as possible, so he grows up comfortable with the idea that he has a biological father somewhere else as well as a daddy who is mummy's partner and who looks after him. It sounds like that is how they intend to play it. Good.

As for the SIL: bad case of foot in mouth syndrome I think, if she hasn't shown any signs of nastiness or incipient racism before. I still cringe at stuff I said 30 years ago which seemed like an OK thing to say until it popped out of my mouth and then everyone's faces went and I'd think "What? What?", and then wake up in the middle of the night replaying it in my head and going "Oh. My. God." Still do it every now and then at the age of, er, a lot older than your SIL, but not nearly so often, thank goodness.

[ohfourfoxache]

There are some bloody judgemental and downright nasty comments on this thread

Op- congratulations, getting engaged is so exciting and I'm really pleased for you. Your SIL was an idiot. But you know that.

Fwiw ds is 22 months. We were watching a programme about bears the other day whilst dh was at work. Ds jumped up, pointed at the screen and very excitedly shouted "daddy!"

No. Not daddy

[Anniegetyourgun]

Is your DP a fairly, er, hirsute gentleman, ohfour?

[TheCakes]

I don't see any harm in a child calling a stable father figure Daddy, if their own father isn't in that role.
My children call my husband by his name because they have a dad on the scene, but in the OP's circumstances I don't see the problem.
Having a sense of family and a strong male role model only be more beneficial to him in the long run. As long as he knows the truth about his parentage, which it sounds like he will, what's the harm?

[Jellybean83]

I don't think there is anything wrong with your DS calling DP dad, if you are in a stable relationship and are getting married then he will be your child's father figure, especially if bio dad isn't in the picture.

My mum met my dad when I was 5 months old, biological dad wasn't in the picture. I've always called him dad, he adopted me when I was 4 so he is my dad.

Your SIL was a bit rude, if you and your DP are serious enough to be engaged then you should maybe have the talk with your DP in regards to what he will be called and if he wants to be called dad.

[Olympiathequeen]

So all those adoptive parents out there can't let their children call them mum and dad?

She was an idiot.

[CaptainMarvelDanvers]

I don't think she is insulting your child, but she is being rude.